← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
The 6 Stages of Lasting Love with Thais Gibson | 399
00:52:02
This episode unpacks the six stages of relationships, attachment theory, healthy communication, and the real work required to build lasting love. It is a must-listen for anyone navigating dating, partnership, conflict, or the messy middle between chemistry and commitment.
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Quick pause. We expanded to YouTube because we keep hearing I needed this 20 years ago and the next generation shouldn't have to wait. So tell the young women in your world who are scrolling and watching to subscribe to this is woman's work on YouTube. I am Nicole Khalil and you are listening to the this Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's Work in the world today with you as the decider. Whatever feels true and real and right for you. That's how you do woman's Work. And I'd submit to you that one of the most important places that we get to redefine woman's work is in our relationships. The long term. Committed. Yes, I love you even though you chew like that kind of relationships. Because if we're being honest, being in lifelong partnership with one human is kind of wild. You're essentially betting that two people will grow in the same direction at the same pace at the same time. Which is adorable in theory, but completely unrealistic in practice. What you're really banking on is that you'll respect, honor, hear, and keep choosing each other when you inevitably grow in different directions at inconvenient times. That's the actual assignment, and it's a big one. But instead of acknowledging that relationships evolve because we evolve, society and rom coms love to hand us their relationship starter pack. Charming, but easy to overcome. Disagreements, predictable milestones, permanent butterflies, never ending honeymoon. And we buy into it and then think there's something wrong when we inevitably grow out of that honeymoon phase. Because that's what relationships do. Listen. Two people evolving is normal. Two people not evolving. Now that's a red flag. Maybe the mistake then isn't that our relationships change, it's that we expect them not to. Which brings us to today's episode. Because if we're going to navigate the inevitable evolution of our relationships with honesty instead of fantasy, we need to be prepared for the stages they move through, the challenges that show up, and the opportunities baked into each one. Our guest, Thais Gibson, is a bestselling author, researcher, and the founder of the Personal Development School, a global platform helping people heal at the subconscious level and build secure, fulfilling relationships. With a PhD, over 13 certifications, years of clinical practice, and a thriving community of more than 45,000 members across 120plus countries, Tyce has become one of the leading voices in attachment theory and relational healing. Her work blends neuroscience, psychology and ancient wisdom to help millions rewire old patterns and create healthier love. Thais, thank you for being our guest again. And since you know the drill, I'm going to dive us right in. What I'm most excited to talk about is these six stages of relationship that you've identified.
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Absolutely, yeah. And I love the intro. I just wanted to say beautiful monologue at the beginning. I loved it. So. So every relationship has six stages and it starts off with the dating stage, which is essentially the betting stage. Then we go into the honeymoon stage and that's the rose colored glasses stage. And then every relationship, even if two people are securely attached, then goes into the power struggle stage. After that we move into the stability stage. If we do make it out alive of the power struggle stage, sometimes referred to as the rhythm stage, we've sort of found our rhythm and our footing and then we move into the devotion and eventually bliss stage so we can dive into what that all means. But what often will happen is people will not understand that every relationship does have a life cycle. And so they'll end up expecting to your point and what you shared originally in your monologue, that will go into a relationship expecting the relationship not to change, not to evolve. And then we'll resist change, which means we're resisting growth and evolution and that keeps people stunted. And then they don't know how to move through the natural life cycle of Relationship. And it's one of the biggest detriments to long term love.
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D
Okay, so this makes sense to my brain. And then my follow up questions are, can you bounce from one stage back into another? Do we always end at the everlasting stage? Can we circle back around? I'm assuming, obviously if relationships end, maybe they don't make it to certain stages. Are we moving at the same time with each other? Like, how does this play out in real life?
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C
Yeah, so I think it'll help if I give a little bit more context into each stage and then it will really answer that question super well. So the dating stage usually lasts about zero to six months. It's our period of time where we get to know somebody. We vet the rite of passage that moves somebody from the dating stage into the honeymoon stage is that they choose to make a commitment to each other. So they say, okay, we're going to be exclusive in this relationship. We're going to take this more seriously. We want to grow and evolve together. And that then kickstarts the honeymoon stage stage. And this is where people are more vulnerable, more open by a little bit. They definitely have the rose colored glasses on. And while they're more vulnerable generally in this stage about their feelings or emotions towards somebody, they'll say I love you or they'll talk about how much they miss each other or care. They'll be more expressive. But we still are connecting with the mask on. Usually in the honeymoon stage, people are still trying to people please their partner, win them over, impress them. And because human beings are adaptable, what ends up taking place over time is that when we start to get comfortable with somebody, we finally drop the mask and we're like, okay, I don't have to keep going out for evenings out to dinner and dressing up all fancy and, you know, putting in so much effort. And that becomes something that's nice originally because we're supposed to then enter into becoming more comfortable. But often when we go from mask on to mask off, even if we were, you know, not trying to change too much, how we were presenting ourselves, that then causes somebody to feel confronted by that. This is confusing. Why? Why is this person changing? And that is precisely what kicks off the power struggle stage of relationships. This is statistically to your earlier question, where most relationships end. Every relationship goes through a power struggle. Even if you have two very secure people in a relationship, it's just that they'll weather it better. And some marriages or relationships will stay in the power struggle the entire rest of the life cycle. Of Relationship. Back when I was working in private practice, I used to see people all the time who would come in and they would be in the power struggle stage for the last 25 years. And it's marked by more arguments, more fighting, less understanding of each other, more resentment, more distancing, a lot of push and pull patterns in a relationship. And it's a really difficult stage to go through if we don't learn to navigate it effectively. But what moves us out of the power struggle stage and how people then can actually move into the next stage is one of the biggest rites of passage is vulnerability. So once we learn to actually say, hey, you know, we have to go through vulnerability and communication. So when we learn to actually say, instead of, you don't care about me, you're not spending enough time with me, instead of saying that, we might say, hey, I'm feeling a little disconnected and I would love to spend more quality time together. Can we plan something fun to do this weekend? And when we learn to communicate what we do need instead of criticize about what's not happening, it's called positive framing, then we can actually start to get seen and heard by each other. When we can share our wounds or our fears that we bring from past relationships, maybe somebody fears being abandoned and they can say, hey, I need some reassurance sometimes. Or maybe somebody fears being betrayed and they need a little bit more openness and transparency in their relationships. When people can start navigating in the power struggle stage what their sensitivities are and communicate through positive framing, through vulnerability, now we can actually reach each other, and the power struggle stage becomes both a crisis and an opportunity. A crisis in the fact that we're going to have a little more conflict, but an opportunity in the fact that we actually have an option now to move the needle from more conditionally based love. When the mask is on and we're showing ourselves with conditions, you can only receive conditional love into more unconditionally based love. Because now the mask is off and we can truly see into each other in a deeper way and get to know each other, fears and flaws and all. And if we can navigate that with grace through healthy communication, open vulnerability, then we actually move out of the power struggle stage into that rhythm stage where we found our footing, we found our rhythm. We know how to navigate conflicts in a relationship in a completely different way that leads to being closer together after a disagreement rather than further apart, precisely because conflict is literally an opportunity to break down invisible walls that existed between yourself and somebody else and so once we then move into the rhythm stage, we found our footing, we feel more comfortable, and then that allows us to make this deep devotion or commitment in that next stage, which is the devotion stage. Now we can see a life with this person. We can see ourselves really moving through, wanting to build things together and create things. And as we start partaking on that journey, then we are finally in that, that bliss stage or everlasting stage. And this is statistically where people break up the absolute least. Okay. It's highly unlikely when people get to that stage of relationship that they will break up. But the time that. So generally it's quite linear. We tend to move in this progressive cycle. We can get stuck at certain stages, like in the power struggle stage, for a very, very long time. The only time that you'll usually see people digress or regress after the everlasting stage is if somebody goes through essentially an identity shattering event. So, for example, you built up here are my fears and my needs and my flaws. And you've learned each other and you've learned to navigate those things healthily. But then if somebody goes through profound loss or, you know, they, they see a profound, you know, a painful death or a huge job loss and a complete, you know, transformation of who they are, well, then you have to relearn each other again because now you're completely new and maybe the things you used to fear are now different. And so we now have to go back through and learn to navigate those all over again.
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D
That makes so much sense to me and I think we all are like, how do we, you know, beeline towards the everlasting stage? I would imagine there is some level of patience and time and letting go of control and perfection. And, you know, there are a handful of things that I'm assuming we need to allow for, create space for as we move through these stages. My question is, let's take the power struggle stage. Are there any things that you find likely or patterns around where we might be getting stuck? Like, for me, I would imagine perfectionism, vulnerability, that's something that I really needed to work through with Jay and be honest about. So my question is, are you seeing any themes?
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C
Yes. So the people who have the hardest time moving through and beyond the power struggle stage and why they get stuck is generally boiling down to three or four major things. So the first one is they don't know how to be vulnerable. And, you know, I'll tell a story because I think this exemplifies this the best. I worked with this woman once and I met her and she was, you know, everything on paper in her life was perfect. And she was an extreme perfectionist. Speaking of perfection. And she was like so well put together. And she had an excellent career and she was successful. Successful and financially had it going on and just everything was like perfectly in a row. And when she first sat down with me on her very first session, she said, yeah, I keep going from relationship to relationship, and everybody leaves me around two years and they say they don't know who I really am. And 2 years is usually when the power struggle stage kicks in, because usually you're seeing that first zero to six months is dating, then another year to year and a half after is the honeymoon. And then we get really comfortable and really used to somebody and we really show our true selves. And so I thought it was interesting that right away it was around the power struggle period of time. And what was even more interesting is as we started to explore her patterns in the relationship, what we found is that she was such a perfectionist that she would never say what she feared. She would never let somebody in. She was having a very difficult time expressing her romantic feelings for somebody else at all. And so people would just feel like, I'm connecting to this sort of almost like a mannequin, like this, this person, and I don't know anything about you at a deeper level. And she was so, so afraid of being vulnerable because she saw a lot of painful things around vulnerability growing up where it was not positively reinforced. And so she couldn't actually show herself to anybody. And so people would say, I don't really know who you are, because through perfectionism, we're trying to create this image of ourselves rather than letting somebody truly see what's deep down. And so that's one of the biggest things that's a necessity. And with like, without exception, like clockwork, what you will see is people who get stuck in the power struggle stage, long term, they never learn to actually be vulnerable. Every couple that I worked with, every, every relationship I ever saw, even through our online programs, it was the same thing. It was people who literally are in relationship, they don't have to be vulnerable. And that brings us to the second point, which is that if you can't be vulnerable, you're not really going to be able to solve communication. Because when there's an argument for an argument to actually create, be created or true resolution to be created, you need vulnerability. Because if we are not vulnerable, then we just go into blame. So we say, you did this. How dare you I can't believe this. And we criticize and we blame, because behind every criticism and blame actually in need, but it feels vulnerable to communicate your needs if growing up, you didn't really have room to do that or it wasn't positively reinforced. And so this means that we have to be able to sit down in relationship with somebody and say, hey, you know, I'm needing a little bit more reassurance sometimes, or I'm needing a little bit more transparency or time together or, you know, focus on us being present. I miss you. I feel disconnected. We have to be able to articulate vulnerably to our partner what we need to create conflict resolution. And so if we don't have our communication down properly, then we really struggle. And I usually give people a couple of points of communication. Number one, as I mentioned briefly earlier, positive framing. So the difference between saying, you don't spend any time with me versus hey, I'm feeling disconnected. I'd love to spend more quality time together. Let's plan a fun date night this weekend. Number two, you'll notice I said, let's plan a fun date night this weekend. One of the biggest places communication goes wrong in the power struggle stage is that people don't paint a picture of what they're looking for. So I would see this all the time with couples. Somebody says, I need more support in the marriage or relationship. Husband goes home, takes out the trash, does more chores around the house. Husband and wife come back next week into session. And the wife says, my husband didn't support me at all. And the husband says, what do you mean I did this and I did this around the house and this and this. And she says, oh, well, I needed encouragement. Support for me is being affirmative. And it's like, so, you know, we'll communicate that we need things. Or I would see as well. Sometimes couples, one person says, I need more time together and that the other partner says, okay, and thinks, I'm going to sit with them right now for 10 minutes. And things that checked it off the box sat with them for 10 minutes. And the other person was like, no, no, I need, like a weekly date night for two hours, you know, and in a very different discussion point. So we have to paint a picture of what we actually are needing. And again, this requires vulnerability. It's not always easy to ask for our needs, but it's an absolute necessity to getting out of the power struggle stage. And then one other thing that's very, very interesting to me, and I've seen this like clockwork And I'm curious if you've noticed this with people, but exactly what we are attracted to initially in the dating and honeymoon stage often is what creates the most resentment for us. In the power struggle stage, for example, people will say, oh, my gosh, let's say you take a really type A personality and they meet somebody who's very, go with the flow, you know, kind of easygoing. And those, you know, in the dating and honeymoon stage, you're like, oh, my gosh, I love that they're so easygoing. They're just, you know, I admire that about them. They're relaxed, they make me feel calm. In the power struggle stage, that turns into, they never make plans, they're not on time. What's going on here exactly? The things we infatuate with, we resent later. Another really common example is somebody will say, oh, my gosh, that that man is so assertive. I'm so attracted to how assertive he is. Well, it's so amazing. And then later, it's like, in the power struggle stage, you go, he never makes compromises. What's going. So those things that we initially feel that are so attractive, we resent later. Unless. And this is another rite of passage of the power struggle stage, our third major one. We have to learn to integrate some of the traits that we have put on a pedestal, meaning type A people need to learn to be a little more easygoing. Easygoing people need to learn to be a little more planned and disciplined. And as we integrate, we now become whole together, and we learn through each other and we navigate those gaps with more grace. Same thing. The person who struggles with assertiveness, they need to learn to speak their needs to their partner and ask for those compromises. The very assertive, uncompromising person needs to become more flexible. And so we have this opportunity to integrate these traits that we see in each other that originally we like well. We like them because we're attracted to integrating them. And when we learn to both do that in a healthy way, that also helps us navigate the power struggle stage more effectively so we can continue to move to the next stages.
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So listener, if you're on the audio platform, you can't see this, but I am like a bobblehead over here. I'm nodding. I. I feel like every thing you said a little light bulb went off. I have definitely heard about communication all day, every day. I've definitely heard about being vulnerable and putting forward your own wants and needs. But the next level of painting the picture, because I know we've all experienced, I know for sure. I have thinking I'm communicating very clearly what I need or what I want and then feeling thoroughly disappointed and then having the conversation and Jay being like, nope, but I did. But I tried, you know, and it's like, oh, but that's not how I wanted it. So painting the picture. And then I believe that we almost universally attract the perfect person to teach us the lesson or provide the balance that we so desperately crave or want in our lives. And that's why we are so attracted to it initially. And then, yes, it becomes the primary source of irritation and you want to throttle them. I love the idea of integrating this idea that we make each other better, but we have to allow for it. I wanna go back to the dating stage, the initial stage. You talked about it being the vetting stage. I do wonder if we, I mean, I don't know that any of us are ever really taught how to vet in the dating stage. I don't know that we're doing it very well. I certainly did not. I would never want to go back to that stage, if I never have to again, I would be the happiest in the world. So what do we need to know? Or what should we have been taught about the dating stage that we weren't? Where are we messing it up?
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C
Okay, great question. So in the dating stage, what often happens is people go in and even though, you know, which I'm very happy about, even though the world is now building more emotional literacy and we're learning to self inquire more and become more introspective, and there's a huge movement towards that still. The vast, vast, vast majority of people go into dating looking for somebody they feel attracted to and have a fun time with. And the analogy I always give to people around this is that's like going and deciding that you're going to apply for a job and you're like, I'm just going to apply to the first 10 jobs posted on. Indeed. And one is for a landscaper and one's for a software engineer and one's to work in an ice cream shop. And I'm just going to go for all of them and see what chooses me and what falls in my lap.
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D
Which one has the prettiest logo.
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C
Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, what's going to end up happening is you have significantly less of a chance of feeling truly fulfilled when you're operating from a place of lacking complete intention. And so because relationships have a monumental impact on our lives, in fact, you know, we take on so much of one another's traits over time, people impact us and condition us deeply. What ends up happening is if we are not going into dating with some degree of intention, we're just not going to be as successful at it and we're not going to be as fulfilled. And that's simply the way it is. So I tell people, when you want to go into dating, I give people sort of a framework they can use. Number one, go into your first date and yes, first date, just see if there's a spark. Just go, be natural, don't have any plans and go in and see if you have a good time. From the second date forward, you should be knowing, you should be knowing this going into dating, but from the second date forward, you should be asking one or two meaningful questions per date that are helping you determine whether or not this person is likely to meet your needs and whether or not this person has non negotiables for you on the table. So for example, I know for myself, you know, I've been with my husband for 11 years, but I know for myself, if I were dating, one of the first things that would be a non negotiable for me is the ability to navigate conflict in a healthy way. So I might, on a second date, if somebody starts complaining a little bit about a sibling or a friend or something that happened, I might say, oh, and how did you navigate that conflict? I'm so interested. I'd love to hear so that then I'm starting to be able to vet them properly to see how do they handle conflict. And if they were to say something like, oh, I don't like to talk about things, then I might say, oh, to me it's really important to talk about things. Is that something you're open to trying or working on? And if the person said no, I really wouldn't go on another date with that person. So we want to be able to attach to somebody mindfully as we are vetting. There has to be a certain degree of strategy in dating. We want to go in and know our standards and our needs and our non negotiables. And we also want to be looking in the right places. Because sometimes people say, I want to meet somebody who's really emotionally available and who's working on themselves and who's God fearing. And I am looking at the nightclub and you'd be surprised at how often that happens. But we have to really go in and be equipped, know what we're looking for, look in the right places and then ask one or two really meaningful questions. A date. And the reason I say one or two is because sometimes people go in with their non negotiables and they're the other side of the equation and they go, oh, first date. Here are the 10 things I'm looking for. Here are my non negotiables. Here's all seven of them. Where do you stand? And it feels like a job interview. And then we move the organic part out of the conversation and of the chemistry and connection piece. So we really want to be able to do both, have that room for things to flow organically while also having the intention that we're inquiring about consistently.
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Again, epically good information in there. And I don't want to turn this totally into the dating stage episode, but I have follow ups. So my first follow up is what would you say to the woman? And I say woman because it's mostly us who does this, who's like, yeah, yeah, but I think that's something that can be fixed, right? Like, yeah, sure. They, they said they're not open to talking about it. Now, but I think over time I could probably get that person to open up. What do you say to the woman who thinks they can change the person sitting in front of them or that these things can be fixed that are blatantly going against what's important to them?
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Such a great question. So really, three things. First thing is we have a rule. We don't date people's potential. Okay? We don't date what we would like to see, what we hope, what they could become. And the second thing is when we're vetting, we always talk about vetting by actions, not words. So if somebody says, yeah, I would like to be open to being more vulnerable or talking through conflict, but you know, not right now, maybe in the future. Well, that person that they're showing you through their actions, that that's who they are right now. And if we expect people to change and we're banking on something, it's like investing in something financially that is a future possibility. I mean, there's just so much more risk involved. So there's a certain practicality to that. But then the other part is that some people will kind of push back on that and say things like, well, you know, what if this person has, you know, a lot of great qualities? If you really are trying to make room to leave a door open to see, okay, this, this person's potential, then if you're even considering that, you need to see like outstanding qualities about this person right now. So for example, let's say the person says, you know, I'm not happy with where I am in my career right now, and maybe you want somebody who's also ambitious like you are. And that person says, I'm not happy with where I am in my career. And you're like, oh, what are my non negotiables or what are my big needs? Was it somebody who's going to be ambitious and we could grow together and sort of have that bouncing off of one another and talk about things we're growing and learning around. If that person's not where they are right now, but they are indicating that, you see in their actions and behaviors, they're disciplined, they're working on themselves, they're growing, they're learning all the time. Then you see qualities in their actions currently that are showing that, yeah, that potential is likely to occur in the future. But where we get the mismatch and where people fall too frequently into is they, they don't even look to see any behaviors that they're vetting for right now. And they just think oh, maybe the person will change, maybe I can change them. That's called codependency. You're selling yourself short. And it's an act of self betrayal at the end of the day to say, I'm going to go against what I know my non negotiables are and I'm going to bank on something that I'm hoping I can change in somebody in the future. And that means that actually we have, if you're in that space, we have those patterns to work on because that's your codependency speaking. And that's something that you should, you know, get in, in the work around. And then the second part is that unless there's something indicating that those things are gonna come to fruition in the current moment, then we're, we're literally just banking on nothing.
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D
Very well said. I'm gonna skip the commentary and go right to my next question because that was so good. What about. And again, I think this happens mostly for women. I think we've been sort of sold this lie that partners are scarce and so we're like kind of competing. We're so focused on putting our best selves out there, being the most attractive, that we're so focused on kind of attracting them to us that we stop paying attention. I think that phrase good men are hard to find or, you know, that type of thing. Any advice for anybody who is operating under the belief that what they want is scarce?
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C
That's a great question. So the first thing is vetting should always be a two way street. When you are vetting and getting to know somebody, it's a two way street. Yes. There's a part of you that should see, do I fit into this person's life? Does that work? But so many people are vetting just one way. They're trying to win somebody over. And people, please. And again, it's a form of self betrayal. If we're not looking at does this person fit into my life, will they also meet my needs? Are they gonna be compatible for me? And what feels like, oh, let me just, you know, win them over and get them to like me. Now that you're going to pay for that in the long run. And that shows in the six stages of relationship. The more that we're not authentic and really setting boundaries and stating the needs of what we're looking for in the dating and honeymoon, the harder the power struggle stage always is. So that's the first part. The second part is that's usually an indication that somebody is divorced from being in their body. And what I say to people all the time is like, you need to check in. If you're chasing somebody and you're hardly getting to, you know, you're getting crumbs from them and you're not really hearing from them consistently and your needs are not getting met. You can get so in your mind and so focused on the people pleasing, you're not paying attention to your nervous system. You're not paying attention to sitting down and saying, how does this person actually make me feel? What do I feel in my body when I'm thinking about this person? And usually when people come back to themselves and anchor themselves in, they recognize that, oh, I'm not paying any attention, I'm anxious all the time. I'm constantly feeling like I'm on high alert and I'm chasing and I'm trying to win them over. And I get so nervous before dates. And then I ask them, is that what you want in a long term relationship? Do you think that that's the partner for you based on what your body is telling you? And I find that to be a really anchoring question for people. And then the third thing is I always get people to evaluate what we call our toxic dating stories. And sometimes we have a lot of them. I can't trust anybody. There are no good men or good men are scarce or hard to find, just like you said. And we can have so many painful dating stories that we've acquired that are actually just a representation of our own conditioning. So usually that idea that good men are hard to find or there's no good men left over or things like that, that's usually actually a lack belief. And often it has deeper roots across all seven areas of our lives. So usually it's an indicator that we also believe that good jobs are hard to find and we never have enough money and good men are hard to find. That is something that will always boil down back to conditioned beliefs that we've acquired that then spill out across into the seven areas of life. And we actually take people in our programs and I'm happy to share a tool, but we actually people through how to rewire these old narratives that are spilling into every area of our life. Because you're not born with those ideas. They get conditioned into you through repetition and emotion that fire and wire these neural networks in our brain. And we actually have to be able to do the work to notice those things about ourselves in any of our seven areas of life and work to recondition what's not actually serving Us so good.
- [31:33]
D
I want to take us to the honeymoon phase and this kind of is a follow up. Then how do we set our boundaries, pay attention to what our bodies are telling us, know what matters most to us. While not expecting perfection, I sometimes hear people, you know, that they need to be ambitious, they need to have a great job. They also need to be a family person and have time off to spend with me. And they need to be 6 foot 2 and they need to have this build and they need to speak in this way and they need to their family needs. It was like, it's like the list is never ending. And I'm like, friend, you ain't ever gonna find that such a good question.
- [32:13]
C
Okay, so one of the biggest things that happens is sometimes having a list of perfected traits is actually an avoidance mechanism. So sometimes what we'll do is we'll say, I need all these things and this person has to be this and this and this and this way. And they have to be so perfect because it's a way of actually preventing ourselves from being vulnerable and having to work through things and learning to be flexible. So I always get people to check in. First is my list of perfection so that I don't actually have to navigate hard things. The second thing is a lot of people who end up being more avoidant through their list of things that they need to have. A lot of those people, they are looking for perfection. If we sort of dissect this a little bit more deeply, it's like, I need you to be perfect for me because I actually don't trust myself to feel confident in working through a problem. So for example, if I don't know how to express my own emotions or feelings, you better be the most understanding person on the planet. So often I get people to dissect when they go through this list of things that they have. I actually get them to like, have we have an exercise in a workbook that says, is this an avoidance mechanism? If so, where do I not feel equipped to deal with this situation? So for example, this person better be, you know, always able to soothe or reassure me. And it's like, well, is that an avoidance mechanism? Because you don't know how to do that for yourself. And we all, as individuals, we put excessive pressure outside of us on people to meet our needs when we haven't learned any capacity to self care source. So if I don't know how to soothe myself, you better be the best at soothing me and be available all the time. If I don't know how to trust people. You better never ever have an incongruency in your story because you're going to shatter all of my trust. Or if I don't know how to understand what's going on inside of me and express it to you, you better be really good at mind reading my needs. And so I always get people to just evaluate these things that they put on their list as well. It's part of this exercise and framework we use to say, okay, here's the things that you have as your list are these things that you're putting excessive pressure on outside of you because you actually are not in a harmon relationship to self sourcing these things first. And then people will say, well geez, if I learn to meet my needs, why would I need anybody else? And what I say back to that is that we are looking for interdependence, secure people who thrive in relationships. They are masters at both. They are good at meeting their own needs and self sourcing. In other words, if they need validation, they can validate themselves and encourage themselves. They're not always putting themselves down and so self critical in their internal dialogue. And on the flip end of the spectrum, they're also good at requiring their needs to be met, requesting, asking, vulnerably communicating about things. And when we have access to both ends of that continuum, effectively we thrive in this particular area. So going back to this, we go through our list, we see if it's just an avoidance mechanism and if it's a reflection of something in ourselves. And then the next thing that we do is if we say no, no, this is pretty good. I feel like my list is things I'm truly looking for and are important to me. We make sure that we are also, if we were on the receiving end of hearing somebody's list, that we would feel okay with that and that we feel that we are the person who's up to par with the things that we're requesting from other people. And I find that to also be very grounding and brings us back into reality because sometimes we say we want these 74 things, but I may not be those 74 things. And in fact if somebody said that I need to be those 74 things, I wouldn't like it. And so then it helps people adjust their expectations and and be a little more anchored in their perceptions of what's possible.
- [35:35]
F
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- [36:34]
B
Yes.
- [36:35]
D
Oh my gosh. I think of my like younger 20 something list and if somebody would have said that to me, I would have been like you. Like that is insane. Right? Like. Okay, let's go to the rhythm or stability stage. I wrote this question down before I'm going to ask it though. I think you kind of already answered it with the self sourcing part. But I used to believe that stability predictability were boring. And through experience I found it to be the sexiest, coolest, funnest stage to be in. What would you say to somebody who's worried about being bored in the stability stage?
- [37:17]
C
Can I ask you a different question to that, please? Yeah, because this is to answer your question and then I'll explain it. Do you notice that you originally thought stability was boring at a time in your life when your nervous system was more used to chaos and as you started doing the work in healing, you then found yourself being a lot more attracted to and appreciative of those things?
- [37:40]
D
A hundred percent, yes. And I had bought into the story that turmoil, chaos, conflict was a and I put in air quotes, normal part of a relationship, like relationships are hard was kind of the story. And my parents got divorced after 50 years of marriage. It should have been much, much, much sooner. And so I observed more of the unhealthy aspects and thought that's just the way it was supposed to be. So absolutely yes to your question. And I genuinely thought it was supposed to be that way. So the alternative seemed so unusual that it fell into that boring category for me, if that makes any sense.
- [38:22]
C
Exactly. A hundred percent. So that was such a beautiful share. And because it just depicts it perfectly, which is we obtain our conditioning in three major ways, so what we see or what's modeled to us. So if you see parents fighting all the time, your subconscious mind Says, well, relationships equals fighting. And also what we hear repeatedly. If you always hear people arguing or if you hear people say, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough money, you'll grow up with lack beliefs, most likely. And then our firsthand experiences. So, you know, you have that condition that became your perception. Then your nervous system is used to being dysregulated by relationships, because that's what you see and what you know. And then what ends up taking place is every person who's ever felt like the stability stage would be boring, they always have a history of seeing a lot of high highs and low lows and rollercoaster moments and ups and downs. And so it feels unfamiliar. And what's really interesting is that the subconscious mind is running the show. It's responsible for more than 95% of all of our choices and actions. And the subconscious mind ultimately wants survival. And so what feels familiar to us feels safe and thus most likely to equal survival. And so it seems counterintuitive, but your conscious mind will say, oh, safety makes sense. We should look for a safe partner. That seems healthy. But your subconscious mind, which is determining basically your nervous system function, says, we don't know about that. That's. That's unfamiliar to us. So what actually feels the safest is the chaos. Because your subconscious mind essentially says, well, this is what we know and we've been surviving, so this is working for us. And so part of what happens, and because you're somebody who's in the work and all the work that you do, what's so beautiful is you said, oh, then I found that to be sexy and beautiful. That's probably because you found a lot of inner healing and learned to regulate yourself. And then when you were in a regulated state, now it actually felt familiar to be attracted to other people who were also safe and also regulated, because that becomes part of your subconscious comfort zone. And that's the new. This is what equals survival. So when people get into the stability stage and they're like, oh, I'm scared, I'm going to be bored, I do get people like, hey, here's some things that you can do. So, for example, you know, we'll. We'll need to actually create novelty. So try new things together, go to new places together, have new conversations. If we're struggling in the stability stage, it could be an indicator at a very practical level that we are simply not making an effort to keep getting to know each other. And so we should have, like, these healthy forms of connection where we know each other's love, languages and needs. We make a concerted effort to check in with them, to meet them. And we have things that add a little bit of spice of life. Like we. We go to new places, we try new hobbies, things that bring us together with that novelty part. But the vast majority of people who either struggle the most in the stability stage or are the most concerned about the stability stage coming are people who have a deeply embedded, subconscious comfort zone of chaos. And they don't know what. What relationships would be without it. And in that case, we do a lot of nervous system regulation work to become more stable and feel safe in ourselves and in our bodies, and then we can connect and be more att. And that becomes something that fills us up instead of makes us feel uncomfortable.
- [41:24]
D
Okay, so good. I'm genuinely curious where Jay would say that we are. If I had to guess, I think we're in that stability rhythm stage. And so I'm very curious about the next stage, the devotion stage. What you said about continuing to get to know each other, prioritizing that learning new things, I think is really great. How do we grow together in the devotion stage? I mean, what does that even look like?
- [41:51]
C
Great question. So, so much of the devotion stage is now that you're in a place where you've really learned each other, worked through conflict, feel safe, are comfortable to be open, you know those things are happening. Then it's all about having open dialogue about, like, what are we looking for in the next season of life and what's important to us, and how do we want to build and grow and create life together? And having those open conversations and then beginning to actually action them out. And so what often happens is people can get into the stability stage, and if they're not including a sense of novelty or things that are gonna stimulate ongoing connection, then they can stay stuck there. But if we're doing that, that sense of novelty, and we've got that. That excitement together and we're growing and building, then we're like, okay, here we are. We sort of drop a pin in time, and you've been infatuated with each other. You've learned each other, you've made a commitment to each other in a relationship way. From the honeymoon stage, you've learned to navigate conflict, and you understand each other in a much more unconditional way. You've loved each other in a more unconditional way because you know each other's fears and flaws and needs. You've learned to hash things out and communicate You've learned to be vulnerable, and now there's a sense of excitement. We've created that sense of excitement. In the civility stage. We have this sense of rhythm, but we also have the sense of. We do these new things together. Now it's like, well, well, let's look into the future. What are we growing towards? What are we building? What do we want to create? And it's about nurturing those conversations and making those plans that when we begin to action them out, we're deeply intertwining our lives together for the next season. And, you know, this is. Some people say, well, what if I met somebody later in life? Or, what if this is really early in life? It doesn't really matter where you are. It matters that you're doing these things, that you're like, hey, this is what's up next for us in the next couple of years, five years. You know, what's important to us? Where do. Where do we want to live? What do we want our lifestyle to be? How are we going to work? How are we going to work together? How often are we going to travel? So it's about really having a lot of those more introspective conversations, not just on your own, but as a couple. And then as we start opening that. That dialogue, actually starting to build towards those things. And if we don't do that, sometimes in that devotion stage, we can run the risk of we're not really trying to grow together. We're not really having those conversations about how we want to live. And then we tend to learn those things the hard way. Whatever. We don't get out of the way first, as a conversation usually comes up as an opportunity obstacle. And so we'll end up, you know, maybe having these differences in how often we want to travel. And we argue about it and we resent about it, and we feel frustrated because one person's always gone and the other person's always here. And so getting those conversations out of the way is the. The facet, that sort of rite of passage that allows us to keep growing together instead of apart.
- [44:26]
D
I'm going long because I have so many questions for you. I wonder in this because what my brain used the term next season, and my brain was kind of like, there's life seasons and relationship seasons, and they sort of tie together. I think why I sometimes struggle with the devotion stage and the planning for the future and how do we grow together is. I feel like our life stage is in a rhythm. Our daughter is in school. We have our jobs, we're not planning on leaving. We're not close to retirement. We're kind of in this rhythm of life. And when I think about what's next in the best way because I really love my life, it's like kind of more of the same for the next five to 10 years. Any advice or thoughts about how to be in the devotion stage when your life is very much in the rhythm stages? I don't know if I'm saying that right.
- [45:26]
C
Perfect question. It makes perfect sense to me. So I Two follow up questions for you is number one, you feel very satisfied, but have you thought about, have you asked your husband, you know, hey, are you fully satisfied with where our life is at? Are there things you would want to change in the next season? Are there things you would want to add in and have you sat with that question as my second question to you to see even though your life is in a beautiful space and that's such a wonderful thing to be in, or have you sat with that question together in conversation, in communication to kind of open up? Well, how else could we improve or grow? Because one of the things that happens over time with relationships is sometimes when we're exactly there, we end up in a dynamic where we're so used to things for a long time and eventually we will seek change. Eventually we will want things to improve or grow in a different direction. And sometimes it's more the act of being on top of that question and on top of checking in with one another that is precisely what keeps us growing together rather than growing apart. Because sometimes I don't want to say it like I don't want it to sound fear mongering but sometimes when we're like, oh, things are in a great rhythm and then we're happy with it and we sort of stay on autopilot, that that is very likely to change over the next three years. Or maybe things you became dissatisfied about over three years and they may be small, but small things can keep, can create deeper roots. And so it's more the act of being on top of that conversation, checking in with each other that way, getting curious, sitting in that and really introspecting that is that sort of proactive habit to keep you in that state of feeling that way about your life both individually and together.
- [47:09]
D
Thais thank you for that mini therapy session. You're dead on. Because I think that is the next opportunity for Jay and I and we have kind of talked around it and you mentioned like I'm more in the let's travel more and he just changed roles in the last couple of years. So he's in a little bit of like hunkering down, working, missing each other, still totally content. But like there's I think this approaching of what's next. How do we grow together? How do we, you know, so lots of good things in there. My last question is around the everlasting stage. How do we know when we're finally there?
- [47:47]
C
Great question. Because you'll be acting out the things that you said you were going to devote to building together. And those conversations will feel top of mind. You'll be acting them out. You'll have basically integrated all of the previous parts of a relationship. So for example, you'll have integrated the part where you speak openly, right? You'll and communicate healthily. You'll have integrated the part where you know each other's fears or flaws and, and know how to take those things into consideration. You'll have integrated the novelty into the relationship. You'll have integrated those conversations where you're like how are we feeling? What do we want in the next season? And checking in and, and having that ability to do that regularly so that there isn't this kind of tiny disconnect on the periphery. They could over time faster. It's not anything huge, but obviously in the long game you want to be on top of that. And, and so you'll be in a place where you feel like all of those previous rites of passage that were necessary in the earlier stages. You feel like a sense of mastery around you feel a sense of yes, we do this, we're on top of this. And that's when you're really showing up for all those potential things that could create cracks. And you're plugging those cracks early on and you're on top of them and that's where you're going to feel a sense of bliss. And people in the bliss or everlasting stage definitely report feeling like, oh, like I'll be with this person forever. Undoubtedly. Like there's no. Just a deep profound sense of certainty and safety, but also a deep sense of. People will sometimes say it's sort of like the honeymoon stage, but we know each other way more deeply. We know each other way better. And that's that there's that really deep sense of harmony.
- [49:17]
D
I can't wait. And I have 1 million more questions. I very rarely wish for like 2 hour episodes, but this is one of those times. So I know you listener like me. Want to learn more? Go to personaldevelopmentschool.com it has all the ways that you can find and follow Tyce and learn more about her work and apply it in your day to day life. Tyce, thank you for an incredibly important conversation, for doing this work and for giving us all. Myself included. I don't know framework is the right word. That doesn't sound very sexy. But like, I don't know, I like opportunity. I'm excited about a next stage. So thank you for being here and for your incredibly important work.
- [49:58]
C
Thank you so much and I always love speaking with you and really appreciate you having me on.
- [50:03]
D
My pleasure. All right friend. As we were talking I found myself thinking about a Rupi Kaur quote or poem that Jay and I have hanging in our bedroom and it says I do not want to have you to fill the empty parts of me. I want to be full on my own. I want to feel so complete that I could light a whole city and then I want to have you you. Because the two of us combined could set it on fire. Now that may not represent how you want your relationship to feel, and that's totally fine. It's what works for us. Your job is to figure out what works for you and for who you choose to do life with. And maybe the thing to pay attention to in the dating and honeymoon phases isn't how wildly happy this person makes you, but how well you support, listen to and respect each other as things and life inevitably change. Maybe it's not about perfect harmony, but how you repair, how you return, how you choose each other again and again when it isn't easy. I don't know exactly what your version of partnership will look like, but I do know this Being in a healthy relationship where you both feel loved, heard and cared for, maybe not every day, but most days, well, that is woman's work.
- [51:24]
G
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B
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H
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D
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Find and follow Tumble Science Podcasts for Kids wherever you get your podcasts or at sciencepodcastforkids.com foreign. Are you earning and investing in the stock market? In real estate? How about in relationships? Are you earning and investing in your life? I'm Doc G, semi retired hospice physician and host of the Earn and Invest podcast where we have the 201 or next level conversations about money and life. Not only how you make money and grow it, but also how you use your wealth to create a better and more fulfilling experience existence. Join us every Monday and Thursday wherever you listen to fine podcasts.