How to Learn Things Faster & How to Have an Argument-Free Relationship - SYSK Choice

Summary

Podcast Summary: Something You Should Know Episode: How to Learn Things Faster & How to Have an Argument-Free Relationship
Host: Mike Carruthers
Release Date: July 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of "Something You Should Know," host Mike Carruthers delves into two critical aspects of everyday life: enhancing learning efficiency and fostering harmonious relationships free from unnecessary arguments. Through insightful conversations with experts Daniel Willingham and Linda Bloom, listeners gain valuable strategies to not only learn more effectively but also to maintain healthier interpersonal connections.

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Part 1: Mastering the Art of Learning Faster

Guest: Daniel Willingham
Expertise: Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
Book: Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make it Easy

Understanding the Learning Challenge

Mike opens the discussion by addressing the universal struggle of finding learning difficult. Daniel Willingham explains that the brain often engages in mental shortcuts that feel effective but are not the most efficient for long-term retention.

Daniel Willingham [04:43]: "What makes learning hard? Our brain kind of fools us by using processes that feel effective in the moment but aren't actually that effective long-term."

The Push-Up Analogy

To illustrate ineffective learning strategies, Daniel uses a push-up analogy. He compares "push-ups on your knees" (easy but less effective) to full push-ups (challenging but more beneficial).

Daniel Willingham [05:00]: "When we're trying to learn new things, frequently we end up doing the mental equivalent of push-ups on our knees."

Common Ineffective Strategies

One prevalent method is rote repetition, where individuals read information repeatedly without truly understanding or retaining it.

Daniel Willingham [06:41]: "Reading over something again and again boosts familiarity, but it doesn't engage the type of memory that allows you to use the information effectively."

Importance of Interest and Meaningfulness

Daniel emphasizes that interest in the subject matter significantly enhances learning. When learners find something fascinating, they engage more deeply, leading to better retention.

Daniel Willingham [09:13]: "Liking something is being interested in it, which prompts deeper thinking and organization of information, thereby improving memory."

The Impact of Anxiety on Learning

Anxiety can severely hamper the learning process by overloading the mind with negative thoughts, making it difficult to focus on the material.

Daniel Willingham [10:22]: "Anxiety can't be good for memory. It occupies mental space, leaving little room for effective learning."

Cramming vs. Distributed Learning

The debate between cramming and spaced study is addressed, with the conclusion that while cramming may be effective for short-term recall, distributed learning is superior for long-term retention.

Daniel Willingham [25:03]: "If you want to remember content beyond the test, then cramming is terrible. You're much better off distributing your study time over several days."

Key Takeaways

• Organize Information: Structured and meaningful information is easier to remember.
• Stay Interested: Engaging with material you find interesting enhances retention.
• Manage Anxiety: Reducing stress can improve learning efficiency.
• Spaced Learning Over Cramming: Distribute study sessions to bolster long-term memory.

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Part 2: Building Argument-Free Relationships

Guest: Linda Bloom
Expertise: Psychotherapist, Marriage Counselor
Book: An End to 101 Valuable Lessons for All Relationships

The Nature of Arguments

Linda distinguishes between productive discussions and destructive arguments, emphasizing that arguments often stem from attempts to coerce someone’s behavior or beliefs, which damages relationships.

Linda Bloom [31:04]: "An argument is different from having an impassioned discussion because you're trying to coerce somebody to think or behave differently."

Expressing Needs Without Confrontation

Effective communication involves expressing personal needs clearly and respectfully without resorting to blame or criticism.

Linda Bloom [35:30]: "It's a myth that if you love me, you'd read my mind and give me what I need. In great relationships, people are upfront about their needs."

Handling Habitual Behaviors

Linda provides strategies for addressing recurring issues, such as leaving clothes on the floor, by expressing feelings and desired changes without attacking the other person.

Linda Bloom [43:25]: "I would feel loved and respected if I didn't have to pick up after you so much. If you try to pick up more, it would strengthen our relationship."

Overcoming Conflict Phobia

Many people avoid necessary conflicts due to fear of confrontation, leading to bottling up emotions which can later explode into angry arguments.

Linda Bloom [37:19]: "If you're conflict phobic and have been avoiding expressing your needs, it can lead to toxic outbursts rooted in long-held frustrations."

The Importance of Persistence

Linda highlights that building and maintaining a great relationship requires continuous effort and persistence, likening it to a labor of love.

Linda Bloom [49:11]: "People settle for so much less than is available... it really takes a lot of grit, commitment, and persistence to grow a great relationship."

Techniques to Prevent Arguments

Instead of seeking to "win" in a disagreement, Linda suggests aiming for a "win-win" situation where both parties feel understood and respected.

Linda Bloom [38:42]: "Promote a successful interchange where both people get to win by having a deeper understanding of each other's perspectives."

Key Takeaways

• Clear Communication: Express needs and feelings without blaming.
• Avoiding Suppression: Don't bottle up emotions; address issues constructively.
• Persistence in Relationships: Continuous effort is essential for harmony.
• Win-Win Approach: Aim for mutual understanding rather than victory in conflicts.

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Additional Insights: Managing Anger Effectively

Mike shares a finding from Ohio State University researchers that challenges the conventional wisdom of counting to ten to manage anger. Instead, self-distancing techniques—mentally removing oneself from the situation—are more effective in preventing aggressive responses.

Mike Carruthers [51:23]: "Researchers say the best way to keep your anger in check is to try some self-distancing, like watching the situation from the point of view of a fly on the wall."

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Conclusion

This episode of "Something You Should Know" offers valuable lessons on both accelerating the learning process and nurturing healthier relationships. By embracing organized and meaningful learning strategies, managing anxiety, expressing needs clearly, and approaching conflicts with a collaborative mindset, listeners are empowered to enhance both their personal growth and interpersonal connections.

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Notable Quotes

• Daniel Willingham [05:00]: "When we're trying to learn new things, frequently we end up doing the mental equivalent of push-ups on our knees."

• Linda Bloom [31:04]: "An argument is different from having an impassioned discussion because you're trying to coerce somebody to think or behave differently."

• Linda Bloom [35:30]: "It's a myth that if you love me, you'd read my mind and give me what I need."

• Mike Carruthers [51:23]: "Researchers say the best way to keep your anger in check is to try some self-distancing."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the essence of the episode, providing actionable insights and expert advice for listeners seeking to improve their learning habits and relationship dynamics.

Transcript

[Mike Carruthers]

Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[Daniel Willingham]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.

[Mike Carruthers]

And breathe.

[Daniel Willingham]

Oh sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.

[Linda Bloom]

Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.

[Mike Carruthers]

Today on something you should know Just how hot does your car's dashboard get on a hot, sunny day? Then the science of how we learn. For instance, is cramming for an exam better than studying a little over several days?

[Charlie Bloom]

If you do not care about remembering this content after the exam, you're actually better off cramming. That said, if you want to remember content beyond the test, then cramming is terrible.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, when you're angry, is it really good advice to count to 10 to calm down? And how to stop arguing in relationships by asking for what you want up front.

[Linda Bloom]

It is a myth that if you love me, you'd read my mind and you'd give me what I need to feel loved and I wouldn't have to ask you. And I think that in every great relationship, people are really upfront about what their needs are and it takes courage.

[Mike Carruthers]

All this today on Something you should know.

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[Charlie Bloom]

Something you should know Fascinating intel, the world's top experts and practical advice you can use in your life today.

[Mike Carruthers]

Something you Should Know with Mike Carruthers hi, welcome to Something you should Know. This episode is being recorded and published in the middle of summer, and many parts of the world are experiencing heat waves. And when the weather is hot outside, other things heat up as well. So some heat up a lot. And here are a few things that can really burn you in the summer if you're not careful. Blacktop A parking lot or a street that is black can get as hot as 140 degrees during extreme temperatures. To put that in perspective, humans begin to feel pain at 111 degrees. At 118 degrees, you can experience first degree burns.

[Linda Bloom]

So?

[Mike Carruthers]

So if blacktop is 140 degrees, your feet and your pet's feet can get seriously burned. Patio furniture. If your patio furniture is sitting in direct sun and you sit down on it, it can be between 104 and 136 degrees in the sun. Your car's interior. According to a 2018 study, the internal temperature of a car parked in the sun can reach 117 degrees in just one hour, making it deadly for anybody sitting in that car without air conditioning and the steering wheel. The surface temperature of a steering wheel in One study reached 127 degrees in a car that was parked in the sun for one hour on a 100 degree day. The dashboard averaged 157 degrees and the seats 123 degrees. And that is something you should know as you no doubt learn from a very early age. Learning something new and learning something well can be hard. What makes it hard? Is it the process we use to learn? Are some things just hard to grasp? Maybe learning new things is supposed to be hard, but some people learn things faster than other people. Is there a right way to learn something? Can you make learning easier? Well, that's what Daniel Willingham is here to discuss. Daniel is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. He's the author of several books. One is called Outsmart your why learning is Hard and How you can make it easy. Hi Daniel, welcome. Welcome back to something you should know.

[Charlie Bloom]

Thanks so much. I'm delighted to be here.

[Mike Carruthers]

So this probably seems like a self evident question, but the learning process, I think most people experience it as difficult. Learning something new is difficult. Why is it difficult?

[Charlie Bloom]

Yeah, the thing that's really tricky about learning is that our brain kind of fools us. We naturally go for sort of mental processes that feel in the moment like they're working and also are not all that difficult to use, which sounds like pretty good poker. It sounds like a good strategy. But these frequently end up being processes that are okay. They're not completely useless, but they're not all that effective either. Let me give you the analogy that I like to use. Suppose that you've got a friend who is trying to train athletically and they want to be able to do a lot of push ups. So you go watch them train one day and you come on them and they're doing push ups on their knees and you say wait, if you want to do be able to do a lot of push ups, like shouldn't you be practicing regular push ups? And in fact, shouldn't you be practicing really hard push ups like the ones where you launch yourself off the floor and clap? And your friend says, yeah, you know, a couple of people told me that and I tried it, but I can hardly do any of those. And look, when I do them on my knees, I can do them really fast. And I, you know, it's easy too. I can do lots of them. So when we're trying to learn new things, frequently we end up doing the mental equivalent of pushups on our knees. We do things that feel in the moment like they're really effective and have the added bonus of not feeling that difficult to do. And again, it's not completely useless to do push ups on your knees, but in the long run, it's not the most efficient way for you to practice.

[Mike Carruthers]

And so give me examples of push up on your knees for learning.

[Charlie Bloom]

I think one of the most common is when people are trying to commit something to memory, they'll read it again and again. This is very common in students, but adults do this as well. And reading over something is not very effective. The reason it's not very effective is there's a difference between something being easy to recognize, something feeling familiar, and the type of knowing that allows you to actually use the information, talk about it. So let me elaborate on that just a little bit. Psychologists use the term familiarity very much the way it's used in everyday conversation. When we say somebody looks familiar who we run into on the street, we mean, I know that I've encountered them before, but I don't have any more information about them. So familiarity, that judgment is made very, very quickly by the brain. And determining that you have even more information about the person might take longer. Right? So that sounds more complicated than it really is. We've all had this experience. You see someone on the street and you say like, oh gosh, I know, I know that person. Now let me think, how do I know them? And you start saying, do I know them from work? Do I frequently see them at a store I go to? So essentially you're sort of giving your trying generate memory cues for yourself to see whether you can get more information. And sometimes that works. So notice that this feeling of familiarity comes very, very quickly. And then slowly you can coax more information out of memory. So we're used to the idea that when something is highly familiar, probably you're going to be able to get more information about it. But that doesn't always happen. And when you read over Something again and again. What you're doing is definitely boosting familiarity, but you may not be doing the type of memory. In fact, you're probably not doing the type of mental exercise that's really good for this other type of memory where you have more information. Besides, I know I've seen this before.

[Mike Carruthers]

So my experience is that learning is a lot easier if you like what you're learning versus learning, particularly in school, some subject that you just don't like. I mean, it's night and day.

[Charlie Bloom]

It seems liking something is being interested in something is prompting you to think about it more deeply. And it's the meaningfulness that's leading to the good memory. So, for example, we've also all had the experience of someone asking you to watch a documentary about making guitars or about type fonts or something that just, you're just like, I have no interest in this at all. But your friend kind of forces you into it and you find yourself completely fascinated. And when that happens, you are definitely going to remember it more closely. And that's because you, you are paying attention. You're thinking about meaning. The information is sort of organized and you're connecting it to other things that you already know. That kind of thing is really good for memory.

[Mike Carruthers]

What about, you know, when you're learning something and you're having trouble with it, then you start to worry about the having trouble and it makes the learning harder because you're freaking out. You're getting all worked up and anxious about the fact that you're not learning this, right?

[Charlie Bloom]

Absolutely. I mean, I think there, I think, Mike, there are actually two ways that this can happen. You're feeling anxious, as you said, freaking out. And we know anxiety can't be good for memory. One of the things that anxiety is going to do is you can't really think very carefully about what it is you're trying to learn because you're sort of in mental overload thinking about how terribly this is going and the fact that, you know, maybe it's math, for example. You know, I never able to do math and this is going to be terrible and I'm going to fail this course and then I won't be able to get my degree. You know, you have these cascading thoughts associated with anxiety and there's just no space for the math because you're just completely occupied with, with the, with those anxious thoughts. The second thing that can happen is you become obsessed with your self image. You're thinking about yourself as a learner and the way you interpret your Experience. So if I think of myself as someone who's usually pretty successful in suppose I'm, you know, at the office and I'm trying, there's some new computer system we're using and I'm told we're all have to use this, can't use the old one anymore. You have to learn this new one. And I think of myself as someone who's usually pretty good with tech things. Then when things go wrong and I make a few mistakes with this new technology, I'm not very bothered by it. I'm going to persist. I'm going to think like, well, you know, I have a history of success with these sorts of problems. So you know, if I hang in there, I'll get the hang of it. I'll figure it out. In contrast, if I think of myself as someone who's not very good with technology, then I interpret setbacks very differently. Then I think, yep, see here, here we go again. This is what always happens to me when there's some technology thing that I'm supposed to learn. I just can't do it. And then I'm very quick to want to give up and try and find some other way to deal with this problem besides overcoming it and learning it.

[Mike Carruthers]

So it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe you're not good at learning technology, you're not going to learn technology very well because you believe you can.

[Charlie Bloom]

I think that's right, yeah. Persistence in particular, persistence in the face of setback is I think a really.

[Mike Carruthers]

Big part of this in all kinds of learning. Right. I mean it's hard. When it's hard, the tendency is to want to give up, which is the opposite of what you probably should be doing.

[Charlie Bloom]

Anything that you want to learn is probably going to have some aspect of challenge to it. There's things are going to go wrong and you just have to be ready for it and tell yourself that you're going to stick with it nevertheless and keep going.

[Mike Carruthers]

We're talking about the learning process. My guest is Daniel Willingham. He's a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and author of the book Outsmart yout Brain, why learning is hard and how you can make it easy. You know, it's interesting, if you own or run a business, you're just sort of expected to know how to hire people. Well, sorry, I've been in that position. Maybe you have too. Hiring is a lot harder than it looks and the results are too high stakes when it comes to hiring. Indeed is all you need with indeed you don't have to struggle to get your job post seen on other job sites. Indeed's sponsor jobs help you stand out so you can hire fast. With sponsored Jobs, your post jumps right to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you reach the right people faster. Look, if you feel real confident, like you can hire someone all on your own and nail it, great. But it's so much better to have Indeed guide you through the process. With Indeed sponsored jobs, there are no monthly subscriptions, no long term contracts. You just pay for results. Millions of businesses use Indeed. In fact, in the minute I've been Talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed Data worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com something just go to Indeed.com something right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com something terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Have you ever had that experience? Well, everyone's had this experience. You buy some clothes online, they get delivered, you open it up and then there's that wave of disappointment. The quality's poor or it doesn't fit, or the fabric's not what you thought. It's such a letdown. Well, that has never happened. When I or my wife order clothes from Quince, Quince has the kind of stuff you'll actually wear on repeat, like breathable flow knit polos, crisp cotton shirts, and comfortable, lightweight pants that somehow work for every occasion. And the best part, everything with Quints is half the cost of similar brands. You see, by working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen who Quint's gives you luxury clothes without the markups. Now, since I started buying clothes from Quince, I really I haven't bought clothes from anywhere else. And each time the clothes arrive, I'm always delighted and never disappointed. And you know something weird? When I tell people about how great Quince is and how I love buying clothes from them, I often hear back, oh, Quince. Yeah, I shop there. I love them. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quince.comsysk for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quinc.comsysk to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comsysk so Daniel, what do you say to people? And everybody says this when they're in school is, you know, I'll never use this again. And like when I try to help my son with his homework, this is stuff I probably learned, but I don't remember it anymore. So what was the point other than to, you know, get through school? But we seem to learn a lot of things we really don't need. But there must, there. So there must be another reason.

[Charlie Bloom]

Yeah, I think there are a few reasons. The first is that more of this sticks with you than you probably realize. So one thing that might stick with you is very general approaches to problems. So in mathematics, for example, you may not remember how to solve particular types of equations, but you may, there may be very high level ways of thinking about problems, constructing problems. This is a theory that psychologists have worked with and there's, there's been some. A lot of psychologists think this is probably right because you do see benefits, broadly speaking, of education. People who have been to school longer are sort of more resourceful when they're trying to solve completely new problems. And so this is one theory is that you get these, you learn these very broad problem solving strategies while you're in school. So that's one reason. A second reason that you may remember more than you realize is that there's a particular type of memory measure called savings in relearning. And what this means is you may not really remember when you're trying to help your son, you're confronted with a problem. But if it happened that you needed to actually learn this content now, it suddenly became relevant in your work and you tried to teach it to yourself, you would be faster in mastering it now than if you hadn't learned it in school. I actually experienced this personally. I took French when I was in high school and by the time I graduated, I was fairly competent in, in conversational French. Competent enough that I didn't have to take it in college. I tested out of it in college and really had no opportunity to speak French again. And then I found myself going to Paris about 15 years after I had spoken any French at all. And I absolutely did not remember my French. So I thought, this is going to be terrible. But plunged into an environment where French was being spoken all the time and trying to relearn it. I think after about 10 days I was pretty close to where I had been in high school. I'd had this very, very rapid relearning of my French. So in other words, it was kind of. The French was in there, it was sort of in my data bank, but just hard to access and then rapidly relearned. So that's a couple of ways of thinking about the idea that content may be in there, even if you feel like you've forgotten everything. And then the final thing, I'll just mention this briefly is that if we decide, oh, there's no reason to learn this because you're never going to use it. Most of the time when students are saying that, or even parents, we're deciding at a pretty young age that this is, this is something you're never going to need. And therefore there are certain lines of work that may be closed off to you. And that, that makes me anxious thinking about, you know, someone who's 15 and saying, well, you know, there's no, you don't need algebra, you're never going to use it because that may really hamper their ability to take more advanced mathematics and then close them off to a lot of careers.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, maybe it was you, because we've talked before and if it wasn't you, it was somebody else that said something that made me feel better. And that is that like when people like me in school think math is hard, the other side of that equation is that it's hard for me, but it's easy for other people. And that the fact is that math is hard for everyone. It's just that the math geeks enjoy that hardness, whereas I don't.

[Charlie Bloom]

I hope I said that because that, that's a lovely way of putting it. And I, and I think that's right. It is, you know, it is hard for almost everybody. There are people who just sort of do seem to take to it, like, like a duck takes to walker water. But not, but not many, most things that we want to master do take work. And I mean, and this is one of the things I'm emphasizing when I'm talking to my students, when I'm talking to, talking to my children. You know, it goes back to what I was saying earlier about the push ups. It's like, yeah, I mean, doing this well is hard. You should expect it to be hard. It's not going to be fun in the sense that going to a party is fun, but, but there is satisfaction that comes with learning something and feeling like, yeah, that was really challenging for me, but I'm happy to have mastered it and I feel proud that I've done it.

[Mike Carruthers]

Obviously every topic, every subject is different, but is there a general approach to learning that seems to work, that if you want to learn something, here's how you start. Here are steps 1, 2 and 3. Or is everybody in every subject too different?

[Charlie Bloom]

I think there are general principles you can draw that are pretty universal. The first one is that it's much, much easier to learn things that are organized than things that are not organized. And this relates to something I mentioned earlier, which is that memory really loves meaning. Things that are organized are meaningful. I'll mention briefly sort of a classic experiment on organization. If I. If. If that's all right. In this experiment, subjects came in and they were handed a tree diagram. And the diagram described the. The pinnacle of the diagram said minerals. And then branching off of that below, to the left and right were metals and stones. And then branching off metals were different types of metals and then likewise stones. So there was an organization to it. And the subjects were told, listen, you. Where we want you to memorize these words. You see, they're in this tree diagram. Don't worry about that. We're not going to ask you to reproduce the tree diagram. We just want you to memorize the words. Other people were given exactly the same instructions, but the words were randomized. The tree diagram didn't make any sense. The, you know, the. The broadest category was not at the pinnacle. And then everybody got. I think it was 10 minutes to try and commit things to memory. And then there was a delay. And then everyone just tried to list the words. And as promised, the organization was not part of the test. But the organization made a huge difference to how many words people remembered. It was like 65% versus 19% memory of the words. And it shows how enormously important organizing things, making them meaningful is going to be. So that's probably. There are others, but I think that's probably the most important principle you can point to.

[Mike Carruthers]

One thing you hear students particularly talk about this is when you're trying to learn something. When you're studying for a test, which means you're trying to learn something, is it better to cram the night before, or is it better to study for an hour one night and then the next night and the next night leading up to the test, and there's arguments on both sides. What do you say, students?

[Charlie Bloom]

Cram and cramming does, from a certain perspective, work. Suppose you're going to study five hours for an exam. Are you better off studying all of those five hours the night before the exam? In other words, cramming? Or are you better off studying one hour for each of the five nights before the exam? The answer is if you do not care about remembering this content after the exam, you're actually better off cramming, you're certainly no worse off and you're probably a little bit better off. So this is very unfortunate for teachers like me because it leads to students perception that cramming is really effective and they're not completely wrong. That said, if you want to remember content beyond the test, then cramming is terrible because your memory really will nosedive right after the test and there's lots of experimental evidence that this really happens. You're much, much better off if you're trying to remember for the long to distribute your time several days before the test.

[Mike Carruthers]

And of course, students tend to be interested in just the test, which is why cramming is so popular. Well, I find this really helpful in understanding how we learn things, how to make things easier to learn, and the whole learning process. Daniel Willingham has been my guest. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. The name of his book is Outsmart yout why Learning is Hard and how you can make it easy. And you'll find a link to that book in the show Notes thank you for being here.

[Charlie Bloom]

Dan oh awesome.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Linda Bloom]

I'm delighted to be with you, Mike. Thanks for inviting me.

[Mike Carruthers]

Sure. So what makes an argument an argument, and why is it so bad?

[Linda Bloom]

Well, an argument is different from having a impassioned discussion because when you go over that very crucial line to trying to coerce somebody to think differently about the subject or to behave differently, you've already grabbed some ground and it's really not respectful. I'm all about people being honest and forthcoming and having their opinions and their attitudes and their viewpoints and even with intensity and and determination about the way they express themselves. But to be cognizant of where that line is, where it goes over to being coercive of the other person, because that's where the Damage to the relationship takes place. So, yes, people need to be honest and open and forthcoming with each other. But be careful not to be a bully about trying to put your views on others.

[Mike Carruthers]

So where's that line?

[Linda Bloom]

Well, everybody has to be careful to see because it's different for different people. It's a felt sense. You watch their body language, you watch their facial expression, you watch if they tense up. And if you're treading a little too close, then you need to back off and modulate your tone and be a little bit more congenial about the way you're expressing yourself.

[Mike Carruthers]

So very often in arguments and conversations where there's conflict, people feel the need to get it off their chest. I just need you to hear what I have to say. What I, you know, is that a good thing to vent your feelings or is that best not done?

[Linda Bloom]

No, I think it's important for people to express themselves. And I think there's a lot of people who are conflict phobic who sit on their opinions, on their feelings, on their needs, and they are not forthcoming nearly enough. I call it going on the record. And I think it's really important with all the people who we want to have a close and trusting rapport, to have an agreement with them that if we have strong feelings about something, that we have agreement in place that we can express it. I think that's what great relationships are made of.

[Mike Carruthers]

So put a real life example to that advice. What would it look like if, say, Bob and Betty are having a discussion?

[Linda Bloom]

Okay, so Betty wants more cuddling and she wants more eye contact and to feel safe and secure in the relationship with Bob, she wants to feel loved and she wants to feel loved in the way that is soul nourishing to her. Bob might think that because he's got a good stable job and he brings a lot of money home and, you know, he helps with the kids and the housework, that that's enough. But Betty, she may need to hear, I love you, Betty. You're beautiful, Betty. Why don't we just cuddle for a little while? And when Betty doesn't get that need met, she's going to eventually be irritable and not be a happy camper. With Bob, it's his enlightened self interest that he asks Betty, are your needs getting met? Are you feeling the love that I feel in my heart for you? And when Betty says, I really need more kisses, I want you to kiss me good night every night. That would be a clear example of Betty being courageous to ask what she wants being vulnerable and expressing a deep need that she has to feel safe and secure in Bob's love. Because without her feedback, Bob doesn't know. He may be going along blissfully thinking that she's as happy as he is in the relationship and she may be withering on the vine.

[Mike Carruthers]

And yet so many people think that if you have to say, if you have to ask for love, then there's something wrong, that the other person should just know, it should just happen, it should just be. And if I have to ask you to cuddle me, well then like, it's like the magic's gone.

[Linda Bloom]

Uh huh. Well, it's a romantic myth and you don't have to be in your teens or your early 20s to go @ effect of the romantic myths. And you know, it is a myth that if you love me, you'd read my mind and you'd give me what I need to feel loved and I wouldn't have to ask you. And I actually suffered in my 20s with this myth running me and had no idea that it was my own fear of getting vulnerable and asking. And I think that in every great relationship, people are really upfront about what their needs are. And if you ask, you may get refused, you may get rejected. And it takes courage to tell ourselves the truth and then to speak openly with the people in our life about what it is that really composes a satisfying relationship for us. And it's so individual. You know, some people don't need that many words of affirmation, some people don't need that many acts of service, some people don't need that much touch. But it's very individual and people need to know themselves well enough to know what it is that they need and then be brave enough to stick it out there and ask.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I want to go back and talk about this idea of stuffing things because I think here's what happens a lot of the time that people don't say anything because you want to avoid the argument. You wrote a book about avoiding the arguments. So I'm doing the right thing. I'm letting it go, I'm letting it pass. I'm not going to say anything. This is avoiding an argument and that's a good thing. But then later when there's 15 things stuffed in there, it all blows up.

[Linda Bloom]

And you're making a very important distinction here. If you can really let it go, great. We call that clearing. If you can clear it internally, it's a great gift to the people in your life that you're not holding on to it. But if you're conflict phobic and you're just afraid to bring it up because you're afraid of having backlash, you're afraid of being accused of being a whiner, complainer, do you know that's not really letting go, that's stuffing. And it's up to each of us to know whether we're conflict phobic and whether we think conflict is dangerous or whether we can modify our belief and see the that healthy conflict, healthy interaction, healthy debates and discussion are really useful. And always try, try to let go, try to clear it. And if you can't, then you got to speak up and bring it up.

[Mike Carruthers]

You say that you shouldn't pick your battles, but that's been a pretty common advice, to pick your battles. Not everything is worth a discussion, which is kind of what you're talking about. Some things you can let go, but as you're saying, but only if you can really let it go.

[Linda Bloom]

Only if you can really let it go. And some things are more trivial than others and it's very important to prioritize what the most important issues are. We can't deal with every little thing. And that's where the pick your battles guideline comes from. But if you have a mentality of the discussion being a battle, that's going to predispose you to a win lose orientation rather than a win win orientation. So we want to promote having a successful interchange where both people get to win by having a deeper understanding, different than agreement, a deeper understanding of each other's point of view, of each other's needs, of each other's feelings. And that is a win win situation because they feel connected when they feel understood.

[Mike Carruthers]

What if, though, the discussion is about something that is really, you know, you believe this or you did this and you know that there's a real difference of opinion, this was right or this was wrong, that it is a conflict. It's a real conflict. And it seems so easy to turn that into a fight.

[Linda Bloom]

Yes. And every couple, even the happiest couples, have irreconcilable differences. And the research is so clear about this. When they interview couples, when they first fall in love, they first meet, they first decide if they're going to get married or move in together. 40, 50 years and more later, they still have those same differences, they don't homogenize. And some things we just have to make room for. And Gottman is a researcher that I really respect and he talks about the 5 to 1 ratio. As long as there are five parts of your relationship that are smoking good, you can have this one part that doesn't really work. And couples have to have some areas where they just agree to disagree. But it's important not to have too many of those areas. It's important to try to work out the differences in as many areas as you can. And it's important not to be too righteous and opinionated. The way I see it is the way it is to have a little bit more flexibility, a little bit more open mindedness, and that there are a whole lot of ways of viewing the world and what relationships are made of and what we really need to thrive.

[Mike Carruthers]

And so what happens, do you think, from all the work you've done, why does this so easily go wrong? What typically goes wrong? What happens that this is such a problem?

[Linda Bloom]

Well, I think that there's very strong influence and a lot of it's unconscious of the loyalty ties to our family of origin. So people tend to play out the way their folks handled differences, even if it wasn't very skillfully done. And the loyalty to the family of origin is still running them. They tend to do it the way their family modeled for them when they were imprinted as young children. And if we don't stop to evaluate whether the things we learn from our families are really working for us or working against our own best interests, we're in trouble. Because a lot of families didn't learn. I'm not blaming our parents. Our parents did the very best they could. They modeled for us and taught us the best that they knew, but they didn't learn from their families. So I sometimes tell the counseling clients I'm working with that you have to be guilty of the sin of outdoing our family, that we need to learn more and better over and above what they taught us.

[Mike Carruthers]

So let's talk about something that happens, I think a lot in conflict. And that's when you're talking about something, you have a complaint about the other person. They leave their socks on the floor, they don't put their dishes in the dishwasher. Complaints, things you do that really bother me. And so it's hard not. It's easy for that to turn into an argument because it's, you're doing something I don't like.

[Linda Bloom]

People fear complaints. And I think that complaints have a bad reputation because they get confused with criticism. And man, it's a thin line to go over the line from complaint to criticism. I value complaints because when we're identifying what's not working for us, that's the indicator and the entry point to what we are committed to and what we really need. So at first you may have to speak your complaints out loud to get comfortable with them and create agreement with another person that your complaints are valuable because you want the relationship to be better. But when you get skilled at this, you can do identifying the complaint internally and not have to speak it to the other person so you don't have to hurt and wound them and invite blowback. But when we stop with the complaint, that's only the beginning. We need to keep going because the complaint is the indicator of what would work for me better is if we go back to Betty and Bob. Betty would say when she's just in complaining mode, Bob, you don't kiss me and hug me and cuddle me enough. And Bob's going to feel kind of depressed and discouraged. He thinks he's a good husband. And here is Betty with the complaint. But if Betty admits to herself that she needs more affection shown from Bob, she will take the complaint to him in such a respectful way and she will give what she wants to receive. She'll kiss on him more, she'll hug on him more because she'll have learned from the complaint of what's not working and gone directly to resolution.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, what about something that's more like you leave your clothes on the floor and that drives me crazy. And, and then the other person says, well that's just what I do. It's really hard for me not to do that. So suck it up and learn to live with it because you're going to be disappointed if you think I'm gonna clean my clothes up because that's just not what I do.

[Linda Bloom]

Uh huh. If it's absolute, I think that that's disrespectful not to show caring of the person who is daring to get vulnerable and tell you what's unhappy. But I heard in the little scenario that there was a little bit of room. Would you be willing to at least try your best? Because I would feel loved, respected and cared for if I didn't have to pick up after you so much. I'll pick after pick up after you some as showing my care of you to relieve you of that responsibility. I hope that you will meet me with trying to at least. I don't mean you have to pick up every single thing, but if you would pick up more, it would mean a lot to me. It would strengthen our relationship. If you have a relationship that is important to you, you want the other person to be happy. To feel respected and cared for and loved. And this is an indicator of a way that I would feel your care for me.

[Mike Carruthers]

So in your example, and this is something I really want to get to, is this idea. Because as you just explained it, it was very emotionless. But that's not how people talk to each other. People get angry. They get mad. What do you mean, I don't pick my clothes? It would be easy to do it the way you just said it if there was no emotion in it. But it's those angry emotions that sweep people into pretty nasty arguments.

[Linda Bloom]

You're absolutely right. It's indulging our anger that leads to the blame game. And by the time people have been sucking it up, maybe picking up their clothes off of the floor for years and they're over it now, you know, by the time they start really speaking up, they're so toxic with all the stuff that they've stuffed down for such a long time that it comes out angry, accusatory. Blame me. What the hell's wrong with you? I feel like I have more kids in the family. Not just our literal kids, but that you're one of the kids too. Wants me to be in the mommy role, do you know? Full of blame, full of make wrong. And for people to take responsibility for their part. How unskillful they're bringing it to the other person's attention. It can be full of emotion, but not full of rage. It can be full of emotion, of. I strongly desire to have an up level in our relationship. I strongly want to feel cared for by you, loved by you. And your picking up after yourself would mean so much to me. Do you hear the emotion in my voice? But it's not angry. It's appealing to them in a strong way, but not in a blaming and accusatory way.

[Mike Carruthers]

You've been at this a long time. What is one thing that you see that over and over again that people do in relationships that really bother you?

[Linda Bloom]

Oh, Mike. People settle for so much less than is available. They make some gestures towards each other and it doesn't go very well and it ends up in an argument, so they just shut it down rather than persisting. It really takes a lot of grit, commitment, persistence. Fall down, get up, fall down, get up, begin again, begin again, begin again. To grow a great relationship sounds like.

[Mike Carruthers]

A lot of work.

[Linda Bloom]

It's a lot of work. It's a labor of love. And the only thing that makes it worth all that work is because the benefits are bliss.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, when you compare your way to the more traditional let's get mad, hash it out and argue way, it seems like your way makes a lot more sense. I've been speaking with Linda Bloom. She and her husband Charlie are psychotherapy therapists and marriage counselors. They've authored several books and their latest is an end to 101 valuable lessons for All Relationships. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Linda, for coming on.

[Linda Bloom]

Thank you, Mike. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

[Mike Carruthers]

Have you ever heard the advice that if you're really upset you should count to 10 before you say something and that will help prevent you from maybe saying something you shouldn't or getting really, really angry? Well, researchers at Ohio State University say that's actually a mistake. Apparently all counting to 10 does is enhance your focus on how upset you are, and it usually backfires. Those who count to 10 are more likely to actually act aggressively once they get upset. To 10. The researchers say the best way to keep your anger in check in the moment is to try some self distancing. In other words, mentally remove yourself from the situation by trying to watch it from the point of view of, say, a fly on the wall. Of the many techniques they tested, that was actually the most effective. And that is something you should know. If you'd like to share your thoughts about this podcast with the world, we invite you to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to that accept ratings and reviews. And most of them do. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know.

[Sarah Gabrielli]

You might think you know fairy tales and you might think that they are cute and sweet and boring, but the real Grimm fairy tales were not cute at all. They were very dark and they were often very grim. On Grim Grimmer Grimmest, we tell a grim, grim fairy tale to a bunch of kids. Perfect for car rides or screen free entertainment. Grim Grimmer Grimmest activates kids imaginations and instigates fun conversations because fairy tales speak to all of us at a very deep, primal level and they raise interesting topics and questions that are worth chewing over together as a family. Every episode is rated Grim, Grimmer or Grimmest. So you, your kids, your whole family can choose. What is the right level of grim for you? Though, if you're listening with Grandma, she's just gonna go for Grimmest.

[Mike Carruthers]

Trust me on this one.

[Sarah Gabrielli]

Tune in to Grim, Grimmer, Grimmest and our new season.

[Daniel Willingham]

Available now from the podcast that brought you to each of the last lesbian bars in the country and back in time, through the Sapphic history that shaped them, comes a brand new season of Cruising beyond the Bars. This is your host, Sarah Gabrielli, and I've spent the past year interviewing history making lesbians and queer folks about all kinds of queer spaces, from bookstores to farms to line dancing and much more.

[Linda Bloom]

For 11 years, every night women slept.

[Charlie Bloom]

Illegally on the Common.

[Linda Bloom]

We would move down to the West Indies to form a lesbian nation. Meg Kristen coined the phrase women's music, but she would have liked to to.

[Charlie Bloom]

Say it was lesbian music.

[Linda Bloom]

And that's kind of the origins of the combo Huber Collective.

[Daniel Willingham]

You can listen to Cruising on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes air every other Tuesday, starting February 4th.