We're back with a new episode in our Parenting series and we're talking about punishments, rewards, and autonomy. For most kids, life is a series of expectations: when and what to eat, when to sleep, what to learn, how to learn it. This loss of autonomy can cause disconnection with a child's inner knowing. Punishments and rewards, too, are designed to influence children's choices. How could things feel different if we didn't try to control our children? What we've found is that stepping away from that control leads to better understanding about the individuals in our families, and so much amazing learning.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. Explore our courses and coaching at https://livingjoyfullyshop.com/.EPISODE QUESTIONS1. Think back to when you were a child. Did you get to make many choices about your days? If so, how did it feel? Did you feel empowered? Trusted? If not, how did it feel? Frustrating? Like you weren’t trusted to make good choices? And who got to define “good”?2. Were you punished as a child? If so, how did it feel? How did it play out for you? Did you spend your punishment time contemplating your “crime”? Or being angry with the person who set the punishment, feeling it was unfair? Over time, did you absorb the message that you were a bad person in general for getting in trouble? Were you more likely to continue the “crime” but hide it from your parents?3. Did your parents reward you pretty regularly growing up? If so, looking back, does it feel like they were trying to use rewards to control or behavior and/or choices? Did you find that the rewards influenced your behavior or choices at the time? What, if any, impact did that have as an adult?4. I find it so interesting to consider the relationship between a child’s autonomy and their learning about themselves as a human being. I encourage you to take a couple minutes to start brainstorming a list of the things you can imagine a child learning through making choices and seeing how things unfold. I think once you get the ball rolling it may well be hard to stop!TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello! And welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! Navigating relationships can sometimes be challenging, because people are so different. Thanks for joining us as we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflict and increase connection in your most important relationships.If you’re new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen from the beginning, particularly the episodes in our introductory Foundations series. If you want to dive deeper, we also have courses and coaching, which you can explore in our Living Joyfully Shop! Follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com.And if you’ve been listening to and enjoying the podcast for a while, we’d love it if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review on your podcast player of choice. They can really help encourage people to take a chance and listen to the show.So, this episode is part of our Parenting series and we’re going to be diving into the ideas of punishments, rewards, and autonomy and how they weave together. And while we’re talking about this in the context of parenting, it’s equally valuable when it comes to any relationships.So, let’s start with the bigger picture of autonomy.And so that we’re starting on the same page, I see personal or individual autonomy just as the freedom to make choices and pursue a chosen course of action. Fundamentally, it’s how human beings learn: by making choices and seeing how they unfold. Sometimes things go smoothly, unfolding how we anticipated. And sometimes they go completely sideways. And most times, it’s somewhere in between the two.But each time, we learn something. Maybe it’s about the choice itself, maybe it’s about the execution, maybe it’s about the environment, maybe it’s about ourselves—the list is vast. Yet when we’ve made the choice, we’re learning something meaningful, or at least useful, to us. And that’s at all ages, kids included.So, when someone else makes the choices for us, which often happens for kids—choices like what they can do and what they eat and who they play with and what they wear and when they sleep—they learn different things. They learn less about themselves—their likes and dislikes, how their body likes to be fueled, how they like to express themselves, how they like to explore the world, how they prefer to engage with others—and more about their parents’ expectations.Maybe they feel the rub and bristle at the line or limit their parents hold for them, but, certainly when they’re younger, they aren’t able to explore where they might draw that line for themselves. What is their personal comfort zone around the thing?When we don’t get to make lots of choices as we go about our days, we don’t learn a lot about ourselves, adults or children alike.ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. And I’m really excited that we are talking about this! Because I think it’s something that doesn’t get a lot of play in parenting circles. Autonomy is such a critical piece of our human experience. And, like you said, it really is where the learning happens. Understanding ourselves and our bodies is so important to overall life satisfaction, yet we systematically disconnect kids from this inner knowing from a very young age. For most kids, life is a series of expectations: when to eat, when to sleep, what to learn, how to learn it. And so, I agree, the learning that is happening is, ‘How do I please the people around me and do what is expected?’ And we learn this because it's how I survive and how I get love. You will have the personalities that will buck against it, but those personalities are often maligned and made to feel there is something wrong with them, when it’s much more about the environment not being a fit, than it is that there is something wrong with that particular child. And I want to say that I understand that often the guidance given by adults comes from a place of love and protection. We want the best for our kids. We want to protect them. We want them to learn things that we think will help them in life. But it doesn’t take much examination to recognize that this is just not how humans learn. How many of us have had a well-meaning parent or spouse tell us that we should be doing something this way, or, this is how it's done, or this is what's best for you? And how often did that leave us feeling disconnected from that person, misunderstood, and sometimes even just irritated at the suggestion? But we can offer our best information as part of what they take in to make their choice, understanding how different everyone is and that they may need to move through situations in ways that sometimes don’t even make sense to us. That's the path to honoring each person in our lives as individuals. We can share and we can leave space for it to unfold in a different way for the person in our lives.When we have an agenda, and especially when we punish someone (as is often the case for children) for not meeting our expectations or following with our agenda, it is a huge blow to learning and autonomy and often the relationship as a whole. PAM: Oh yeah. It really is. And I want to talk more about punishments, because, while obviously affecting autonomy, they also don’t often teach the “lesson” that parents really are, out of love, trying to impart.The obvious impact on autonomy is that a punishment is designed to control the other person’s—most often a child’s—choices. Things like, "If you do this thing I don’t want you to do, I’ll punish you by making you do a thing you don’t want to do, like go to your room." Or, "If you don’t do this thing I want you to do, I’ll take away a thing that you want to do, like taking away access to your tech device of choice."In that way, it can seem a little bit like tit for tat. The thinking seems to be that trying to relate the punishment with the crime somehow makes the punishment more effective while also giving the child “time to think about what they’ve done.”Yet, in my experience, bringing punishment into the mix quickly focuses the conversation on the punishment: the details of the punishment (what, how long), whether it feels “fair,” and the execution (“go to your room,” “give me your tablet” and so on). And then there’s the whole stage of policing the punishment: making sure they stay in their room, hiding the tablet so they don’t find it, and responding to the child’s pleas to end the punishment early. That focus shift to the punishment actually means that most of the child’s learning is about how to navigate punishments. Not just the pleading, but how not to get caught next time, or, having learned what the parent didn’t like, concocting a story that they hope will help them avoid punishment next time.Just go back and see how very little of the child’s thoughts and learning are focused on the choice and action that sparked all this in the first place? What if, instead of jumping to punishment, the parent engaged in a conversation with the child? Getting curious about what they were trying to accomplish and why, talking about the context of their choice, sharing the pieces it seems they hadn’t considered when they made their choice, and about how things unfolded—is this actually what they were expecting to happen? That is where so much rich and valuable learning lies.ANNA: Oh my goodness. Yes. 100%. There is so much learning lost with punishment. It shifts the focus from what was done, to the parent or person who is punishing. When they're in their room, they aren’t thinking about the actions that got them there. They're thinking about the person who put them there. Let’s say even with an extreme example of a child or teen doing something that harms another person. Then say the punishment is to take away their device or take away their car if we're talking about a teen. The focus of the child is now on the fact that their car has been taken away and all of the problems that will cause them. They most likely will be angry at the person who is wielding this power over them. If, instead, like you were talking about, we have a conversation about what happened and empower and even help them to make amends, they feel supported and connected and are learning how to repair after a mistake. And that is a skill that will serve them in every personal or professional relationship they will have, because we will always make mistakes. Humans make mistakes! And sometimes those mistakes hurt other people.And I wanted my kids to feel my support, I know we all make mistakes. And I wanted them to know that I’d walk through the repair with them. My priority is always going to be our connection. Because it’s from that place of connection that we can navigate the tough stuff that life throws our way. The minute you choose power and punishment over another person, you have lost them. They may still physically be there but they do not feel connected, supported, or understood. Life is going to throw a lot of curve balls at everyone. Learning how to stay connected through the tough stuff just makes things so much easier. And if we find ourselves reaching for punishment as a tool to control situations, we can examine when we are try to control others and see it as red flag, as a sign to step back and see where maybe we’re feeling pinched, or where we’re feeling controlled. Because it’s so often when we’re feeling controlled that we clamp down on those around us. But recognizing that, we can then turn to identifying our own underlying needs and begin to address them. We can look to the broader context. Are we feeling under-resourced? Are we feeling a bit disconnected? What’s happening contextually for us and for our children? Because, to me, it’s just really interesting think about, because punishment isn’t a tool we use in adult relationships. Power-over is not a healthy dynamic in any relationship. So, why not start learning the skills of communication and understanding with our kids? Those are the skills they will need, so let’s spend our life practicing them together.PAM: I just want to highlight one of the things that you said there, that piece that when we find ourselves reaching for control with enthusiasm, so often it's worth taking a moment to just ask, are there places in my life where I'm feeling a little out of control? Where I feel like someone else is controlling me? Because that energy, I can be shifting and turning outward. So, it's like, okay, I don't feel like I have a lot of control here. I want to get back that feeling of control and maybe in a completely different way, but these are all my emotions. So, they're balancing out in me. If I don't have it here, I'm going to bring it here. So, that is always something that is interesting to look out for when we're feeling that pull to punish.When punishment is a well-used tool in the parenting toolbox, that is the process that kids learn for navigating conflict, for navigating these kinds of situations, and will be what they reach for, as you mentioned, in adult relationships. So, no, they can’t send an adult friend to their room or take away their phone, but, as I was thinking about it, they do try other versions of that, the “silent treatment,” which ignores someone like they’re not there, and communicating, “I’m mad at you and don’t like what you did.” But it’s kind of like they’ve been sent to their room and, “You’re out of my life. I’m just going to ignore it.” There are so many unhealthy relationship tools that adults use. They're versions of punishment. Like, how can I punish this person in my life without being able to literally send them to their room? ANNA: Right! It’s that blame/fault matrix that just carries over and it’s so destructive to personal relationships.PAM: Exactly. So, definitely, we want to learn different tools growing up!I also want to touch on rewards, because at first we can wonder. Rewards are positive things. How on earth could they affect a person’s autonomy and learning? But that’s the thing. Rewards are directly related to a thing a person, or child, is doing. And it’s natural for us to reward the things we like and ignore the things we’re indifferent about. Even if we’re not punishing the choices they’re making that we don’t like, when rewards are in the mix, they still get the message.And many kids want to please their parents. They’re going to pick up on those subtle cues that “making this choice and doing this thing makes my parents happy so I should do more of it,” and conversely, noticing the choices they make that aren’t rewarded. So, they may choose to avoid those things, or do them out of sight so as not to feel judged by the parent’s indifference.And at first we might think, “That’s great, a way to avoid outright punishments while still managing to manipulate our child’s choices in the direction we as parents believe are better.”But again, let’s take a closer look at what they’re learning and how this approach might unfold over the years. The priority becomes learning the choices the parents do and don’t like. Wanting to please their parents, kids can find themselves making choices that, while they are regularly rewarded for them, they don’t particularly enjoy. And I know we’ve all heard stories of kids who are talented in a particular area who grew up with the rewards and expectations of excelling in that sport or skill only to burn out in adulthood and needing to basically build a new life. See how the child’s autonomy can be subtly, but impactfully over-ridden.If the child loves the activity, they don’t need regular external rewards to keep going. Sure, we definitely want to celebrate the accomplishments along the way that they are keen to celebrate! That’s the differentce. I feel like celebrations are so different from rewards. A celebration is focused on the child’s wishes, while a reward is based on the parent’s wishes. And just that perspective shift makes a world of difference, doesn’t it?ANNA: It really does. And I think you're right. That celebrating, we're celebrating their experience, what they're loving about something, what they're bringing to us, versus the reward is this, like, “reach this point and you're going to get this,” which is so external, you know, just the complete opposite of, you know, really doing something from inside your heart and what feels good to you.And absolutely, rewards really are just the flip side of the whole manipulation/control coin. And I think our invitation today is to just consider why. Why do we need to control another person? I think one of my big growth areas years ago that took me some time was understanding that I do not know what’s best for another person. Not my spouse, not my kids. I know what’s best for me most of the time. Sometimes I still have to figure that out. But that’s it. Just me. I can only know what’s best for me. And again, I can share the things I’ve learned along the way, why I’ve made the choices I’ve made, what happened when things went sideways and what I learned from that. That’s all super interesting information for somebody to have, but it doesn’t mean the same choices will end the same way for them. It doesn’t mean what works best for me will work best for them. And rewards are interesting, because they do create this external focus that I think can disconnect us with what we truly want, what has meaning for us. And like you said, if you grow up in a reward environment, is it crystal clear what is being considered “good” and what is being considered “bad”. And kids learn what is needed to get the approval of their parents, because, again, there is an innate survival mechanism at play. And my sincere hope was to empower my kids to listen to their bodies and their own inner voice to cultivate a connection with their own unique knowing. And any type of control I would throw in there, be it rewards or punishments, just served to cut them off from that knowing. And I think many of us can think back and see how we had to relearn how to listen to our inner voice and to our bodies over the year. We’ve spent many years navigating systems and many times family dynamics as well that wanted to control our decisions and tell us what we wanted and what we should do or even who we should be. And it is a process to figure out what we actually wanted, the person we want to be, and to separate those from all of those outside voices. And there is a different way and it fosters that inner knowing. And our children, kids are amazing and so capable! They have clear ideas of what they want and there really are reasons behind it. As we stay connected, have conversations, and learn more about them, we start to understand their choices. We start to really see it through their eyes.And as we share our needs and hear theirs, then we can start working together to meet all the needs. This isn’t about handing control of the family to children. It’s not about control at all. It’s about everyone having autonomy over their life and time and working together to navigate being in relationship with one another. And again, I will just say, learning those skills throughout childhood, I see it in my adult daughters all the time and get feedback from those in their lives who also see that difference, because they’ve already had two decades of living this way.PAM: Oh, yeah. That's something I just keep saying over and over and over. Kids are so capable. Kids have reasons for the things they do. Kids are making choices, bringing together all they they know, what their experience has been so far, and they're just trying something out. So, I think that's so fascinating.Parents can be really worried. “They'll never make the right choice.” And as you mentioned, when you see through their eyes, you can see why this seemed to be a reasonable choice or a thing that they wanted to do. However, it unfolds, you can see why they went in that direction. It's fascinating and they are so capable. I love that.ANNA: And even if it goes sideways, if we're staying connected to them, then we can talk about that learning. When we're disconnected, we're not able to have those conversations about, “Whew! That went sideways. What do I want to do differently next time?” Because they're worried about being punished or they're worried about us not being connected to them. And so, it's such a lost opportunity when we use those tools of control versus connection. PAM: It's a lost opportunity, not only of learning for everyone, it's a lost opportunity for connection. The connection you feel when you're being supported by someone that you love, someone in your life who is with you when the things go sideways, where we're not worried about punishments being meted out or rewards being withheld, but we're just all there in the mess. In the moment and figuring out how we want to move through it.Life will give us lots of experiences in that way, and we will learn so much about each other and the ways that we want to move through it, or the ways that are helpful for us to process and move through it and so on. So, it is just that so much is lost when we jump to punishments. Because, like we've been talking about this whole episode, that’s where everything goes, that's where the focus goes, that's where the conversation goes, that's where the learning goes, all those pieces. So, weaving together these ideas of rewards and punishments and autonomy, I’ve really enjoyed doing that, because I think it gives us such a richer picture of how children can learn so much about themselves and how they choose to engage with their world. It's fascinating to ponder the often unintended impact of both punishments and rewards and how they can impinge on a child's autonomy. So, here are some questions to ponder this week around these ideas. Number one, think back to when you were a child. Did you get to make many choices about your days? And if so, how did it feel? Did you feel empowered? Did you feel trusted? If not, how did it feel? Was it frustrating? Did it feel like you weren't trusted to make good choices? And who got to define good? That's another big piece. Question two, were you punished as a child? If so, how did it feel? How did it play out for you? Did you spend your punishment time contemplating your crime? Or being angry with the person who set the punishment, feeling it was unfair? Maybe you didn't get a chance to explain your perspective. Over time, did you absorb the message that you were a bad person in general for getting in trouble? Were you more likely to continue the crime, but hide it from your parents? Question three, did your parents reward you pretty regularly growing up? If so, looking back, does it feel like they were trying to use rewards to control your behavior or your choices? Did you find that the rewards influenced your behavior or choices at the time? What, if any, impact did that have on you as an adult? That's so interesting. And number four, I definitely find it so interesting to consider the relationship between a child's autonomy and their learning about themselves as a human being. So, I encourage you to take a couple of minutes to start brainstorming a list of the things you can imagine a child learning through making choices and just seeing how things unfold. And I do think once you get the ball rolling, it may well be hard to stop. ANNA: I think so.PAM: I think that will be a lot of fun. And it just, again, it gets us back to that open and curious mindset. It's just like, you know what? Let's just open things up and put on a new lens and just try things out and let's just see what we discover.ANNA: Because so often, what got us to the place of wanting to control and punish is just, that's what we knew. And so, just try some new ideas and see how it impacts your relationships, see how it impacts just your life satisfaction, see how you all are learning new skills. I think it'll be fun.PAM: Anyway, thank you so much for listening, everyone. Bye!

We’re back with another episode in our Relationships series and we’re talking about examining our have to's. We often use the words, "I have to," or "You have to," without even realizing that we're saying them! But those words add weight to our lives and they take away our choices. If, instead, we get curious about our language and start questioning all of the have to's, a whole world of possibilities opens up. It's then that we can learn more about ourselves and our loved ones and really tune in to what we want and need. It's powerful!We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Find our coaching and courses, including Navigating Family Gatherings, in our store at LivingJoyfullyShop.comYou can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!EPISODE QUESTIONS1. Look at the places you are using the words “have to”, find the why and identify some different choices. How does it feel? 2. What areas are you telling the people in your life that they “have to” do something? How does it affect your connection? Initiate a conversation with them to find the why and see if that changes the energy around the request. 3. Use the lens of everything being a choice this week and see if you notice any shifts or recognize any resistance.   TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello! And welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can sometimes be tricky because people are so different. Thanks for joining us as we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflict and increase connection in your most important relationships.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen from the beginning, particularly the episodes in our introductory Foundation series. If you want to dive deeper, we also have courses and coaching, which you can explore at our living joyfully shop. Follow the link in the show notes, or you can go to LivingJoyfullyShop.com.Okay, so this episode is part of our relationship series, and we will be digging into the idea of have to's. Have to's are an interesting idea to deconstruct. It's part language, part intention, part external noise. And I feel like language is probably the best place to start. When we use the words "have to" for so many things, like it's so ubiquitous. It really has become such a common phrase that we don't even realize the weight it's adding to everything. "I have to go to the store." "I have to call my mom." "I have to do the dishes." "I have to, have to, have to." And then the weight of that is actually even, I feel like, compounded when we put have to's onto our children or to other people in our life. "You have to brush your teeth." "You have to go to bed." "You have to finish the food on your plate." "You have to go to school." "You have to cut the grass." "You have to finish that project." And on the surface, those things may seem like have to's, but orienting to the idea that everything is a choice can really help empower and bring a lot of clarity about our actions.We're going to dive more into that in a minute, but bringing some intentionality to our language can really change the energy. And understanding the why behind the things we're viewing as have to gets us to the root of what's going on and is often where the choice lies.PAM: Yes, yes. I think intentionality can make all the difference in how it feels to do so many things.I think the phrase "have to," is often used as a shortcut. So, skipping right past the intention and into expectation. The language that we use, both when we're speaking to others and when we're speaking to ourselves can make a huge difference in the energy with which we approach the task at hand.So, when I notice myself saying, "I have to do X," I notice that it often feels like a weight and I immediately start to build some resistance to doing that thing that I need to overcome before I can even get started, because apparently I don't like being told what to do.So, to play with that, I just try to change up my language, maybe saying something like, "I want to do X," and just see how that feels. Sometimes my first reaction is no, I do not want to do that. But I can still stay with that for a moment. I might ask myself, "Why might I want to do that?" So, exploring those reasons can help me move from those expectations back to my intentions. I suspect there were originally some reasons that made sense to me that shifted my language into that shortcut realm of "have to," and rediscovering those can help me lean back into, "Oh yeah, that's why I want to do X."So, the language we use, both with ourselves and others, can just be so helpful in more gracefully navigating the ins and outs of our day. I mean, that shortcut, oh, that's going to save me time. I'm going to be more efficient. But eventually, we forget about the intention that was behind it. And that can drag it out. It's definitely worth exploring.ANNA: It starts to carry as a weight. I think that's where the weight comes, because suddenly we're like, "Oh, we've got all these have to's. Where is this coming from? What's happening?" We really have lost sight of why we're there and why we wanted to be there and what was the whole purpose in the beginning. And I just feel like language makes such a difference with that.And I will say that I know saying everything is a choice is something that can sometimes raise hackles for people, because I've been saying this for a very long time. But as soon as you start to break things down, the choice is more evident. And it's often rooted in the why, why we want to do something. I don't have to brush my teeth, but I do because it helps them to remain clean and healthy. It's not the only way. It's one way. And once I understand that, I can make an active choice about how I want to address my, why my need for clean and healthy teeth. Then I'm in control. It's not happening to me. I've regained my agency.And as humans of any age, we want agency over our lives. And yes, this applies to children as well. So, taking that time to find the choice with our children paves the path for learning, growth, and empowerment. They don't have to go to bed. They might want to, if they need to be up early the next day, or they might not. They might be fine with a couple nights of getting less sleep and then they may want to sleep in longer the next night. They might try it and learn that it didn't feel good the next day and they tease out what works for them.But the learning in that is so much more robust than being told what to do, where what we're learning at that point is that they have no agency and are supposed to do what someone else thinks they should do. And when we walk that out just a tiny bit, we can see what a slippery slope that is, disconnecting them from that understanding. And we'll talk more about autonomy in our next episode, but it just wanted to plant that little seed for now.The important piece, I think, to consider today is, what does it feel like to realize that everything is a choice? What I know for myself is that as soon as I think something isn't a choice, I need to stop. I need to take a breath and get back to my why, because there is a reason I'm doing whatever task is at hand.It serves some purpose in a bigger picture. And as soon as I can identify my why, I can start to see the choices.So, I can stare at a full sink of dirty dishes and think, "I've got to clean these dishes." The reality of it is, I don't. I could go out to dinner. We could use paper plates. I can throw all the dishes away. And while I might not do that, sometimes it's helpful to take it to the extreme because again, it highlights the choice. Then, if I do the dishes, I know that I've decided it's the choice that best serves me in that moment.And so, even if we look at jobs, because this one I'll come up a lot with the jobs are important. They are. If my job is feeling like a have to, though, I really want to examine what's going on, because of course I can quit. There will be consequences to that, but I don't have to go to work. And if we look on the smaller scale, let's say I don't have to go to work that particular day. If I was sick or there was an accident, I wouldn't be there and the world wouldn't end.If I find that I'm feeling bad as an ongoing pattern, then I want to look at the bigger picture to find my choice and my why again. Maybe I choose to go because it's an easy commute and the hours work well with the rest of my life. Okay. I'm back to understanding my why.When the time comes that those things aren't enough, then maybe it's time to look beyond that job and start to find the priorities that are bubbling up in my life at this current moment. But if I stay in that "have to" place, I just end up resenting the job, probably not doing it very well. And then that discontent bleeds into the rest of my life.I want to catch that as early as possible and ground back into my knowing that everything is a choice. It may take a minute to see it, and I might still end up making the same choice that called it all into question, but it will feel so different. And that energy makes all the difference in my overall engagement and just joy.PAM: Yeah. I find it so interesting to remind myself that I have a choice, particularly at those times when I feel like I don't, right? At first it can be confronting, but it can definitely be fun and enlightening to find the choices that are buried underneath all those expectations that we've brought in.And one that comes to mind for me is attending family gatherings through the holiday season. It can sure feel like I "have to," but again, it's really, really not. Do I actually want to go? I can ask myself that. As you mentioned, if I was sick in the hospital, I wouldn't be going and nobody would be hassling me about not being there.And you mentioned going to the extreme as well. And it's interesting that we sometimes need to do that to remember that our wishes have value in this choice. But it can also be such a great way to just knock loose that initial "have to" pull. "If I broke my leg and I'm in the hospital, I wouldn't have to go to work.I wouldn't have to go to the family gathering," all those pieces.So, what I find really interesting is that once I can just release that "have to" my resistance to it also fades, and I can actually start contemplating the choice itself. So, I start to envision what I would do instead of doing that thing and what I would miss by not going.So, that leads me to ask myself why I might want to go. And again, once the expectation is released, those intentions have space to start bubbling up. Now I can acknowledge, maybe there are a couple of things that I enjoy about attending and I can start looking forward to actually going. And even more interesting, if I choose to go, as you mentioned, I now realize what I enjoy about it and my energy when I show up is anticipation rather than feeling put upon and looking to leave as soon as possible. "I have to stay for two hours and then I won't get in trouble," etc. And when I'm there, I'm also intentional about engaging in the things that I was looking forward to, because I've thought about it now. Maybe it is striking up a conversation with a particular cousin or an aunt who's going to be there or leading a fun game of charades for whoever wants to play, or just enjoying the food that we don't normally get to eat.So, I can soak in the pieces that fill me up, enjoying the whole experience much more than if I just showed up because I have to. There's another tick box that I filled. So, even if I do that expected thing, my experience can be very different just because I remembered that it was my choice to go.ANNA: Oh my gosh. I love that example, because I'm sure it's one that many of us can identify and have. faced, probably, at some point over our lifetime. And understanding our choice and operating from that place really does allow us to move through a holiday season with intention, more joy, we aren't being dragged around and controlled by have to's. We're choosing with intention and that energy changes everything.And I think it helps to realize that, so often, these have to's are actually external voices weighing in with agendas or prescriptions and those voices tend to champion a singular path. "You have to go to college, you have to get married, you have to buy a house, you have to play sports, you've got to play an instrument, you have to learn a language." But you can see with those how it's saying way more about the speaker than it is about you or your child.So, people have their biases and there's a comfort in moving other people towards the path that feels comfortable to them. I'm sure I've been guilty of it, too. But like we've been talking about since the beginning, people are so different. And there are so many different paths to learning and growth and for just being a human.Being aware of where the voices are coming from gives us so much information. We can start to see that it is more about the other person, and perhaps that's something that they want in their life. And then we have a choice, if we want to take that on as our own, or if our inner voice is leading us in another direction. And I have found 9 times out of 10, have to's are coming from these external sources and I really don't want to be buffeted around by other people's expectations of me. I want to tune in to my inner knowing and decide on the path that makes the most sense to my life and to the relationships that I want to cultivate.And again, it's just bringing intention to that and recognizing that, okay, that's outside of me. What is in me? What do I want to do going forward?PAM: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely been my experience with so many of the have to's that bounce around my head, and as you said, sometimes come out of my mouth, have much more to do with expectations from others that I have just absorbed over the years.So, basically a mix of all of the conventional wisdom that surrounds all the things I need to do to be successful in society's eyes. And it really can take a while to tease that apart from what I actually think and feel, because they have become so intimately intertwined. And, in fact, it didn't take long for examining my have to's to become questioning my definition of success, right?I realized I have absorbed what success looks like over time, but what does success actually mean to me? And that really helps me tease apart the things that I actually feel motivated to do. And I could be motivated to do things I don't particularly enjoy, because they help move me along a path to a bigger picture goal.And I find it more helpful to recognize that bigger picture than try to keep beating myself up with, "You have to do this," over and over and over. Just remembering why I'm choosing to do this. Even if I didn't really feel like getting up early to do the thing, or I didn't really feel like working on it this afternoon, et cetera, but recognizing that bigger picture can really help me realize that it's not a "have to," it's an, "I choose to." And as you said, Anna, there are just so many different paths, because people are so different. That one-size-fits-all approach of the conventional path doesn't actually fit well for very many people. So many outliers.ANNA: True, and it can take years to unpack that and to find the path that truly makes the most sense to us, especially if it happens to be a bit more alternative or not fit into the narrow lines that we've been told. But I think understanding all of this that we've been talking about in this episode, we can bring intentionality to our language. We can release the agendas that are being handed to us and find our own unique paths. We can understand and help articulate our why and help our children find and articulate theirs. Through that process, we learn more about them. We learn more about ourselves. And I've just found it really empowering. And it's just also a red flag that I look for when I'm feeling a little disenfranchised or a little dysregulated, or just not feeling happy with what's happening in my life, this is usually a good place for me to go. What am I putting as weight or have to's? What's happening? And to find that why, to find those reasons, to look at that bigger picture, like you were saying, and then suddenly I'm like, oh, I've got it. I know why I'm here. I know why this is feeling that way. And here are the things I can change. So, there's just a lot there.PAM: I know it, it really is. It's such a simple concept, such a simple idea, when you notice yourself saying "have to," especially if you don't go, "Oh, yay!" it is so worth digging into. Because it doesn't have to take a long time. Some are a little bit harder to dig into than others, a little bit more challenging. But it's just so worth taking that extra minute or two to reground ourselves in why we want to do the thing, because literally it changes our energy, because we found our intention.We bring a more intentional energy to it. We can appreciate the act of doing the thing, whatever it is. Even if it's doing the dishes, remembering that I'm choosing it. Ah, now I'm going to set myself up to enjoy this a little bit more or I'm going to more intentionally bring some zen energy to it or whatever it is that I have found that I can appreciate. Or maybe it's like, Ooh, what I appreciate is having it done and let's see, how can I speed it up? It brings back that playful energy that we talk about so much, right?ANNA: Exactly. Open and curious. What can we do to change that feeling that weight that we're carrying around about a particular thing? And I think you're right. It's that combination of finding that why and then, like, okay, what can I do to make this feed me and be more interesting or bring in something different? And so, yeah, I love that point as well.So, just a few questions to ponder this week. First, let's look at places where you find yourself using the words "have to." Find the why and identify the different choices. And how does it feel? What does that process feel like to really dig in there a little bit?And second, look for areas where maybe you're telling other people in your life that they have to do something. Step back a bit and look at how is that impacting your connection, maybe initiate a conversation with them to understand their why, to talk about your why, and see if that changes the energy around the request in general.And then I would just say, let's use the lens of everything being a choice. Even if your hackles were raised when you heard it at first, just bring it in and see how it feels this week. And just see if you notice any shifts or if you recognize the resistance and then look at that. Because again, when I'm feeling like I don't have a choice, that is my red flag to like, whoa, I want to understand where that's coming from and look at what can I do? What can I do to release some of that weight?PAM: I really do find that is such a fun question. What if I didn't do that? What would happen? It is really interesting, because so often we've got that weight of, oh, there'd be so much trouble and all these people would be mad at me. And it's so interesting to just contemplate, because then, even if you're sure you would never not do the thing, it's that shift to realizing, but it's a choice. Everything is a choice.ANNA: Right. I absolutely want to do it, because this is what feels best to me. And then, oh, my gosh, it's just so different to just go, "I want to do this." And so, right. I just find it such a valuable process. I'm so curious how that lands for everyone and what they uncover over the next week. But anyway, thank you so much for listening. And we will see you next time. Take care.

We're back with a new episode in our Parenting series and we're talking about validation again. And this time, we're diving into what it looks like to validate our children. It can be hard to understand or identify with our children's big emotions sometimes. But even then, validating our children's emotions and experiences is such a powerful way to connect with them and help them move through challenging moments. Making sure that children feel heard and seen helps them better understand their internal experience and leads to stronger communication skills. Validation really is a game changer for any age!We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. Explore our courses and coaching at https://livingjoyfullyshop.com/.EPISODE QUESTIONS1. Similar to a question from the previous validation episode, over the next couple of weeks, practice seeing moments through the eyes of your child. Not just ones where they’re upset, but also ones where they’re excited or happy. Can you see why they are expressing that emotion in that moment?2. Do you find it hard, particularly with your children, to not project their behavior in this moment into the future? If so, take some time to ponder how that may interfere with navigating this moment and try out some new self-talk to help you transition back into the present moment.3. Do big emotions feel triggering for you? It’s worth taking some time to dig deeper into that to help detangle your feelings from their feelings, which can be really helpful when we’re trying to validate someone else. You can check out episode 21 to explore triggers specifically.TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello! And welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can sometimes be challenging, because people are so different. Thanks for joining us as we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflicts and increase connection in your most important relationships.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen from the beginning, particularly the episodes in our introductory Foundation series. If you want to dive deeper, we also have courses and coaching which you can explore in our Living Joyfully Shop. Follow the link in the show notes or go to livingjoyfullyshop.com.This episode is part of our Parenting series, and it follows from the recent validation episode in our relationship series, episode 26. Today, we're gonna look at validation specifically through the lens of our relationships with our children.In the earlier episode, we talked about the importance of seeing through the other person's eyes to help us empathize with them, and that is just as valuable with our children. I think sometimes our society devalues and minimizes children's feelings, thinking they get upset over silly things. But in my experience, that is just not true.To experience that yourself, we need to bring two of the tools we talked about last time into our interactions with our kids and that's seeing through their eyes and not having an agenda. Their actions and reactions often really do make sense when we look at the situations through their eyes, when we consider their experiences so far in life, their perspective on the situation at hand, their goal in the moment, and the different aspects of their personality.Very often, when we bring those all together, when we see what this moment looks like through their eyes, their actions and reactions make sense. This is their truth. Regardless of what it looks like through our eyes, this is what it looks like through their eyes. Full stop.And also, how we would process and move through this moment may well not work for them. When we meet them where they are, when they feel seen and heard, and when we support them in moving forward in ways they want to explore, we help them learn so much about themselves. Of course, that means releasing our agenda around what that looks like and helping them find what it looks like for them.When it comes to our children, we often think we need to teach them what it looks like, but they are different people than us. Again, different experiences, goals, personalities. Chances are what works for us won't work well for them.ANNA: Oh my gosh, it's so true. And I'm very excited that we're talking about validation related to our children. When people are wondering, how do I improve my relationship with my child or teen, this is it.And so, I want to start with a quote from Brené Brown that's kind of related to this, and it's just a simple quote and it says, "In order to empathize with someone's experience, you must be willing to believe them as they see it and not how you imagine their experience to be."So, just another twist on what we were saying about seeing through their eyes, but it's such a critical step. So, however we can get it to land for someone, because many times, what someone is feeling in the moment may not make sense to us. And when we're talking about children and big emotions at times, it can be truly baffling.We can wonder, how did we get here? But what we can do is trust that what they're expressing in this moment is their truth. Full stop, like you said.PAM: Yes. It's not manipulative at all. This is what they're seeing and what they're feeling in this moment. It just is.ANNA: Right now, in this moment. And when we can hear that and reflect back our understanding, it helps them move through the big emotions.They aren't put in a position of defending why they're feeling a certain way. And if, in fact, we hear them start defending, you can be pretty sure that we're making it about us. And that defending we're hearing is about our lack of understanding. And that's the red flag, and it isn't helping them process the upset in front of them at all.So, it's important to start from the understanding that with validation, we're not trying to solve it. We're not trying to downplay or tamp down their emotions or anything about the experience at all. We're tuning in to understand their feelings and the intensity around what is happening for them without agenda, without judgment. And as you said, this is a critical piece, because it's very easy to fall into judgment. It's very easy to go, "Why are they so upset? What is this about? This is ridiculous." But we need to quiet that judgment because that is just going to escalate, escalate, escalate, and disconnect.And validation is such a wonderful tool, and it's absolutely critical for these strong connections so that we can all feel heard and understood.PAM: Yeah, it really, really is. And to meet our children with empathy and validate their experience, it is really helpful to have a sense of the underlying needs they're trying to meet and the context of how that is playing out in the circumstances of the moment.We talk about underlying needs so often, but it's so valuable, right?And for me, that follows along from seeing things through their eyes. That gets me asking myself the question as to what need is underneath there. So, not just that they're upset because their sibling won't give them a toy, but noticing that the toy they're wanting is say a stuffed tiger that over in the far corner you see, they've placed blocks three high into squares, and that two of the squares hold a stuffed bear and a plastic ostrich respectfully while a third pen is empty, which reminds you of your family trip to the zoo last week, and you go, oh, they're playing out that scene.You also know that this child in particular likes to process things through play. So, now it's making more sense that they're so intent on the stuffed tiger, remembering how much they enjoyed watching the tigers at the zoo last week over the big pile of random stuffies on the floor next to the kids. "Why does it have to be this stuffy?" It's going to be easier to validate them now that we better understand what this moment looks like to them and what it feels like to them.That is such an important step because we want to avoid making those dismissive statements like, "It's not a big deal. Just grab another stuffed toy." Or, "Why do you get so upset at such little things?" Because comments like that can leave a child feeling misunderstood. Definitely not feeling seen and heard and loved for who they are.Having spoken with lots of parents over the years, when it comes to upsets, it's pretty common to think, but I don't want to validate these big emotions. It feels like I'm giving them permission to do it even more, but you're really, really not. Over time, our kids develop tools that help them navigate hard moments by being heard and working through these kinds of hard moments as they arise with a trusted person.Validation and working through these moments is what helps them develop the self-awareness to notice when their emotions are rising and explore some tools for their toolbox that help them take action before they bubble over. That is what helps lessen the frequency, not being told they're overreacting and have to stop it right now. We're expecting them to figure out on their own how to stop their emotions from spilling over, just because you told them to stop. Right?So, another aspect of validation to consider is, it's less about validating the emotion itself and more about validating the circumstances that led to the emotion, because that's where the richer learning lies. So, for example, maybe they're playing a video game and get upset when they can't accomplish something they're trying to do. If, wanting to validate, we say, "Oh, I see you're so angry." Well, yes, they're expressing anger, but once we focus on the emotion, where does the conversation go from there?Maybe they respond with an even louder, "Yes! I'm so mad!"But if we can bring more context in, we might say something like, "I know you were so excited to try that level today. I'm sorry it's been so frustrating." And we sit with them. We're sending the message that it's okay, their feelings totally make sense.Maybe they were feeling angry and we helped them notice the underlying frustrations. See, notice that I had used the word frustration instead of anger. Maybe their feelings felt a bit over the top to them, even. They were like, why the heck am I so mad about this? And we helped them see how they got there, that they were extra excited about playing this level and that's why they are extra bummed right now. I mean, right there, there's so much learning.ANNA: Oh my gosh. So much learning for everyone. And I want to talk a minute about examining our language, because it's so important that we want to use language that will help us get to the underlying need and make sure that we're maintaining the connection. And to that end, avoiding those definitive type "you are" statements is a great place to start.We want to be open, we want to inquire, we want to reflect back what we're seeing from the person and the situation, like you were talking about there, that frustration, knowing what they were wanting to do with the game.And we can give language to emotions, but not in a way that feels like we're defining who they are. And that's an important nuance. It can be phrased like, "It sounds like," or, "What I'm hearing," or, "I remember that you were wanting to do this and that's feeling frustrating. Is that what's going on?" Or, "Tell me more about it.I really want to understand." And just that piece, that earnest, "I really want to understand" can bring down intense energy, because they know they don't have to fight to be heard or understood. They can see that we're engaged and present and trying, and you can then rephrase in whatever way feels good to you.But it's about being clear in our intentions of trying to understand, of seeking clarification, that helps the person know that we're engaged. And that we know their feelings are valid, even if we don't fully understand them yet. And that's okay. We don't have to instantly understand. But it's that willingness, it's that earnestness, it's that care.And so, I'm just going to run through a quick example from siblings. So, "I hate my sister!" Okay? So, this is one that some of us have heard. And it can spark this kind of protective instinct that can end up bringing more charge to an already charged situation. But if instead we can hear that type of language and come into the room like, "Whoa, how is everybody? It sounds like maybe you've had enough. Are you wanting to be alone?" And then that kind of questioning can lead the child. Maybe they say, "Well, I don't want to be alone, but she's not listening to me," or whatever the thing is. And then we might say, "Okay. So, I really want to understand. Is it about what you're playing now? Or that she's not hearing you? Or you're done with this game? What do you need her to hear?"And then that drills us down to the issue and it becomes something that we can actually find a solution for. Because, "I hate my sister," doesn't really provide a path forward, but dismissing that with, "Oh, but she means well," or, "You love her," or, "She loves you," or even worse, judgmental language like, "That's not nice. We don't say things like that," all of those dismissing phrases, it puts the person on the defensive and humans just double down when we're on the defensive.But if we can get to those issues, if they feel heard, and then they can move forward with some solutions. If it's about listening, we can help facilitate a conversation that moves us towards a solution. And just in case HALT is involved, which we talked about, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, I would just move those discussions to the kitchen for a snack while we sorted things out, just in case hungry was involved.And I also wanted to be really aware of avoiding dismissing statements like, "You're too sensitive," or, "This is not a big deal." Or, "Why do you get so upset at everything?" Or, "You can't take a joke?" These are things that some of us heard, especially sensitive people, in our childhood, and it just feels terrible. All of those statements and anything like them are so disconnecting. And it just leaves the person not feeling understood, not connected, and you feel like you'll never be connected, because they'll never understand you.So instead, we can offer kindness. We can offer love and support. That is what helps maintain our connection and it allows the person space to move through their emotions knowing that they're valid.But here's the thing, our emotions are valid and nothing good comes from stuffing them down or denying them. And if we have the space to process, we will learn the tools and subsequent situations may not be charged, because like you said, people may think, "But I don't want to validate these big emotions, it's just gonna be more."And maybe it seems like a paradox, but it isn't, and you mentioned it too. We develop the tools by being heard and by working through the upset, especially with a trusted person as a child, working through with a trusted advisor, a parent who hears them and acknowledges, that helps them find the tools to move forward and to even understand their own emotions, because that's what it's all about for little kids, especially as they're trying to understand the emotions.Everything feels big and they want to know what's happening? How do I move through it? Because it can feel so unsettling and scary even. And by being validated and heard, it allows them to process all the big things that they're feeling. And it can be really valuable in the process of helping them find words.For example, we've talked about before, angry behavior is often an expression of another emotion. It could be frustration, like you talked about with the video games, or it could be hurt or loneliness. And digging into that can help a person move forward. So often, when we uncover that underlying emotion, it removes the block that we're seeing. People can stay stuck in that emotion, that kind of higher level, that angry type of emotion until that underlying emotion is identified and understood. And they really don't even understand why they're stuck there until we start to identify it.Reflecting back what you're seeing, being open and kind, and helping them uncover that underlying need and feeling, gives them the tools to excavate that for themselves as they grow.And the more clearly we can express our needs, the easier time we have in all of our relationships. So, it's such a valuable skill to practice with our kids, both for their growth and honestly for our own.PAM: Yeah. Really. We all grow. Getting into these conversations and really seeing through their eyes and validating their experiences can help us learn so much as well.So, something else that can trip us up as we try to validate our children's experience and emotions is projecting this moment into the future. When we start thinking things like, "Are they going to get this upset every time they don't get their way?" we can feel like we need to nip this in the bud right now. And that is fear talking.You can feel the or else hanging off the end of that thought, right? Or else they'll still be acting this way when they're 25 and they won't have any friends. When fear gets into the mix, tunnel vision soon follows, and we are much less able to see the bigger context of the current moment.Where can we most help them understand themselves and explore other ways to navigate these kinds of challenges? Well, right now, in this moment. Projecting into the future definitely makes this much harder.And one other thing I want to mention explicitly is that the ways we validate different people can look very different. Which, I mean, if you've been listening to this podcast past for any length of time is not much of a surprise right now. How can we help THIS child feel seen and heard in THIS challenging moment? So, for some it's about joining them where they are, reflecting back to them, our understanding of them in this moment, validating the intense feelings they're feeling as they're feeling them. That helps them feel seen, heard, and more able to get to a place where they're ready to move forward.For others, it may be about holding space for them without words, in the heat of the moment. Conversations are for later, but even holding that space can feel validating to someone. Our calm presence can communicate that they aren't being judged for having these big emotions or being rushed to move through them to make others comfortable.The energy of a loving and compassionate space being held for them can feel validating, and then more validation and processing can happen in conversation later when the intensity has passed. So either way, in those later conversations, we can also ask them what they'd like us to do to help them next time they're feeling overwhelmed with big emotions. We can try that next time and then check in again to see how it felt. We can tweak it and try the new plan next time, over and over.I just think it's so helpful because when people start thinking about validation, so often they think it's something they need to say, but our actions, even silent actions, can be validating as well.ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. And I feel like this is where it's so important to know your child, your partner, and honestly, yourself. Because, for many people in the heat of an upset, they don't want words, but they also often don't want to be left alone. So when we have those big emotions, it can be scary, especially for children, but really for anyone. When people run away or try to stop the emotion, it just feels terrible.So, if instead we can show that unconditional love and stay present, it helps the big emotions wash through without the added weight of, how are they landing on this person I love? We don't have to feel bad about the feelings. And that can help us move through them. And when verbal validation is not welcome in the heat of the moment, there are so many ways to be present and validate without words just being that calm presence, like you mentioned. Some may want to physically be held, others may just want us sitting nearby or on the other side of the room, but still there. It could be fetching a comforting toy or something that feels good to them. It could be moving them to a quiet space, because we can tell there's some sensory overwhelm in that particular situation. Or maybe it's clearing the room if they're not able to move, maybe shepherding other people out to something fun so that we can bring the sensory input down in that way. It can be getting food and water.We had this thread in the Living Joyfully Network where we talked about what we needed personally to feel heard and validated and seen in an upset, and it was fascinating. Everyone was so different. I personally want to be alone. I need to process before I'm ready to have anyone else's energy in that situation. But others wanted someone there the whole time, even if they said they didn't want anything and didn't want them to stay, which I thought was fascinating and a little bit confusing.But it's so important and it's why it's so helpful to have these conversations outside of the heat of the moment, so there just aren't misunderstandings and we can be present for the people we love in the way that they need us, not necessarily in the way that would feel good to us. Understanding those nuances of how we move through things can really help.And I think what I loved about the thread was it showed how different we all are, and recognizing those differences in us as adults who were the people that were responding, helps us see that it's different for our kids, too. Each of our children are going to have their own ways that feel validating for them and the things that they need in any given moment.And for people who prefer non-verbal, again, there's so many things you can do. So, whenever I hear someone say, "Well, my child doesn't like to be validated," I'm just like, hmm. We need to get curious and tweak our approach a little bit, because it's probably not tuning into what feels validating to them. Because I think what's often easiest is we do what would feel validating to us in the moment. Again, we're putting ourselves in their shoes versus seeing through their eyes, because I will firmly stand on the belief that every human wants to be heard and seen in a way that feels good to them.And so, let's figure out what helps them feel good. Let's figure out what helps them move through an upset. And we do that by having conversations outside of the heated moments and just learning about one another.PAM: Exactly. I mean, learning how to validate my children was one of the biggest game changers in my relationships with them. I do think absolutely, we all want to feel seen and heard and loved for who we are. I mean, even for myself, any age, any age. I feel it makes all the difference when it comes to cultivating connection and trust in our relationships.So, here are some questions to ponder this week around this idea. Number one, similar to a question from the previous validation episode, over the next couple of weeks, practice seeing moments through the eyes of your child, not just ones where they're upset, but also ones where they're excited or happy. Can you see why they are expressing that emotion in that moment? That should be fun.Number two, do you find it hard, particularly with your children, to not project their behavior in this moment into the future? If so, take some time to ponder how that may interfere with navigating this moment and try out some new self-talk to help you transition back into the present moment.ANNA: That's an important one.PAM: I know, right? Yes, that just got me thinking about all the times. That transition is very familiar, because it is so easy to go, oh my gosh, you know?ANNA: Is it always going to be like this? No, just come back to the moment in front of you.PAM: That's where we can have the most impact.ANNA: And the learning, right? That's where the learning is on their part. On our part. That's where the practice is. That's where the trying on the tools are, and that's how we shape the future, is by tending to the moment in front of us.PAM: Exactly. Beautifully said. Okay. Number three, do big emotions feel triggering for you? It's worth taking some time to dig deeper into that, to help detangle your feelings from their feelings, which can be really helpful when we're trying to validate someone else. So, you can check out episode 21 to explore triggers specifically, if this is something that you're finding as well.ANNA: Definitely.PAM: Thanks so much, Anna, and thanks so much everyone for listening. We will see you next time!

We're back with a new episode in our Conflicts series and we're talking about assuming positive intent. It's so common to take someone's words or actions personally and assume that they are trying to irritate, thwart, or hurt us. This happens because we naturally see things from our own perspective. But going into a conversation with those assumptions is pretty much guaranteed to put the other person on the defensive, making productive conversation and connection basically impossible. Assuming positive intent means assuming everyone is doing the best they can in the moment, and that mindset shift can improve our communication and strengthen our relationships.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. Explore our courses and coaching at https://livingjoyfullyshop.com/.EPISODE QUESTIONS1. Think back to a time when someone gave you the benefit of the doubt and contrast that with a time when someone assumed the worst in you. How did you feel? How did you react? How did it impact your relationship with that person moving forward?2. Think of some recent exchanges - were you feeling defensive? Did you notice the other person defending? Think about how assuming positive intent could have changed that. 3. This week, notice the stories you’re telling yourself about other people’s actions.  How often are you assuming positive intent? Do you find it hard to do? Why?4. Think of a recent exchange with someone in which you felt defensive. Did you notice the other person defending in response? How long were you stuck there? How might have assuming positive intent and holding space to learn more changed how things played out? 5. Are there particular people in your life to whom you don’t typically give the benefit of the doubt? Try on assuming positive intent for the next while. How does that shift things?TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can sometimes be challenging because people are so different. Thanks for joining us as we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflicts and increase connection in your most important relationships.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen from the beginning, particularly the episodes in our Foundation Series. In them, we talk about our favorite fundamental relationship ideas and tools. If you hear us mentioning a concept over and over again, chances are it has its own episode in the Foundation Series. You can also visit our shop and find the Foundation Series in a podcast collection bundle to be emailed to you weekly, including transcripts and questions.You can find the link in the show notes, or you can go to livingjoyfullyshop.com. There you can also find information about our coaching, as well, so if you'd like to talk through things that are happening in your relationship and find a healing path forward, that's the place to go. We both work with individuals and couples and again, link in the show notes, or you can go to livingjoyfullyshop.com.So, this episode is part of our Conflict Series and our mini-series inside of that about developing our self-awareness. So, today we're diving into assuming positive intent. This principle is a quick tool that helps us stay connected and open.I think, culturally, we tend to assign negative intent. Our first thought is that someone is doing something to thwart us or irritate us or that they don't have a clue. But so often, that's not the case. And whether it is or isn't, going into a conversation with those assumptions is pretty much guaranteed to put the other person on the defensive, which makes having any sort of productive and connecting conversation basically impossible.And as with so many things we talk about, this plays into being the person we want to be in the world. I want to assume the best in people, because I've seen when I do that, it's often what I find. We are all doing the best we can at any given moment. And that best can change dramatically based on the contextual pieces of life.When we are under-resourced, our ability to think clearly and act with intention is clouded. I want to be a person that allows space and grace for that, because I know there have been plenty of times that I've been there and I've needed that from others. So, assuming positive intent can be assuming that the person is doing the best they can in this moment with the circumstances as they are.PAM: Absolutely. I just love that piece about how doing their best can look very different from one day to the next, or one moment to the next. It's not about thinking what their theoretical best looks like, measuring them in this moment against what they would do if they were feeling fully resourced, fully rested, fully fed, in a great frame of mind, and so on. They really are doing their best in this moment. This is what it looks like. It's the best they can muster. Let's meet them there with as much grace and compassion as we can muster.Over the years, assuming positive intent has become such a helpful touchstone for me when it comes to relationships, particularly with partners, kids, longtime friends, where we have a history. And I can be quick to assume I understand them and tell myself a story about why they're saying or doing something.And as you said, I am apt to tell a negative version of the story about the situation or to feel put upon or ignored or misjudged. And it's not surprising. We are looking at the world through our eyes and evaluating what's happening around us through that lens. How does this affect me? But what assuming positive intent does is remind me that there is almost always more to the story than just my perspective, knowing that they're doing the best they can right now, whatever that looks like to me at first, encourages me to widen my lens and get curious. So, so, so many times over the years, this buffer step has saved me from actively jumping in, misinterpreting things, blaming others, which all create even more rifts in our relationship that need repair.ANNA: I mean, it is such a great reminder to look through their eyes, which I know we talk about a lot, but it's so important. It just helps so much.And we're going to make some assumptions. But starting from that place of assuming the best, or at the very least, giving the benefit of the doubt, just sets the stage for us to learn more and to not fall into that blaming or writing stories that can get us off track.And another piece I think that helps with assuming positive intent is to understand that underneath every behavior is a need. We had an episode on this idea as it relates to parenting, episode 25, and as we mentioned there, this is true for everyone. We try to meet our needs through our behaviors, and while sometimes the somewhat linear process, "I'm thirsty and I'm going to get a drink now," sometimes it's a bit harder to recognize, especially from the outside.But part of assuming positive intent is understanding that the person you're dealing with is trying to meet a need. At that particular moment, your needs might not be aligned, but if we can slow things down and give some space to find the underlying needs, that's the space where we can find solutions. That surface-level conflict that seems insurmountable and at complete odds, that can just melt away as we figure out the needs involved and address those.So, let's say if a person's working for you and they haven't turned in a report, instead of assuming that they're irresponsible or don't care, look for that underlying need. Have an open conversation with the energy of wanting to understand. Maybe you find out that they've had several fires they've been putting out that took priority, or they didn't understand the request, or that they were waiting for some information from a third party before they could finish it.Being open and not jumping to conclusions gives you a chance to find out what's happening under the behavior of not turning in the report, and then you can both work together to solve the problem at hand instead of creating friction or a rupture by making a harsher assumption. And there may be things that need to be addressed or systems that need to be changed, but you're only going to get there if you can have that open conversation where the person's not on the defensive and really telling you what's going on.And part of what we can practice with our partners, children, and the people in our lives is providing additional information. But the space for that to feel safe is in the space of assuming positive intent. There, we can have these clarifying conversations. We can explain how things are feeling to us and really hear what the other person's experiencing.PAM: Yeah, exactly. Because if we assume that the first story that pops into our head is the right one, so often what we're doing is putting the other person in the position of having to correct us. And that is a hard thing to do in any relationship, whether with a loved one or a supervisor, or even a newer acquaintance.So, assuming positive intent helps us cultivate that space for further conversation where we can just learn more about what's up, where we can discover the underlying needs they were trying to meet with whatever words, action, behavior they used. The valuable thing about focusing on the needs is that there are often multiple ways to meet them, some of which may have less negative impact on others.So, we can also share our needs in this context and all this bigger picture information helps us work towards a plan that everyone involved is reasonably comfortable with.And I wanted to mention, while it may seem that assuming positive intent and having these conversation takes up precious time we don't feel we have, not doing it is likely to take up maybe even more time down the road, as we continue to butt heads, because we're missing some fundamental understanding of each other's needs and goals. Then you add the time to repair the relationship. Or if you don't, the extra time things take in the future because one or both of you are dragging your feet because you just want to avoid engaging with each other in the first place.ANNA: Oh my gosh, so much. I'd much rather spend the time upfront in a connecting conversation with an eye to understanding each other, rather than dealing with hurt feelings and misunderstandings on the back end.And I really think, in the end, it's more efficient, because we're actually getting to the needs and solving any roadblocks, versus pressing ahead with made up stories and assigning malicious intent that ends up creating these huge disconnects that take time and effort to heal and we still may not be addressing the need underneath. And so, it just keeps repeating.Another big aspect of this is releasing any defensiveness on our part. A person's actions say way more about them than about us. They give us a clue as to what's going on for them, and we can assume positive intent. They have the space and the desire to let us in on what those things are, but if we react with defensiveness, communication just shuts down every time and it becomes this attack and defend tit-for-tat dynamic or a stalemate, and then we're stuck. So, we aren't learning anymore about the needs driving the behavior or what contextual pieces might be at play. We're not learning anything about those pieces that are so critical. And all of this draws out the conflict and doesn't move us towards solutions.So, assuming positive intent leaves space to get to the bottom of things faster without sparking that defensiveness in the other person and we can own our own pieces, too, to not get defensive. And I think we can all think of how nice it feels when someone gives us the benefit of the doubt and doesn't assume the worst, even if we're not at our best, or especially if we've made a mistake. Because usually, we're so hard on ourselves. We're beating ourselves up about the mistakes. So, then having that compounded just creates this cycle. Recognizing that's at play, it just makes it easier for me to give that gift to other people in my life, whether we're in a close relationship or it's just transactional.For me, again, it boils down to being the person I wanna be in the world. And the bonus is that it really just makes everything go so much more smoothly. We move through and often avoid conflict, and we get to the root of things without that defensiveness that can feel so unpleasant and without those misunderstandings that can cause a lot of hurt feelings.PAM: Yeah, so much. Things unfold more smoothly and often more quickly when people aren't feeling judged and defensive. And it makes sense. Getting stuck in that repetition of attack, defend, attack, defend, slows things down so much, while also not getting to the root of the issue or the underlying needs.And along those lines, I find it helpful to remember that assuming positive intent isn't about, instead telling myself a positive story and acting from there, because that is still making it about me and my interpretation, my need to infer a story and to be right about it.But as you said, Anna, their actions really are all about them. It's their story. So instead, for me, assuming positive intent is more about knowing there's a story and not jumping to conclusions, particularly the negative ones, because that just makes moving through the moment even more challenging. Getting curious instead of getting stuck in defensiveness helps create that space for the kinds of honest, non-judgmental conversations that will help everyone better understand the needs at play and find interesting ways to meet them.ANNA: Yeah, I think that assuming positive intent, it's just a way to give some space around things. We aren't writing a story at all. We're acknowledging that there's more to the situation than just what we're seeing. There always is more. There just always is. And leaving space for that. Asking for clarification without any negative energy or agenda just puts us in the best position to learn more and move forward.And to say it again, we are all doing the best we can in any given moment. Keeping that in mind, assuming positive intent helps us uncover the needs that are driving the behaviors that we're seeing.All of which helps us stay connected to the important people in our life and avoid unnecessary conflict with them or anyone we come across.PAM: I just go back to that for the nth time already, but doing the best we can in any given moment, I think it can be challenging for people to believe. Like, "I've seen them handle this so much better before."ANNA: Or, "They should be able to," when we catch ourselves saying, "They should be able to," that's a red flag.PAM: That's always a great clue. But also when, in our mind we're like, "Okay, I could do this, which would be like better. But I do this other thing anyway. It's what I reach for." So, even if theoretically we could choose something better in the moment and we don't, that's still okay. We may not be able to express why we made the choice in the moment. But we made that choice in the moment. And maybe these conversations after will help us better understand ourselves, better understand what was going on in that moment.It might help us recognize some other weight we were carrying or some other thing that was going on that we just couldn't take that extra 10 seconds to think of something else to do and we just needed to do this thing in the moment. So, we don't need to judge things as best. We don't need to figure out any scale or spectrum of what could be better, better, better, better. This is what happened in the moment, and oh my gosh, I can meet you there. And we can just have conversations.ANNA: And figure out the next steps, because we never know, and there's so many contextual pieces. I'll just say it over and over again. We cannot judge a relationship without taking into account these contextual pieces that changes peoples behaviors because of a myriad of reasons. We see it in ourselves, like you said. And so, just watching for those words, the shoulds or the judgment or the kind of standing back and then realizing like, hey, that's really disconnecting and I'm not getting the full story. And when we open up for those conversations, that's when we can learn. Do we have a systems problem here? Do we have a communications problem here? Do we just have a, we're all hungry problem here? Let's get some food and then we'll tackle this afterwards.It can be from the simple to the complex, but you're never going to get at what it is if you don't assume the positive intent, start having the space for the conversation, and then have that clear communication between one another.PAM: Yeah, exactly. And back to what you say, the person that I want to be in the world. And as far as I can reach for that in the moment, giving myself that same grace and compassion we want to give to the other person.ANNA: For sure. Okay, so, we're going to give some questions to reflect on this week.So, number one, think back to a time when someone gave you the benefit of the doubt and contrast that with a time when someone assumed the worst in you. How did you feel? How did you react? How did it impact your relationship with that person moving forward? Because we've all gotten both sides of this, and so, I think we can all think of some examples and just really sit with, "Hey, how did that feel and how would it have felt differently?"And number two, think of some recent exchanges where you or the other person was feeling defensive. Think about how assuming positive intent could have changed that. And so, for me, defensiveness is just that red flag either on their part, or if I'm recognizing it in someone else or seeing it in myself, it's like, okay, we can change that energy. We can change the way this conversation is going, because neither one of us need to feel defensive. We're here to understand.PAM: Defensiveness is such a great clue.ANNA: Yes. Such a great clue.PAM: It's pretty easy to feel once you're starting to look for it. So, that's what we're trying to encourage here, is just to start noticing these things even just that little bubble of oof, there it is. ANNA: Right. It's just that little, there it is. And even if you can't make that change in that moment, recognizing it to reflect on it later, then you can notice like, okay, I see what's getting me there. Now maybe I can think of some steps to not go to that place of defensiveness.Okay. So, this week, number three, notice the stories you're telling yourself about other people's actions. How often are you assuming positive intent? Do you find it hard to do? And why? Are you writing some stories? Are you assigning some more malicious intent? I think that will be really interesting to just see, because I think, like we talked about earlier, it comes pretty naturally. We're just running through and it happens. And so, just that awareness gives us that little pause, that little space. Okay. And four, think of a recent exchange with someone in which you felt defensive. Did you notice that the other person was defending in response? How long were the two of you stuck there? How might have assuming positive intent and holding space to learn more changed how that played out and how that tit-for-tat was going?And number five, are there particular people in your life to whom you don't typically give the benefit of the doubt? Try on assuming positive intent for the next bit and just see, does that shift things in what can be some difficult relationships or some areas that you get stuck? It's just something to play with and again, will give you more information about that relationship and about some ways that maybe you can tweak a few things.PAM: To me, that trying on things, seeing how they go, just doing it for a little while and seeing how things unfold, that is such a valuable approach for me. Rather than like, oh, I should be assuming positive intent. I'm going to do this all the time or I've failed. None of that helps me either as I'm learning this stuff and trying to figure it out and play with it. I need the experiences, the gathering of experiences for me to understand how it's working. Because when I see something, like you said, you have seen this over the years, we both have, play out in such a sense that it's something we've chosen to adopt because we found it as a helpful tool. So, we're sharing it as a helpful tool, not as a rule that you must do this now.ANNA: There are no edicts or "have to," it really is play with it and see if it shifts things, because it also may just open up to other ideas that shift things or other conversations with the people in your life where you're learning more about one another. And to me, that's the goal. Learning about ourselves, learning about one another, and just improving our relationships along the way.All right, so thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Take care.PAM: Bye!

We’re back with another episode in our Relationships series and we’re talking about validation. Validation might just be the most valuable tool in our relationship toolbox, yet it’s not something that a lot of people have experience with—most people were not validated as children.It can take practice to develop the skill, but that work is worth it. Every person wants to feel seen and heard, which in turn paves the way for smoother interactions, less conflict, and more learning about the important people in our lives.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Find our courses, including Navigating Conflict, in our store at LivingJoyfullyShop.comYou can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!EPISODE QUESTIONS1. Do you feel the difference between sympathy and empathy? Think back to a challenging time you experienced and how others engaged with you. Did you feel a difference between sympathetic and empathetic responses?2. Over the next couple of weeks, practice seeing moments through the eyes of your partner or a good friend. Not just ones where they’re upset, but also ones where they’re excited or happy. Can you see why they are expressing that emotion in that moment? If you put yourself in their shoes, would you feel the same emotions?3. Do you find it hard to release your agenda around how someone else moves through their challenges and emotions? Try some different mantras or self-talk and see what helps you transition from seeing the path to your expected outcome to being curious about and supportive of their path to their outcome.4. What feels good and validating to you when you’re experiencing a challenging situation? Let your partner or friend know and ask them to try that with you next time you’re frustrated or upset about something.TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello, and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can sometimes be challenging because people are so different. Thanks for joining us as we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflict and increase connection in your most important relationships.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen from the beginning, particularly the episodes in our Foundations series. In them, we talk about our favorite fundamental relationship ideas and tools. If you hear us mentioning a concept over and over, chances are it has its own episode in the foundation series that you can check out to learn more.And before we get started, we just wanted to let you know that we recently released a course titled Navigating Conflict. It will help guide you through different aspects of conflict and give you some concrete tools to help you more gracefully navigate conflicts in all your relationships. Because conflict isn't a zero-sum game where one person wins and the other person loses in equal measure. Often we can find win-win paths through the situation. All of the course content is available in both text and audio formats, so you can dive into whichever works better for you. Maybe you're listening on some days and reading on others. You'll find the Navigating Conflict course in our store at livingjoyfullyshop.com. You'll also find the link in the show notes. Check it out and see if it's a good fit for you.As for today's episode, we're diving into the art of validation as part of our relationships series. Okay, so let's just take a moment to situate ourselves. In the sense that we're talking about it, dictionary.com defines validation as the act of affirming a person or their ideas, feelings, actions, et cetera, as acceptable and worthy. And I think that's a pretty good place for us to start.It's important to note that validation isn't about praising the person. Praise is a judgment that we're expressing. It makes the interaction about us and what we think, taking the focus away from the person we're wanting to validate. Affirmations are nonjudgmental observations that we're sharing. See the difference? How sharing an observation can help a person feel seen and how taking the time to notice and share can help them feel worthy of our attention and care?For me, validation is about being in an authentic relationship with another human being. That's it. It's not at all about control or coercion or subtle manipulation. There is no ulterior motive. The only goal is connecting and learning more about each other as human beings.ANNA: I'm so excited to be talking about validation, because I really believe it's the most valuable tool in the toolbox. I say it so often, but every person wants to feel seen and heard, period. And understanding that paves the way for smoother interactions, avoiding conflict, and like you mentioned, learning more and truly understanding the person in front of us, all of which leads to deeper connections with those we love and easier exchanges with those in our lives for any reason.And I feel like validation is not something that a lot of people have experience with. Most people were not validated as children. And it can take a bit of practice for it to be that first tool that you reach for, which I think is so often where it needs to be. Instead, a lot of times defensiveness is where we go first, and if we start there, things can derail. So, when we reach for validation, it allows that space for energy to calm, for the person to feel heard, for us to learn more about what actually is going on in the whole situation.PAM: Yeah, it's true. It can take a while to gain experience with moving through our reactive emotions to get to the space where we can actively listen to and validate the other person and to just get reasonably comfortable with how validation works, right?So, I think it will help us to take a moment and look at how sympathy, empathy, and validation weave together in our relationships, because those are pretty common terms that we hear, but it can sometimes be hard to tease them apart. So, I think this will help us get a better sense of what we are talking about when we say validation.So, sympathy acknowledges emotion in another person. We feel bad for them having to go through whatever challenge they're experiencing. We wish things were better for them.Now, empathy is about feeling WITH another person. Theresa Wiseman is a nursing scholar and she talks about four characteristics of empathy. Number one is seeing the world as the other person sees it through their eyes, not putting yourself in their shoes. Number two is being non-judgmental, recognizing that this is their truth. Three is understanding the other person's feelings. And four is communicating your understanding through words or actions. So, as you just think about those right off the top of your head, at this point, you can see this is our processing work to do. So, I just want to quickly step through them in a little bit more detail.So, the first step is seeing the world as the other person sees it. I think this piece can really trip us up, because it's not about putting ourselves in their shoes so that we can take stock of the situation as it looks to us, asking ourselves what would we do in similar circumstances. Rather, it's about looking at things through the other person's eyes, understanding what they are seeing in this moment, what their needs and challenges actually are. This includes the context of their life from how their day is going, to how their unique personality is woven in, to what they find challenging and easy and frustrating. And it can even be how they prefer to process things. We just want to get into their head and see things through their eyes, to be them as best we can. And I think that's the distinguishing difference.Now the second step is the non-judgmental piece, which is really about recognizing that the way they're seeing and feeling in this moment is their truth, full stop. Right now, this is the truth to them. It's not that the way we see the moment is wrong, it's that their perspective isn't wrong either. We are different people and this is their truth.The third step is understanding their feelings, which I think is pretty self-explanatory. Bringing together seeing through their eyes and recognizing that this is their truth, we are now more able to truly understand their feelings, how they got to this moment.And this brings us to step four, which is where validation happens. It's where we connect with them and communicate our understanding, so that as you say, they feel seen and heard.ANNA: Oh my gosh. I love those steps. And that first step of seeing how the other person sees it is so critical. And it's the hardest, I think, because we tend to think people see and experience the world in the same way that we do, and it takes a pause and some intention to instead view the situation through their eyes. We may not understand why someone is reacting the way that they are. Because maybe we don't see it as a big deal at all, but trusting that it absolutely is a big deal to them, and being there to hear and reflect that can quickly dissipate any kind of charge energy that you're experiencing. And then they don't need to get louder and louder to convince us. And we are open and we're listening.When we're validating, it can sometimes be helpful to offer words that dig down a bit deeper. For example, angry behavior is often an expression of another emotion. It could be frustration or hurt or loneliness. Digging into that can help the person move forward, and often we can uncover that underlying emotion. When we do that, it can remove any kind of block. And when you hit on the correct emotion, it really helps the person feel understood. And that alone can dissipate the anger. And then you're able to move towards some kind of resolution or even a conversation to understand more. That really isn't possible until the person feels heard.And so, this is often the place arguments start or ruptures begin. That attack, defend, get louder, withdraw, repeat, come back, and just we keep going, going, going. We can start with something simple instead, "I can hear how frustrated you are and I really do want to understand," there may be some more loud communication, but you'll start to see more about what's actually bothering them.And then you can affirm like, "That makes sense. That is frustrating. I understand." And, "That makes sense," is an honest communication in that moment, even if it wouldn't feel the same to you, because you can see that it makes sense to them.And this is not the time to be defensive. So, if it's coming at you directly, this is the time to lean in and try to understand. There will be time later to share your experience of the situation if that's appropriate. Creating space and letting the big emotions just wash over you, tuning in and recognizing the struggle of the person in front of you, can soften you and then you're in a position to genuinely say, "I want to understand," and start reflecting back what you're seeing.PAM: Oh, yes, yes, yes. It can be so helpful to note too that reflecting back what we're seeing doesn't always mean repeating what they're saying. Reflecting back the actual emotion they're feeling versus the one they may be expressing can not only help them feel understood, it can help them better understand themselves.So, another thing that's important when it comes to validation is not having an agenda. We can't, we really can't. Validation is all about supporting the other person while an agenda is about us. So, that means no agenda around their process for moving through their emotions and no agenda around how quickly they move through that process.if we're harboring an underlying agenda, while we might be saying words that we think are validating, like, I can see you're upset, our underlying energy, maybe even the cadence of our words, is more likely to be communicating something more judgmental and maybe condescending. Like, that's such a small thing. Just get over it already. You can do that with tone.So, for me, noticing that I have an agenda in mind, an end goal on the horizon is a clue that I need to dig a bit deeper. Even if I've done the work to understand the situation and circumstances, made the shift to empathy and seeing through their eyes, I'm still gazing to the future through my own eyes.Now again, that doesn't make me wrong, for me. Maybe I, as the unique butterfly I am, would have moved through it by now and beyond to something else. But again, this moment isn't about me, is it? Absolutely not. Sometimes I found it helpful to remind myself that I don't know how this will unfold for them, that I don't know how long it may take.Repeating this to myself a few times can just help me release my expectations, my agenda, and return to this moment with curiosity and love. I begin to wonder, hmm, how will this unfold? How might I help them feel loved and supported in this really hard moment for them?ANNA: Right, because agendas can be so sneaky, right? They're just right there and they definitely take us out of the moment that's in front of us, and pretty much every person, no matter the age or relationship to us, will pick up on it. And it just creates more disconnection and keeps us stuck in that place of them feeling like they need to express themselves dramatically and us trying to figure out what's going on.And like you said, it is so unique to each person and it's also so contextual. Something that typically would roll right past our partner can create a huge reaction when they are hungry or tired or overwhelmed with outside stressors. Even more reason to not make it about us and to offer empathy.Often, we don't know the context, but just reminding ourselves that there is one can bring our energy down and help us connect with the upset of the person in front of us.Being intentional about language can help so much, too. Using "I" statements and avoiding "you are" statements helps us have clear communication. We can only know for ourselves. With our closest relationships, we can work together to use "I" statements, and it just makes such a world of difference. You are attacking me versus I'm feeling attacked and I need a minute, holds a very different energy and can elicit a very different response than the other person.And I like to remind myself that no one can make us feel anything. Only we have control over our feelings and actions. So, something happens, we have a feeling about it, and we take an action. The thing we can't control is the thing that happened. Often that's out of our control. From there, we get to decide though how we feel, and we may run through some feelings. We may have all different kinds of feelings at first, but giving some space and observing and then acknowledging them and not getting stuck there puts us in a better position to take action that's in alignment with the person we want to be. So, it's not that having feelings is bad or that there's any particular bad feeling. We want to acknowledge all the feelings as they come up, but understanding that we don't have to get stuck on the first feeling that comes up can just be really empowering.And so, your partner could be coming at you with some angry energy about something you did or didn't do, and you may be feeling attacked or hurt or defensive, but you can acknowledge and breathe through those feelings and move to a place of validation.So, it might look like, okay, I understand why that's super frustrating. You thought I was going to get the car fixed today and I didn't get it done. And so, now we're in this pinch needing the car. Keep validating until they're able to move through their initial flush of emotions, and then you can both move to solving it together.What do we want to do now that we're in the pinch and the car isn't ready? Together, you can figure out the next steps. But if you start defending, oh, but this happened, but that, but this, but that. Then they're going to up the volume until they feel like they're heard and that we understand how frustrated they are. And you don't get to that stage of finding a solution together. Instead, now you have a rupture and, and not only do you have the initial problem, now you have this rupture to heal and solving the problem is so much harder when you're not on the same page like that.Because the thing is, we all make mistakes. We miss the mark sometimes, and that's okay. Validation is just a great first step in understanding one another and moving back to the place of connection. And sometimes the big expression will actually have nothing to do with you, and it's still a time for validation. And perhaps it's easier in those situations to just give them as much time or space and validation around their experience and emotion. Again, without that agenda that we're going to move through it quickly or at any kind of pace that are determining, but with a genuine desire to connect and understand what's happening for them.PAM: Yeah. For me, that's what I need to get myself back to and remind myself of that genuine desire to connect and understand.At the top of the episode, I spoke of validation as an art, and that's because I don't see it as a science, as a repeatable process. Of course, there are some principles involved that will consistently help us. That's what we've been talking about. Talking about seeing things through the other person's eyes, shifting from sympathy to empathy.But beyond that, whenever the opportunity to validate someone arises our choice of words and actions in the moment need to weave together with our understanding of the person involved and the circumstances of this particular situation and the moment. So, to me, it kind of feels like an art. And when it doesn't feel rote, doesn't feel like a script of things we're supposed to repeat every time, that also helps a person feel seen and heard in the moment. Because, that moment really is unique to them, right? It can be disconnecting if we say exactly the same thing, it's like, you're not seeing me. Right?ANNA: Because we're not present. We're not present in that moment when that's happening. And again, people pick up on those type of things, that agenda that you're not really hearing me and then there we have the divide that we have to figure out how to cross.PAM: Exactly. Exactly. So, here are some questions to ponder this week around the idea of validation. So, number one, do you feel the difference between sympathy and empathy? I use the word feel instead of think, because we want to focus in on our body. Embodying ourselves in the moment.Think back to a challenging time you experienced and how others engaged with you. Did you feel the difference between sympathetic and empathetic responses?Number two, over the next couple of weeks, practice seeing moments through the eyes of your partner or a good friend or your child, not just ones where they're upset, but also ones where they're excited or happy. Can you see why they are expressing that emotion in that moment? If you put yourself in their shoes, would you feel the same emotion? I'm just excited for people to play with those questions. Just because it really helps, I think, to separate and to understand how people are different.ANNA: Anytime we can get to more understanding about how different we are and how different we see and experience the world, it just opens up this space for understanding.PAM: It really does. It really does. Okay, number three, do you find it hard to release your agenda around how someone else moves through their challenges and emotions? Try some different mantras or self-talk and see what helps you transition from seeing the path to your expected outcome, to being curious about and supportive of their path to their outcome.And lastly, what feels good and validating to you when you're experiencing a challenging situation? How about letting your partner or friend know, and ask them to try that with you next time you're frustrated or upset about something and see how that feels? What difference does that make?ANNA: Yes, because again, we're all so different and what feels good and validating will be different for each of us. So, open up these conversations, play with it, talk to the people in your life, and I think it'll be really interesting.PAM: Oh, I think so. I'm very excited. Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and we will see you next time. Bye.ANNA: Bye.

We're back with another episode in our Parenting series, in which we explore our relationships with our children. In today's episode, we're talking about behaviors. A lot of mainstream parenting advice focuses on children's behavior and the best ways to stop unwanted behaviors and increase desired ones. What that approach fails to acknowledge is that behaviors are always an expression of underlying needs. And without digging in to understand those needs, very often, the problem remains. By getting curious and figuring out our loved ones' true needs, we can solve problems together and strengthen our connection at the same time.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONS1. This week, notice your own behaviors and take a moment to contemplate the underlying need you’re trying to address. Often we act or react the same way over and over without thinking because it’s become a habit. Let’s bring some intentionality back in by considering the need at play.2. Next week, with some more self-awareness under our belt, try narrating a choice or two a day, including the need you’re taking care of, to your child/ren. Just a sentence or two, lightly, with no expectation of a response.3. Think of a behavior from your child/ren that is rubbing for you and list out some possible underlying needs they might be trying to satisfy. Use that lens the next time it happens and see what you learn. Did one of those possible needs make more sense?4. Thinking back over the last week or two, has something happened at home that impacted your child/ren’s behavior? This can just help you bring awareness to context and not focus only on behaviors and their impact. TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can be challenging, because we're all so different. On the Living Joyfully Podcast, we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflicts and increase connection in your most important relationships. We talk about concepts like self-awareness, compassion, context, consent, and so much more.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes.We started with some foundational relationship ideas that are so helpful to have in your toolbox. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you would subscribe and share. We really appreciate your support as it grows. You can learn more about all that we're doing at LivingJoyfully.ca.Today's episode is part of the parenting series, and we're going to be looking at behaviors. Much of conventional parenting advice is centered around changing behaviors. That's usually attempted through punishments or rewards, which are really just two sides of the same coin of control. What's missing is an understanding of what the behaviors are telling us.Behaviors are at the surface. They are the clue to what's going on at a deeper level. When we focus our attention on that surface-level behavior, we're missing what's really happening for the child or person involved, and it's frustrating and usually fruitless practice to try to manipulate behavior without understanding the why behind it. This is especially true if you want to have a healthy, connected relationship with the person. It's true that we can change behavior through coercion and bribes, but often at the expense of our connection and our understanding of one another.PAM: Yeah, definitely behaviors stem from something. We have reasons for the things we do, as do the other adults in our life. And the same goals for children. They are people, too. Whether or not they can explain why they did something is different. Sometimes adults can't explain their reasoning either. But yes, the behaviors are clues to what's going on at a deeper level.ANNA: Right. It's important to understand that behaviors are outward expressions of needs. We do things in order to meet our needs. We make food when we're hungry. We may call a friend when we're upset. We may stomp through the house when we're mad to get some energy out. Those things we do are behaviors. When we understand that behind every behavior is a need, we start to see that the behaviors are a clue, just a piece of the puzzle.If we want to understand the person in front of us, we want to understand the need driving the behavior. If the behavior happens to be undesirable, for whatever reason, the most lasting way to get rid of it is to meet that need. And while we're focusing on parenting and children in this episode, it's really the same for every relationship.When we think of behavior as a clue, it changes the energy around difficult exchanges. We're bringing an open, curious mindset to the situation to solve the puzzle. What's driving this behavior that's causing problems? Problem behaviors can range from fighting with a sibling to not brushing their teeth.Turning first to HALT gives us a quick check-in about needs that often drive behaviors, and we've talked about it before, but just a quick reminder is to see if the person is hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. These are contextual things that impact behavior and meeting the need will stop that behavior quickly.The thing is, kids want to fit into a family system. It's biological, because it's needed for survival, but things can get in the way. Things that they may not be able to articulate, and that's what we want to help them discover. What's driving a particular behavior? Not only so we can eliminate the behavior that might be causing disconnection or even harm, but so that they can start to learn about how to recognize the need themselves and choose ways to get that need met that actually help them stay connected, which furthers the goal for them.And I would say HALT is probably at play with like 75% of issues. But there can be so many other things, too. A tough day at school, a mistake made earlier that they keep replaying, worrying about something in the future, stress in the family, worrying about things that are happening in the world.Needs can range from things like needing certainty, needing to feel safe, needing to feel connected, needing to process, needing to be alone, needing to be heard, and on and on.There isn't a formula, but the better you know one another, and as trust is built, the easier it will be to uncover the needs through inquiry and conversation, keeping in mind that these are not like long sit-down conversations, but gentle inquiry with the energy that you want to help and understand. Even just saying, "I'm here, I want to understand," can go a long way. Remembering there is always an underlying need, and that's where we find the solutions to address any behavior we're seeing.PAM: Yes. It is really helpful to remember that exploring behaviors to uncover needs is a process. It's often not solved in a one and done, long, drawn-out conversation. I love that phrase you used, gentle inquiry.So, maybe in one passing conversation we validate their frustration, how their action or reaction was their best choice in that moment. We love them. Maybe another time we share an observation like, it was the end of a long day and a few things had already gone sideways. Maybe next time we won't try to do another thing. And each time we can leave space for them to continue the conversation or to move on. And we can pay extra attention to any time they approach us, maybe wanting to talk about what happened. We want them to feel our support of their processing, whatever it looks like. And in the meantime, we can be doing our own processing as well.ANNA: Exactly. Whenever we're reacting to a behavior, it is a very good time to take a look at what's being triggered in us, because ultimately our reaction is our responsibility. Nobody is making us feel a certain way. We are responsible for how we feel. And that is a whole other episode that we'll get into because it's really an important nuance.But when we're seeing a disturbing behavior or behavior we don't understand, it's so helpful to look at the context. Our first inclination is to look at the person, what's wrong with them? Why are they being so difficult or mean? Why are they doing this thing? But so often, context is playing a role. How was their day? Did something happen at school? Is there something going on with friends? Are they worried about something that's coming up? Starting from a place of curiosity and assuming positive intent allows us to look beyond an offending behavior to see the person in front of us, a person who might be hurting or in need of help. And understanding the context helps us not to go to that place of condemning the person or the relationship, and it helps our children learn to understand and articulate how something is impacting them instead of just lashing out. They can start to give words to what they're feeling.And it's really helpful if we start using the language of context in our days. And I like to call it narrating. It's things like, it was such a long day today, I did not eat enough. And I can tell already I'm feeling snappy. I'm exhausted and I can tell I might lose my temper if I don't go to bed soon.Narrating what's going on for us does a couple of things. So, it helps those around us to know that our foul mood isn't about them, and it helps model for our children how to understand context and communicate about it and the impact of it with the people around them.Our job then becomes to listen when they communicate to us, when they tell us that they're too tired to do something or they've had a tough day, listen, and give them space or an extra cuddle or a listening ear. While we don't always understand why someone feels the way that they do, we want to trust in their knowledge and honor it. And again, it goes so far to helping build our connection and our understanding.PAM: Yes. Just to help them feel seen and heard in that moment. Because yeah, the underlying need is just more context that we can gain for that behavior in question.When we judge the behavior as bad, we send the message that we don't love them when they behave that way. So, they're feeling misunderstood. They're feeling unloved for who they are, and they're feeling alone, most likely. Because when we keep the conversation focused on the behavior, we miss the opportunity to help them process what happened, to maybe uncover the underlying need, or at least just get a little bit closer. It may take a while to find the route and then more time to find other ways to meet the need. Again, it's a process.And I definitely found sharing my own processing to be helpful, not in that big sit-down conversation way. But in sharing bits and pieces here and there, as in your great narrating examples. It definitely helps them see that my behaviors are about me, not about them, and also about how I process things. Not with the expectation that they process the same way. What it's communicating is that processing has value. It helps us understand ourselves and each other a bit better. It helps us move through the more challenging times, a bit more gracefully, with a little bit less damage to our connection. And that having hard times isn't just a kid thing. Adults have them, too. It's a human thing.ANNA: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. It's kind of strange, actually, how we seem to have this expectation that kids are going to always act with intention and make choices that we deem as right when so often, as adults we do not. So, it is an interesting kind of double standard to keep an eye out for.Sometimes the issue is a behavior that isn't happening. So, teeth not being brushed, homework not being done, plates not being brought back to the kitchen. When we're facing a behavior that isn't happening, it, it helps to ask what's making it hard. Again, bringing an open, curious mindset means we're open to hearing about their experience, and that helps us find solutions together. Because it's under the behavior or lack of that we gain a better understanding and find the solutions. Adjusting at that surface level really can only happen through rewards or punishment, and you not only impact the relationship, but you're much less likely to have a plan that sticks, because you haven't identified or addressed the needs or the barriers at all.And so, I remember reading this story from a popular psychologist who's a fan of gentle approach to parenting. And the question that was posed to her was, my child refuses to turn off the light, and I feel like it's a waste of energy and money, but nothing I'm saying is working. So, the advice of the psychologist was to remove the light bulb. And then she went on to explain that the solution worked because the child became scared and then learned her lesson.I think this is a really great example of where we can peel back and look at what it would look like to explore the underlying needs instead. So, if we don't get anywhere from asking a child specifically about a behavior or to stop doing it, I want to start looking more closely and watch for clues. It could be something where she simply forgets. If that's the case, well, we could work on figuring out a reminder together. Maybe a sign on the door would be enough. It could be that the light is hard to reach. She's leaving the room and books in her arms, and she can't reach the light. So, maybe rigging a string to the light or push button light might solve it.What's interesting in this case is that we were given the additional information that she was scared and that's why she quote "learned." So, knowing that she was scared, I would really want to explore that piece with her. Hey, do you feel safer with the light on? Is it that you don't like entering a dark room?I don't always love entering a dark room. A question along those lines can serve two purposes. It helps me get to the bottom of the behavior, but it also connects me with the child. She knows I'm interested in what her experience is, and then I can learn how she's seeing the world and what her perception of the situation is, and I can gain a better understanding of how our perceptions may differ.And at that point, we can look at, what about a nightlight that comes on automatically when the room gets dark or switch to LED-type lights that don't cost very much and meet my need for energy efficiency and meet her need for a light. And in the end, I might just say, you know what? Those few pennies a day to leave the light on, I'm okay with that for my child to feel safe.And I think what's key with any kind of conflict is to move beyond the surface. With this example, we have one person who wants the light on, one person who wants the light off. Those seem like diametrically-opposed views, but if we peel back and say, okay, but what's happening underneath of that? Then we can find solutions that feel good to both parties and that actually meet both of their needs, even though that solution was not the solution that worked, the turn it off or leave it on.And that's what I love about looking beyond the behavior to the underlying needs, because I think so often, we feel like we're faced with these situations that seem completely unsolvable. How are we ever going to bridge this gap? But when we start looking at the needs that are driving the behaviors, we can usually find, oh yeah, what about this? What about that? Oh yeah, that would work. It opens up this creativity piece that just is a game changer.PAM: Yes, because it's that creative piece that I love so much now. When we have two or more needs that are at first pointing in different directions, what are other possibilities? And I just love your light example. What if I don't want to scare my child into doing what I want them to do?And, as you were talking about that, it reminded me of the general parenting conversations around the idea of natural consequences. Sometimes parents seem to be setting up their kids for what they call natural consequences, almost wanting things to go wrong.It just feels like another guise for punishment to teach them a lesson. But there really are so many other possibilities. And we don't need to first find the right answer and then implement it. Each time we try something, we learn a little bit more through the experience. So, how did it go? Did it work for you? Did it work for me? What felt a bit off? Knowing what we know now, how might we tweak it?So, maybe at first it's like, oh yeah, I just forget to turn off the light. So, we put up the sign and it's still happening. Oh. So, maybe it's not just forgetfulness. And then we can dig a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper, and we try different things. And then eventually we really do get to that fear piece because subconsciously not wanting to turn it off doesn't bring to mind to remember to do it right. So, you can absolutely see how, at first we can think it's just a forgetfulness thing. But really once we get underneath and find what that root need is, it's a whole different set of possible solutions that can come up for us. Again, it is a process. I think that's a really big takeaway.ANNA: It really is. It's a process and one that I would say is so much more enjoyable than this kind of bickering and power play business. Because again, there's just such a different energy about, hey, let's try this, or, this isn't feeling good to me, so let's try these things. And yeah, okay, that worked, but that part didn't. It becomes this exchange we're having with the person in our life to get to a place where we both feel good.And I mean, that's just such a different energy than this punishment and reward and anger and bickering. And so, I would much rather spend my time working with my child than arguing. And that goes really for anybody. That's the happy, connecting work and it's just the energy that I want to cultivate in my home and in my life and with the people in my life.PAM: I know! Because the people in my family, they're the ones I want to feel like we're a team together trying to figure things out, not at odds with each other. It doesn't mean, again, that we don't argue, that behaviors and things don't happen that feel disconnecting or are hard for us. Yet, we can still bring that energy of figuring it out together. It doesn't need to come to a head as a conflict where one needs to be right and one needs to be wrong. Or, as a parent, I need to have power over my child and tell them to do my answer, because I think it's right and it's right because it would be the right answer for me. And our kids are different. And our kids are people. And what the underlying need for them that they are trying to meet is important and is valuable.And when we come at it with that energy of being a team and figuring it out together, oh my gosh. It changes the energy of the home. It increases connection, cultivates that connection that we want to have with them. And they learn so much more about themselves. And that's something that will last them their whole lifetime. ANNA: Yeah. It's really true. And it is so important to remember that what solution makes sense to us may not make sense to our child or to our spouse, or to our friend. We're all different. We're going to keep saying it. And it's not that our idea's wrong. It's the right answer for us and it's okay to present it and let's have it as a conversation piece, but always remembering that it may or may not resonate with the person in front of us. And if I want to learn and be connected to this person, I want to give space to understand where they're coming from. So important to remember that.Okay, so here are some quick questions and ideas to think about this week. So, this week, notice your own behaviors and take a moment to contemplate the underlying need that you're trying to address. Often we act or react in the same way over and over again without thinking about it because it's kind of become a habit. So, just bringing some intentionality back to considering the need at play, I think, can just be a really helpful process, because like, hey, what am I trying to meet with this need of this behavior that maybe even a behavior that I do all the time? So, I think that could bring that intentionality.PAM: Yeah. I do think it's a lot easier to start with us, because we're making the choices, we're doing our things and we're behaving in the ways that are working for us. But I do find it so interesting to start with things that maybe have become a habit for us. Because they were a habit back when, when that was maybe the best way for us to meet that need, but to take a little bit of time to remember, because once we have the habit and the action, we do that without thinking pretty much. That's kind of the definition of a habit. So, when we can take a moment to think, so why am I doing it that way? And going back to the underlying need, we may find that there is a new way or a different way to address it that makes more sense for us now. So, even if we don't extend it anywhere else, it can be helpful.ANNA: And it's going to help you communicate about it, too. So, if someone doesn't understand that behavior and you figure out what the need is, that's much easier to communicate to someone else than a behavior maybe they don't understand.Okay. So, number two, next week with some more self-awareness under our belt, try narrating a choice or two a day, including the need that you're taking care of, to your children. Give a sentence or two lightly, no expectation of a response from them. None of that, but just start to narrate a little bit more about your day and why you're feeling a certain way or why you're doing something and just see how that feels and how it lands and how that can definitely smooth things. It just helps people understand where we're coming from or what's going on for us.PAM: It made such a big difference for me, because I just always imagined people were reading my mind or everybody felt the same way. So, there's this reason why I'm doing this thing, why would anybody else wonder about it?ANNA: That's a big thing. I think we get told like, well, nobody can read your mind, but we really do think that people think the same way that we do. And so, of course they would make the same exact decision. No, they will not. Oh my goodness.Okay, so three, think of a behavior from your children that is rubbing for you. List out some possible underlying needs that they might be trying to satisfy with these behaviors. Use that lens the next time it happens and see what you learn. See how that fits. Did one of those possible needs make more sense? Did it help you understand why the behavior was happening? And so, I think that will be very interesting.And lastly, number four, thinking back over the last week or two, has something happened at home that impacted your child's behavior? This can help you bring awareness to the context, to not focus only on the behaviors and their impact. And so, with this question, what we're asking again is just, yeah, let's look at that broader context. And how could it have impacted the behavior of the child in front of you? And see how that feels to think about those pieces.PAM: Yeah, I mean, for me, once I would think bigger picture context for just regular every day behaviors of things going wrong. I really found that often I had more compassion or more empathy for the other person, child or adult, when I realized that we've been really busy these last couple of weeks. I've been having to wake them up in the morning to go do the things or to get ready for school or whatever it is. And maybe we discover it through HALT, if we're looking at it that way. Or maybe we're just looking at the bigger picture in general. But it's amazing how much that context influences behavior.ANNA: I think if anytime we feel that little tweak of a behavior that happens, can we just do a quick like, oh yeah, they had a lot of tests at school this week, or they had that big tournament over the weekend, or they didn't sleep well last night. Or they're worried about their grandmother or their whatever. Just that quick moment to think, you know what? There are some things that could be impacting why they're a little snippier, why I'm a little snippier, why we're all feeling that way.And again, then we can narrate and bring those things out into the open and we can say for ourselves, I didn't get a lot of sleep last night and I'm feeling really tired. Or I was worried about your grandmother, because I know she was having this whatever. And we can start having those conversations, which then just opens us up for that compassion for one another, for that greater understanding.PAM: And from there, just as we finish up, let's plant that seed of capacity, just as you were talking about it right there. Our children have capacity. And when all their things are going on around them or other stresses, they have less and less capacity. That was a big a-ha moment for me with my kids, too, and their behaviors was that something sets them off which would not have set them off yesterday or a week ago or a month ago. And all of a sudden I'm like, what the heck? Why is that bothering them? Why is that setting them off? But recognizing that there were a number of other things that went wrong during the day up to that point. And that they had basically just lost their capacity to absorb something else going sideways this day or this week. So, capacity applies to children just as much as it does adults.ANNA: It does! And how that energy and how bringing that compassion, how that person feels heard, how that child feels loved and understood and how it keeps us moving towards having a calmer home, a more comfortable environment. And anyway, okay, I'm going to stop. But there's so many things here. Obviously, we keep talking about it. So, thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Take care.

We're back with another episode in our Conflicts series and we're talking about a helpful mantra, No Set Outcome. When we find ourselves in conflict with someone in our lives, it can be natural to enter the conversation with our solution and our needs top of mind. From there, we try to convince them and win. But when we come into conversation with that agenda, we can get caught in a back and forth conflict. Instead, what if we release our agenda before we start talking? What if we stay open and curious, with no set outcome in mind. From there, we can figure out a path forward that works for everyone and considers everyone's needs. We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. What comes up for you when you contemplate the idea of going into a conflict-related conversation with no set outcome?2. Does it make sense to you that the bigger picture context of the conflict can contain helpful information for finding a path forward that works for everyone? Why? Why not?3. What blocks or fears do you find rising up?4. This isn’t a “now you have to do this forever” kind of thing. The next few times conflict arises, no matter how small, can you try going in with trust and curiosity instead of an agenda? Just play with it and see what happens. But not halfheartedly, you won’t learn much that way.TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! Navigating relationships can be challenging, because people are so different. In this podcast, we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflict and increase connection in your most important relationships. We talk about concepts like self-awareness, compassion, context, consent, all the big Cs, and so many more.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to listen to our foundation series, which is specifically the first 14 episodes until we think of some more. But in them, we talk about our favorite fundamental relationship ideas and tools. If you hear us mentioning a concept over and over, chances are it has its own episode in the foundation series that you can check out to learn more.So, this episode is part of our Conflict series and our miniseries inside that about developing self-awareness. Today, we're diving into the idea of No Set Outcomes, and this can be confronting it first. I mean, what do you mean go into a conflict-infused conversation without an answer or a solution in mind? What, why? This can be particularly challenging for internal processors, like me, because we often like to do our own thinking ahead of time before we have conversations about ways to move forward.Yet the challenge is that when we have a solution in mind, we often come to the conversation with an agenda and a different energy. We may not even recognize it at first, but once we bring this self-awareness lens to things, we can start to see it.Interestingly, it's often easier to recognize it when we're on the receiving end. So, do you recall a time when a partner or a friend came into a conversation with an agenda in mind? Just think about that for a moment. Often you can sense it in their body language, in their tone of voice, and in the words they choose, which are often a bit more presumptuous and maybe belittling is how they can feel. They tend to try to dominate the conversation, trying to convince us that their perspective and solution is the right one. When that happens, we can feel like our perspective isn't being heard or respected, like we're being bullied into accepting their solution. We can worry that they'll think less of us if we don't agree, and it just doesn't feel good.So, now let's take a moment to flip that. How does the other person feel when we are quite sure that we have the right solution? When we come to the conversation with our agenda, thinking, my goodness, if only we could explain it the right way, they, too, could see that we're right. When someone comes into a conversation with that agenda, we just can quickly get stuck, caught in that back and forth of trying to convince each other that our solution is the right one. Conflict, one person is right and the other is wrong, which means that in the end there's a winner and a loser, and none of that helps maintain a connected and supportive relationship.Instead, what if we release our agenda before we start talking? What if we come into the conversation with the energy of being on the same team and trying to figure out a path forward that works for everyone, something that considers both our needs and goals and theirs.ANNA: Oh my gosh. It's such an important shift. And it isn't always easy. In the Be Kind, Not Right episode, I talked about making the shift from needing to prove that we're right to choosing kindness, which helps us to get to that place of curiosity and openness. We don't have to let go of the idea that we're right or that we think we have a good solution. But we can choose to be kind and give some space and hear the person in front of us. And finding whatever tools we can that will help us release the urgency of our agenda, I think, is key.Another one that we've talked about is that there's plenty of time and there's this feeling in our body when we're bringing a sense of urgency to a conversation. When we feel that we must convince them that we're right and that this thing needs to change right now in this particular way.It's such a different energy when we can switch to curiosity and trust in our ability to solve problems, because whatever is happening, it isn't feeling good for one or both of us, but there's so many possible solutions. We don't want to get fixated on ours. We want to remain open to finding one that feels good for both of us, and that is truly fostered by slowing things down, being more open, and leaving space for that. And it's such a different energy and it feels so much better to move towards a solution that way.PAM: Exactly. Exactly. And notice that not bringing an agenda into the conversation doesn't mean not thinking about the possibilities beforehand. We want to get curious. It can be really helpful to spend some time considering our needs and goals as they relate to the conflict at hand before getting into deep conversations. That's part of the self-awareness that we're talking about in this miniseries of episodes. Not only will we learn more about ourselves, we'll likely be able to more effectively communicate that information to the other person involved.So, we can also get curious about the bigger picture context of the conflict, too. So, from the environment, has a similar conflict happened before? Is there a pattern to it? Does there seem to be a consistent trigger and so on. To the needs and goals of everyone that's involved, are there conflicting underlying needs that need to be resolved? To the current circumstances of each person that's involved right now, and this can call back to our previous self-awareness episodes around triggers and HALT.So, the more we explore, the more little bits of information we have floating around in our minds that we can connect in creative and fun ways to navigate through the conflict or the challenge that work for everyone involved.But to be able to recognize these many other possibilities, I do first need to let go of any outcome I have in mind when I go into the conversation. It's great to have all these possibilities. But if I don't let go of what seems to be the best one to me, I end up just picking out the pieces of our conversations that fit that particular path and just ignoring the rest, letting them go in one ear and out the other, because I'm going to use what they say as ammunition to show them or convince them why the path that I have in mind is best. But when I can release that agenda, that set outcome, and not bring that with me into the conversation, just having thought through things from my own perspective of possibilities and my needs, that just brings so much more when we can work together as a team, because there really is no one right way through a conflict. ANNA: Right. And so, I want to reiterate the point that you just said, because it's so important, which is that if we're going into a conflict or conversation with a set outcome, it really tunnels our vision. We are looking for anything to affirm our position to the exclusion of all other positions. And we're missing solutions or paths that could move us smoothly through the disagreement.And because I often like to think of things in terms of efficiency, while it seems like barreling towards my solution is the fastest way, it isn't. Because it most likely will cause defensiveness. It can create difficult and sometimes painful back and forth. I leave the person not feeling heard or understood, which we've talked about how damaging that is for connection. The easiest, most pleasant, and most efficient way is to be open to all of the possibilities. It does take a little bit more time, but it's so worth it.And I think the self-awareness piece is so critical, because as we tune in to what our actual need is, we can then begin to communicate it to our partner or friend in a non-threatening way. We aren't communicating the solution, we're communicating the need. And no one can really argue with our need. The need is something we can solve for. Just presenting our solution doesn't leave space for the other person to have their own needs or to really have any kind of feedback. But when we're focused on addressing needs, we can take everyone's needs into account and find a solution. It feels much less threatening and all sides can have their say to get their needs met.PAM: Absolutely. Yes. Communicating needs, not solutions. It's just one level underneath. And as you mentioned, taking the time to gain some self-awareness around the conflict often helps us more effectively communicate those needs. We may also discover some blocks that we'll need to explore. What's getting in our way? What are we holding onto so tightly that we feel stuck, that this is the only way? That this is the one right way? It's curious, because we can get there. We can get there. Like, I would not be happy with any other answer. Like, it's okay to feel that way. We feel that way. But it is also a great clue that, oh, I think there are some blocks there. There's something there that we want to play with.But I think what's really helpful, too, is not assuming that exploring those blocks is all about getting rid of them. Because then we can resist that, as well. Maybe we discover an underlying need, and rather than tossing that block, now we're better able to just describe the need. Now, we understand better why we're feeling so resistant, which then can open up the door to more possibilities for meeting it. When we're feeling stuck with the block, it can be because we can only see that one way forward. But when we understand that underlying need, things can definitely feel less constrictive.So, for example, maybe we find that fear is blocking us. That can definitely be helpful to dig into. So, is it a fear of being wrong? Is it of being judged by others? Is it worry that there will be negative consequences from different paths forward? Is it fear of losing face or losing power in the relationship?Where does that fear stem from and is it true? Does it make sense? And depending on how we prefer to process things, maybe these blocks are something we explore on our own and share what we discover. Or maybe they're part of the conversations we have with a trusted person. Even if that's the person we're navigating the conflict with, it can be helpful for them to see what it's bringing up for us.ANNA: Right. And I think as we dig into that and because that's a vulnerable place sometimes to share, this is feeling scary to me or this is what it's feeling like, but you can almost feel how it softens things. Because if I'm kind of coming at someone with like, I don't like this, this needs to change, blah, blah, blah, that can put somebody on the defensive.But it's like, as soon as I'm able to say, okay, I've got a lot of intensity about this because this is feeling scary to me, it's like, whew, we can soften and they can go like, okay, I don't want you to feel afraid of this or worried about this. And so yeah, let's figure out something that feels better.And I do agree also that this whole process is going to be influenced by how each of us process things. And so, there's room for all types of processing, back to remembering not to take another person's suchness personally. So, if someone needs to step away and internally process what's happening, give space for that. That's not that they're disengaging from you or that that should be a problem. It's like, hey, they need that time to come back and maybe to just calm down and figure out what those underlying needs are. And I think it can be the same if the person's like, I just really want to hash this out. Know that that's what they need and we don't have to take that personally. They're just needing that intensity and that back and forth.And it really helps in all of our relationships to be able to communicate about our needs. So, if you need to take that time to understand and to step back from the triggers, take that time. Ask for it. And if your friend or partner asks you for it, kindly give it to them, because we want to come to these conversations with our best information, not from a reactive place. So, we need to trust in each other when we ask for those things.Learning about how you process is so important. If you like to hash things out, make sure that feels okay to the other person involved. Make sure that they've had the time they need to come ready to be open and curious, to have that type of discussion. The more narration, the more information we can give each other just really changes the tone of these conflict situations.And you can see so much of this is helped by slowing things down. I'll talk about this a lot because you can feel, I get a lot of excited energy going on. Slow it down and drop that sense of urgency. Yes, we're having an issue. We aren't in agreement. And that can send us into this urgent feeling mode. But in slowing things down, we allow space to gain that deeper understanding of each other, of our needs, and we can start to see that there are options for how to move through this that feel so much better.And, for me, it's that grounding in the trust that we can work it out, that we're going to take the time to understand. We're going to communicate. And it relaxes everyone involved, because I think again, those fear can pieces can come into play. Like, we're having a conflict. Is this going to end the relationship? What's going to happen? But if we can just ground back into that trust, we can slow this down, we can have a hard conversation, and we can find solutions that feel better.PAM: Yeah, I mean, just imagine that energy. It is so easy when a conflict comes up, as you said, to feel that sense of urgency. Oh my gosh, something's wrong. We need to fix it. And that just brings a whole other layer of tunnel vision. How can you be open and curious and be able to listen intently to other people's needs and, especially if something comes up more quickly, like, oh my gosh, you need a bit of time to just process and see what my needs are underneath that. Or we can slap a Band-Aid on it, but it's going to come up again and it's going to come up again and again because we haven't gotten to those underlying needs. I mean, that has been my experience and it's just been so helpful to give it that time and space.So often, conflicts, they're not urgent. They're not emergencies. Even though we can feel that. We can reach to our tools just to help us calm down and just even help each other feel seen and heard, like, oh my gosh, yes. We have different views about this thing. Let's figure that out. And then understanding how the other person processes things. People are different. It is so very helpful just to have that context for navigating conflicts.So, going into those conversations without that set outcome in mind, not having that agenda, that trust that you mentioned, that genuine trust that together we can find a way through that works for both of us. And as we gain more experience with it, it really is a beautiful process. We come to see that conflicts aren't bad. They're not negative. They're like human beings that see things differently. Now, of course, it doesn't mean that that's easy, right? But understanding that will serve everyone just in so many countless situations over the course of our lives. When we take the experience and the understanding of ways that we can open ourselves up, not come with that agenda, in so many other relationships in our lives, it helps us move through those as well.ANNA: And just learn. It's just about the learning. If we can, when those opportunities come, instead of feeling that fear or worry about the relationship, be like, okay, we're going to learn something about each other right now because we're seeing this very differently. And that's, of course, back to open and curious, but it's such a wonderful shift and letting go of those outcomes is such a big piece of that.PAM: Such a big piece.Okay, so here are some questions to ponder this week around this idea. Number one, what comes up for you when you contemplate the idea of going into a conflict-related conversation with no set outcome? I mean, I think that's a big one right there to start with.ANNA: Think about that. Right.PAM: Number two, does it make sense to you that the bigger picture context of the conflict can contain helpful information for finding a path forward that works for everyone? So, what is your first answer to that and why or why not do you think the context is involved?Number three, what blocks or fears do you find rising up when you start thinking about this idea?And last, this isn't a, "now you have to do this forever" kind of thing. So, the next few times conflict arises, no matter how small, these ideas work. Can you try going in just with trust and curiosity instead of an agenda? Maybe it helps to just start small. Just play with it and see what happens.But I would suggest not doing it half-heartedly, because you won't learn much that way. You're hedging your bets. It's like, ah, I'm going to play with this. I'm going to try. I'm going to not come in with an agenda. If I'm somebody who likes to process things first, I'm going to process things first.I'm going to have all sorts of ideas, but then I am not going to go in attached to any of them. Those are just going to be things I can pull out as I learn more in conversation with the other person. ANNA: It's just so fun to play with the ideas, because again, I think that's where the learning is. We learn like, okay, yeah, I do this. I see that I do this. Because a lot of times we don't even realize we're doing that, because we're just thinking in our head, how do we get through this? And so, it makes sense. But yeah, just playing with this, observing a little bit, stepping back and seeing like, okay, I see how these patterns happen in the conflicts that we have. And it would be interesting to try to change that to see how that feels to all of us. So, yeah, I think it's a lot of fun to play around.PAM: Yeah. Yeah. And back to your idea of being efficient, right? I think that can be something that we play with. Or we're just uncomfortable leaving that space for this conflict to just sit for a while or even just disagreement or even just seeing things in different ways. Just allowing that to sit and we start to get a little bit more comfortable knowing that we're all learning more as we move more slowly through the process. Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and we will see you next time. Bye.ANNA: Take care.

We're back with another episode in our Relationships series and we are excited to revisit the importance of connection. Fostering connection in our different relationships will look different, because every person is different, but what remains the same is that connection is an active process. Just being married or just being a parent does not mean that we automatically feel connected to our loved ones. But really focusing on connection makes our relationships stronger and so much more enjoyable.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Take some time to think about what you love about your partner. What things light you up about them? How does it feel when you read this list? How does it change your energy towards them?2. Think about the connection you had/have with your parents? Did you feel truly seen and accepted for who you are? If not, how did that impact your feeling of connection?3. Have you viewed connection as a living process? What areas do you see that you would like to work on to improve your connection?4. What ways do you stay connected with your friends? Consider asking what things help your friends feel connected to you. You might be surprised.TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Navigating relationships can be challenging because we are all so different. In this podcast, we dive into tools, strategies, and paradigm shifts to help you decrease conflict and increase connection in your most important relationships. We talk about concepts like self-awareness, compassion, context, consent, and so much more.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas that are so helpful to have in our toolbox. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you would subscribe and share. We really appreciate your support as it grows. You can also check out our website, LivingJoyfully.ca, if you're interested in relationship coaching or to see what we offer businesses using these same principles.Today's episode is part of our Relationship series, and we'll be talking about connection. Connection is a foundational lens through which I see the world. I think we're here to be in relationship and learn from that process. I think focusing on connection is what brings us the most joy and peace and opportunities for growth and learning as well.Finding the best ways to foster connection can look a bit different in the different types of relationships. So, today we're going to look at the idea related to our relationships with our partners, our children, and our friends. Something that's common across the relationships is that connection is an active process. We don't have strong connections just because we're married, a parent, or a friend. That's the surface-level connection, but the connection we're going to talk about is much deeper than that, and the root of it is truly seeing another person for who they are - honoring that and supporting that.With our partners, often many things brought us together, and as the relationship grows, the years go on and we fall into the rhythm of just moving through our days. And in that, sometimes we can lose sight of the person in front of us, of truly understanding who they are and what makes them tick. In the beginning, we're much more curious about all of that, and that curiosity and excitement is what feels so good, because they're feeling truly seen by us and we're feeling truly seen by them.And so, if things are feeling off, this is most likely the root. We've lost sight of, and the excitement about, who this person we love is. Having a strong connection is what helps a relationship weather the storms that life is going to throw. And while it may not have all of the excitement of the early days, it can settle into this deep trust and knowing. And again, connection is so much about being seen and accepted.And it's helpful to recognize, I think, that our culture tends to have a deficit focus, and if we fall into that in our relationships, it is a pretty quick path to disconnection. One of the first things I ask all my couples to do is to each write a list about what they love about the other person, to keep it on their phone or by their bedside, someplace they can read it every day, just steeping in that.Seeing all of the amazing things about our partner, it changes the energy we bring to them and the situations we're facing together. Because that's the thing. When we have that foundation of trust and connection, we're able to handle what comes along together instead of turning to defensiveness or blaming.We know we're different. We honor that and that we each bring something different, and from there we figure out how do we move through these harder times or this obstacle that's in front of us? Building connection with our partner is about seeing who they are now. And it may be different. We do all grow and change, but taking the time to see them and understand them is key. And finding ways to see each other will be different for each couple. It could be about having adventures together or working on projects together, just talking over a meal, being together and watching a show. It's going to be unique to each person, but understanding what helps your partner feel seen and loved and understood, and being able to communicate what helps you to feel the same, goes such a long way in creating this strong connection that we're talking about.PAM: Yes. It really, really does. And I so much love your point, that connection is an active process, not something that's a given based on some factor, context, like, "We're married." "You're my child." Being in a long-term relationship with your partner absolutely does not guarantee that you're strongly connected with each other. That takes ongoing effort. And yes, I feel more deeply connected to my partner when they see and love me for who I am right now. Sometimes it's easier to take that perspective first. We both grow and change over the years, but when they're curious about what I'm up to, how I'm feeling and what I think about things, that's when I'm feeling more connected to them.And that said, and that thing doesn't need to be all about conversations. There are people who just aren't into conversations as much, and as you mentioned, it can look different for different couples, because people truly are different. And then not only that, it can look different in different seasons for the same couple, because again, we grow and change, our shared interests wax and wane.But what can remain a priority throughout is building and maintaining connection with our partner, however it looks right now. We can always be curious about who they are and what they like to do. We can always express appreciation for their presence in our lives. And then, like what you mentioned, Anna, the things that we love about them, no matter how big or how small, we can always notice and appreciate those pieces.ANNA: Yeah. I mean, just turning our eye to seeing all the things they bring into our life can just really shift energy, especially if you're feeling stuck or disconnected or a little grumpy. And so, when we think about children, it's similar, but there are some differences. We have such a deep connection with our children, but part of maintaining that and bringing it to life for them is understanding that they are on their own path. They are unique human beings. And when we honor that and see them for who they are, that is when they feel the most connected to us.We can probably all think of how it would feel to be truly seen by our parents. Some of us have experienced that and many have not. In some families, love is conditional. And it's really the opposite of true connection. The blood connection remains, but they're left feeling misunderstood or not seen. And I've come to think of tending to this deeper connection as building a bridge, a bridge whose foundation is trust. Trust that we are okay and safe where we are, but that a strong, sturdy bridge is there, that we can both traverse back and forth as needed. Us going to them, them coming to us, sometimes meeting in the middle. The bridge is built with time and understanding, honoring our differences and celebrating them for exactly who they are.So often, I think when a parent wants to feel connected to a child, they will invite them to do something with them. "Hey, come over here to me. Let's go on a bike ride. Let's go camping. Come to the garden." And sometimes those invitations are met with excitement and sometimes groans and eye rolls, which can lead the parent feeling really disconnected or a little bit hurt, but the child's not rejecting you in those instances. They may not like those particular ideas. And when we understand them, what they love, what lights them up, what pressures they're under, we can go to them. We can meet them on their side of the bridge and fill both of our cups. And it means everything to have someone see us for who we are, to understand our capacity in that moment, to love us, even if we have different ideas and preferences. It just makes such a difference. PAM: I know! And I got goosebumps right now just thinking about that. And I really do love that bridge metaphor for connection in a relationship. The image that when it comes to connection, we can go to them, they can come to us, we can meet in the middle or anywhere in between. And that sometimes connecting can be happening when we're both hanging out on our own sides.That can seem a bit counterintuitive, the idea of actively connecting with someone while not being engaged with them. Yet, as we talked about earlier, connecting with someone can be about them feeling seen and heard. So, if your child is needing some space to be by themselves, it can feel connecting to them when they see us actively cultivating that space for them. So, maybe keeping their siblings occupied so that they aren't constantly being interrupted, maybe bringing them a drink and a snack and slipping out without trying to start a conversation.Can you just feel how validating and connecting that could be for them? Just turn it back on ourselves, how, when we're in that space where we want some alone time, how good that would feel. So, it's like, is that what we're needing? We would just feel so supported and seen and active connection will be built without that direct engagement with them.So, the other piece that I wanted to mention is that the ways we connect, the ways we build that bridge, can be different for each child in the same family, will likely be different for each child in the same family. Because that could also be hard if we have a picture in our mind about what connecting with a child looks like. "I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it right. How do we do it?"If we envision connection to look like doing activities together or hugging each other every day or reading books together or whatever that vision is, we can worry that we're not connected with a child if those happen to be things that they avoid, that they don't enjoy. But if we can release that vision and look at the ways each of our children actually enjoy connecting and being with us, we may discover that they are feeling connected and we just weren't seeing it at all.ANNA: Right. We can get in our heads about things so often, you know? And we are so different, and that absolutely includes our children. We really do need to let go of ideas of what we thought it would be like and embrace the child in front of us. And in doing that, what you'll find is that you learn so much more about them and about yourself.And so, we can see that connection isn't a formula, but again, it's this living process. And so, all those ideas, let's just set those aside and just really lean into, who are the people in my life and what does that look like for us to feel connected?And so, when we're thinking about our friends, again, so much is the same in that everyone, no matter what, I will say this a million more times, wants to be truly seen and heard. Most would also like to be understood, but even if that feels hard sometimes, we can honor people, give them the space to be who they are, to move through the world in the way that makes sense to them, even if it doesn't make sense to us, to be there for them, with them. I mean, it really just is the root of friendship, all of these relationships as well.So, I would say that most of us have friends that are different from ourselves. I'm an introvert and, maybe not surprisingly, many of my friends are extroverts. Extroverts make things easy for me in a lot of ways and they challenge me in that we see things so differently, but I can choose to love all parts of them, to see the gift in it, even if I need to sleep for 10 hours after a party and they're still raring to go, and they can appreciate that about me, and that's where we both feel seen and heard. That's where that connection just feels so nourishing.Giving our friends unconditional regard. Listening, being there, learning what helps make them feel connected and being able to communicate what works for us, too, is just all a part of it. And again, it is going to be unique to each person. Some friends need conversations to feel connected. Some need actual physical time together. Others feel comforted knowing that space and time can pass, but that we'll pick right back up and still have that closeness.Taking the time to know this about our friends just enhances those relationships and their ability to kind of nourish us and be a part of our close connections.PAM: Yes. That was such a big a-ha moment for me that my friends didn't need to be super similar to me. We could be different people that enjoy connecting with each other in various ways that feel good for each of us, and that I didn't need to find one super friend that was going to meet all of my connecting needs.I think growing up we can get the impression that we need one bestest, forever friend, that that's the goal when it comes to friendships. And while maybe that happens, it's not the only way to move through the world. It's not the only way to be in relationship with others, because people really are different and those differences matter a lot.It doesn't mean we can only be friends with people that are similar to us, but whether it's our partner, our children, or our friends, it's worth celebrating them for who they are and finding ways to connect with them that bring us closer together, that help them feel seen and heard, and us feel seen and heard.ANNA: Yes. Okay. So, something that just came up for me as you were saying that piece is, it's really important to understand that how we create connection and friendship may not be what our child needs. And so, what that brought to mind for me is, so often we can put on our kids, they don't have the best friend, or why don't they have a group of friends? They're not hanging out with this group of friends and doing all these things, because that's what we love. And why don't they have this best friend? I have this one best friend.And it's like, both, either, and none of it is. Fine. It's so much about what the child needs, the person needs, in their relationships. And so, again, look back at the person, talk to them. Are they happy with their relationships? Are they happy? Because so often, kids can be happy with their sibling relationships and with their family relationships for a big stretch of time. And then there comes a time where maybe they want outside relationships and maybe those are older people that are more mentors that they enjoy. So, I love just what you were saying, just like leaving space for all of it is part of how we build connection and just honor our differences in that way. PAM: And I love the age piece you brought up, too, because we don't need to put constraints on like, oh, we need to find somebody your age. I had wonderful and continue to have wonderful and fulfilling relationships with my children alongside partner and friends. When I could take that piece out and just get onto a level and focus on the connection and the relationship, all those little blood pieces or expectations of relationship just kind of fell away. And it was just about the connection and the joy that we could experience together.ANNA: Yeah. Just another, people are different. We all have our ways of connecting. So, connection is such a big topic and it's so important, and we really have just scratched the tiny surface of it. But I'm hoping that it's given some food for thought and a framework that connection is this active process. It's alive, and it's something that needs our attention to actually thrive.And so, here are a few questions to think about as you turn an eye to the connections in your life.Take some time to think about what you love about your partner. What things light you up about them? How does it feel when you read this list? How does it change your energy towards them when you read it and then go talk to them?And number two, think about the connection you have with or had with your parents. Did you feel truly seen and accepted for who you are at your core? And if not, how did that impact your feeling of connection with them and really even your understanding of yourself?PAM: I think that's a big one, because just to gain some experience with what connection feels like. As we're trying to figure out what it feels like, did I feel connection? Who have I felt connection with? How did it feel with my parents? Everybody says connection and you can have a sense of it, but what does it really feel like? And that's what we're trying to cultivate as we figure out all these different ways we might explore connecting with people.ANNA: That feeling like, okay, when I have somebody that sees me, oh, what does that feel like? How does that feel different when I don't feel seen and heard? So, yeah, I love that for kind of teasing out, what do I want in connection and how do I want to be in connection?Okay. So, have you viewed connection as a living process? What areas do you see that you would like to work on to improve your connection? So, I think this is important too, right? Just taking stock of the important people in your life. Hey, am I seeing them? Do I feel seen by them? Are there things that I want to change in those relationships? I think that could be really interesting to explore.PAM: Yeah, I think so, too. Just the whole idea of it being a living process. Something that can wax and wane and not beating ourselves up or having expectations. That feeling of growing disconnection is just a nice clue. It's like, oh, I want to a little more intentionally find or create or cultivate connecting moments with this person that I'm starting to feel a little bit of distance from, but I want to feel that deeper connection.ANNA: Because it's never about being hard on ourselves. It's just about that recognition like, oh, okay, I am feeling a little disconnected. What's going on there? And checking in about how that feels. And what kind of steps you want to take.Okay. So, last question is, what ways do you stay connected with your friends? Consider asking what things help your friends feel connected to you? Because it might be surprising. And again, just this interesting conversation, because I think sometimes we're just going through the motions of things.We don't actually realize that yeah, I do have a preference. I like to talk to my friends, or I like to see my friends, or I like to, whatever the thing is. I feel like the more we can verbalize what our actual needs are to someone, the better chance we have to truly connect and to be understood.Because nobody is a mind reader. Nobody knows what we're thinking. And, so often, we haven't even given it that much of a thought, but yet we're reacting and feeling it. And so, this is just a little call for some introspection and like, hey, I want to understand a little bit more about what makes me feel connected to someone.PAM: Yeah, I think that piece of just taking that moment to understand ourselves and understand what works what helps and again, playing with that. Because like you said, maybe we don't quite know yet, but we can try all sorts of things that, oh, you know, I think maybe this will feel connecting and then you go try it a couple of times and it's like, no, that's not as much fun or we didn't have as much time to engage with one another as I thought we might. But trying different things and playing around with them is perfect. ANNA: I love it. Okay. So, thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to next time.PAM: Yes! Talk to you soon. Bye.

We're back with another episode in our Parenting series, in which we explore our relationships with our children. In today's episode, we're talking about embracing all kinds of learning. Most of us grew up hearing that school is where learning happens and that the things that are taught in a school curriculum are the important things to learn. Honoring all the many ways that we can learn and the many unique interests that each person has is another way to deepen our connection with the people in our lives.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. What are some ways you see your child learning outside the classroom? What about outside the teacher-student dynamic?2. What does your child like to do at home? What interest(s) are they expressing through that activity? Can you think of more ways you can bring that interest into their days?3. Can you think of some ways to cultivate your child’s burgeoning self-awareness? Recognizing they are a different person than you (check out episode 3), how can you help them learn more about how they tick? Can you give them some more space to explore that?4. How are you feeling about embracing and valuing the many kinds of learning that happen outside a classroom?TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! We are happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes, particularly the first 14 in our foundations series, because we continue to reference these fundamental relationship ideas and tools pretty often in our conversations. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review wherever you listen. That definitely helps new people find us.So, today's episode is part of our Parenting series. The first episode in this series, episode 16, was about how we don't need to bring school home. Life is bigger than school, and a child is more than their grades. School can be school. In the next parenting episode, number 19, we talked about celebrating the child in front. That shift in perspective from trying to shape our child into our vision of the "perfect child" to discovering, supporting, and celebrating the unique child in front of us makes all the difference in cultivating strong and connected lifelong relationships with our kids.So, now we're going to bring both of these pieces together to explore and hopefully soon embrace not just school-based learning, but all kinds of learning. There are lots of ways of learning that don't look like a classroom, that don't require a hierarchical teacher-student dynamic. There are more informal environments like groups who gather around their interests in person or online. And people of any age can learn things on their own through watching videos online, reading books or websites, or hands on play and tinkering.Just because these activities don't look like a more formal classroom, doesn't mean the learning that's happening is any less real or valuable. Kids can learn things both in and out of the classroom. And if the classroom environment isn't a great match for their learning style, their learning accomplishments and environments outside the classroom can really help them feel accomplished and capable.ANNA: I think it's so helpful to think about learning outside of the school context. It's helpful for us as adults and then we can apply that to children, too. I think an a-ha moment can happen when we look at how we learn as adults. We tend to use a variety of methods, seeking out mentors, finding like-minded groups, reading books, researching, hands on, just digging in and doing it.We dive into our interests as they come up, and this could be deciding to keep chickens, building a shed, becoming a yoga instructor, an arborist. Each interest creates an opportunity for us to dive into that interest in a way that works for our brain.So, for me, I tend to like to read about something. I like to make some lists. I like to write down some ideas and then often talk to others who are doing the thing that I want to try. And then I want to start walking in that direction. I have other people in my family who are the dive in head first, start tinkering, touch it, do it, think about it. And then they want to seek some outside resources. And we're all just so different that way.But when we start to examine what that organic learning looks like for us as adults, not in a school environment, we can start to see that it's the same for kids. Then we can be more open to creating the conditions for them to pursue the things that they're interested in, in ways that suit who they are. It's back to being open and curious, right?There isn't just one way to learn, and that is especially true if one is thinking the only way to learn is from a teacher and a school. That can have its place. Great. And there can be room for all the varied ways in which humans learn things.PAM: Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I think not only is it helpful to embrace the all kinds of learning piece, it's helpful to embrace all kinds of interests. So, if the thing they love to do right now isn't directly related to a school subject or a prestigious career, it's still valuable. It's really fascinating to watch a kid in action when they're doing something they really enjoy. They learn so much, and it's almost as if it's by osmosis. They're just soaking it all in. That sponge metaphor is always around. And if they love it, it connects with them as a person. It has meaning for them, even if they or we can't yet explain what that is, but for now, it's coloring in a new area of the map of who they are as a person.And the thing is, when we look back, often we can see the threads through their interests. So, how their love of wrestling with you on the couch became an interest in karate, which became an interest in parkour, which became an interest in stunt acting. But it can be really hard to see those threads in the moment, and even more so to try to predict them into the future, right?But with the freedom to follow their interests, there's a good chance we'll be able to see those threads looking back. There is just so much value in embracing the things our children are interested in, and not just in the act of learning about the interest, but also in the development of a strong and connected parent-child relationship.And if embracing your child's interests is something that you find challenging, I do invite you to check out Roya Dedeaux's book, Connect with Courage, practical Ways to Release Fear and Find Joy in the Places Your Children Take You. So, Roya is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she has spent the bulk of her academic and professional career learning how recreation, play, leisure, hobbies, interests and passions, impact, and are impacted by mental health. She digs into why wholeheartedly supporting your children's pursuit of their interests and passions is so important, and she shares some excellent tools to help us navigate that when it just feels a little off. It can be a new way to look at things.ANNA: It is really fun to find ways to support our kids and ourselves in digging into our interest areas, because like you said, there's so often a trail of interest that leads to so much learning and then get synthesized into the next pursuits. Looking back, we can see how those trails led to the broader interest or even a passion area, but we don't often see it in the moment. So, trusting that something is popping up for our kids for a reason, a reason we may not see now, is part of trusting them as a person.We can use it as a way to connect and to get to know our kids. What do they love? What brings a sparkle to their eye? What things do they choose to do with their time? Especially for kids in school these days, they have very little free time. So, if they're using that time towards an interest, it's important to them. And us supporting and facilitating that helps them feel heard and valued. And we just learn more about what makes them tick. And I think we all really want to know our children at that deep level. And they definitely want to be seen and known by us. You and I have both worked with plenty of adults who weren't seen or understood as kids, and it really leaves a mark.PAM: Oh yes. Yes. It really does. And I feel like that can come when the parents' focus is fixed on bringing the school home such that their highest priorities are doing the homework, studying for the test, so that you can excel at school, and then rounding out their childhood with extracurricular activities. There is just so little time and space left for kids to discover who they are and how they tick.And I would also argue that a solid level of this kind of self-awareness is as valuable as knowing a general set of facts and skills as they move into adulthood. It's how we find our unique place in the world. Understanding how we tick, how we can care for ourselves, and how we want to engage with the people around us is such valuable knowledge to have at hand as we navigate our lives. So many of us need to figure all this stuff out as adults, precisely because our parents thought excelling at schoolwas the answer to everything.So, embracing all kinds of learning for our kids will go a long way to helping them navigate their lives with just a bit more grace and compassion for themselves and for others.ANNA: So much! I know for me, so I did well in school and it really wasn't a bad experience for me, but I still had a lot of unpacking to do as an adult to figure out what I wanted out of life, what things were interests of mine, not through the lens of cultural or the expectations of the adults around me. And while I know this is a parenting episode, I just want to say it goes a really long way to support the interests of our partners and our friends, too. Trusting that something is pulling them towards an interest, even if it doesn't make sense to us on the surface, it means so much for the people to be supported in the things that they want to do. It really is a critical part of every relationship.PAM: Oh, exactly. Because in the bigger sense, absolutely, it applies to all people. All kinds of environments and all kinds of interests can lead to all kinds of learning at any age. And when we embrace all kinds of learning, our world is richer and more fun. Life is more interesting.We're not just all trying to get on that same path. Building our unique selves and learning how we tick and the things that we love to do and how we love to do them. Our kids just learn so much about themselves that they will find useful their whole lives. That was my experience, too.So, whether or not you had a good school experience or a more negative one, either way, it took up time and it took us down, or was trying to take us down a path that was more generalized as society thought was successful. And I had to do a lot of picking apart for many years to try and figure out who I was beyond that.Because then all of a sudden you're dumped into the adult world and it's like, okay, go do these things. And oh my gosh, to figure out. Do I like to do that? What do I like to do? How do I like to do it? To recognize that life didn't need to be a big ball of stress all the time. That was a big part of it.Okay, so here are some questions to ponder this week. Number one, what are some ways you see your child learning outside the classroom? And what about outside the teacher-student dynamic? Because, so often, that dynamic can also be replicated in places, just because it's conventionally seen as the way to learn. But yeah, just bring a new lens to it. How is your child learning? Think about what do they love to do? Regardless of whether or not you like it or whatever, when they're doing it, when they're doing something that lights them up, look for the learning, see the learning that's happening.ANNA: Yeah, it's there.PAM: It's there. It's there. So, what does your child like to do at home? Now, let's take that in a little bit of a different direction. What interests are they expressing through that activity? So, we're going to look a little bit deeper at it. Can you think of more ways that you can bring that interest into their days.So, maybe it's a show or a game or whatever it is that they like, if you can start to see what it is about that thing that they like. Is it the story they love? Is it the music they love? Is it the challenge? Whatever it is. And then think about more ways that you might be able to bring things into your lives that also meet that underlying interest.ANNA: Yeah, I love that.PAM: Number three. Can you think of some ways to cultivate your child's burgeoning self-awareness? Recognizing that they are a different person than you? And if you want to talk about that more, check out episode three. How can you help them learn more about how they tick? Can you give them some more space to explore that instead of always popping in to tell them the right way to feel the right way to do something, all those pieces? A little bit more space so that they can start making some choices and you can both start learning about how they would approach things, how they tick, what feels good to them.And our last question, how are you feeling about embracing and valuing the many kinds of learning that happen outside of a classroom?ANNA: Yeah, I think I want to say about this one, because I think most of us, as adults, have been through this very long school system and we kind of were sold that that's the way to learn. So, I feel like it was a process for me to start recognizing there were different ways to learn and what that looks like. And so, I do think it's really important to just think about your own journey with that and how it's playing out for you as an adult and how you've branched off in different directions or have you? So, I think it's interesting.PAM: Yeah, I think it's so fascinating to see, not just put that on a pedestal as the one right way to learn, that it's cool and it has its place and they're learning things there. But also it's just as value to be valuable to be learning all sorts of other things that make up them as a whole person rather than just what the curriculum says.Anyway, I think this is going to be a lot of fun for people to start exploring. I'm excited that we shared this, and I thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye!ANNA: Take care.

We're back with another episode in our Conflicts series and we're talking about triggers. A trigger is an intense, emotional, negative reaction to something, whether it's words or actions. Triggers often stem from previous trauma or childhood experiences. Getting a handle on our triggers, recognizing them, and learning to set them aside is an important first step to avoiding and minimizing conflict with our loved ones.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Are you aware of your triggers? If not, look for times when you find yourself activated out of proportion with the situation. Knowing our triggers helps us be more intentional with our actions. 2. Can you think of a time when acting from a trigger impacted a conversation? What would it look like if you had a do over? 3. Have you noticed triggers in your partner? 4. What tools do you want to put in place with your partner to help each other navigate when one of you is feeling triggered?TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas that are so helpful to have in your toolbox. If you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you would subscribe and share. We really appreciate your support as it grows.This week's episode is part of our Conflicts series, and we're going to be talking about triggers. It's so helpful to understand ourselves and our triggers and hot buttons, noticing what comes up for us when conflict arises. Understanding how, in general, we deal with and feel about conflicts can help us be more intentional with our words and actions.So, for some context, a trigger is an intense, emotional negative reaction to something, whether it's words or actions. The clue that our reaction is in response to a trigger is that it's often out of step with the actual situation in front of us, and it will also bring about some intense feelings in our body. That's because triggers are actually about us, not at all about the situation in front of us. They often stem from previous trauma or childhood experiences, and they bring this confronting aspect and energy to the conflict for us that nobody else sees or feels.PAM: Yes. I think that's one of the most interesting aspects for me, that the intense reaction I'm feeling isn't being reflected in the other people. Like, why aren't they more upset about this? Why can't they see what's wrong with this situation? I'd get more upset, because it seemed like they didn't care and I'd feel almost compelled to open their eyes to what was going on. So, eventually I began using that mismatch as a clue that my reaction might have more to do with me than the actual situation at that moment. But it can be hard not to get immediately carried away by that rush of emotions. Right?ANNA: Exactly. Getting a handle on our triggers, recognizing them, and learning to set them aside is an important first step to avoiding and minimizing conflict with our loved ones. And to be clear, setting aside triggers doesn't mean ignoring them. Rather, it means taking the time to explore and process them outside of the conflict, to make sure we're truly reacting to the person and the situation in front of us.And the first step to that is to slow down. Give yourself some space to bring your awareness to the moment in front of you and see if others are maybe not reacting as strongly as you are, or if your reaction seems to not fit the situation. If you notice that, you can take a pause and take steps to calm your nervous system.So, somatic approaches are used to engage the relationship between mind, body, brain, and behavior. There are some great somatic tools out there that can help calm our nervous system, allowing us to act with intention again, a simple one being cold water on your wrist. So, excusing yourself to the bathroom for some quick cold water therapy can bring you back into the moment so that you can more intentionally face the situation in front of you. You can dig into whatever that trigger was bringing up later. Right now, you want to be present in the situation with your partner or child and not be confusing the situation with baggage from your past.And so, I want to talk about the 90-Second Rule, which helps us understand some of the physiology that's happening when we have any kind of reaction. So, the concept was introduced by Jill Bolte Taylor in her book, My Stroke of Insight. In it, she describes how whenever our brain circuitry is triggered, could be fear, joy, laughter, anger, the associated chemicals are released and it takes 90 seconds for them to flush out of the body. So, at that point, we have a choice. We can choose to rethink the thought that brought about that physiological response, thus triggering it again, which means we need to actively choose to stay in that place, a place that's now in the past. To keep those feelings of fear, anger, or even laughter going, we have to keep buying back into that thought every 90 seconds.And as you gain experience tuning into this process in your body, you'll start to notice the pause and recognize when you buy back into the thought. It's important to note though, that during the 90 seconds, you will most likely not be able to make a different choice. So, for example, once you've triggered an anger response, you need to let those chemicals course through you for the 90 seconds.Then you'll have a chance to bring yourself to the present moment and make a different choice.And while you may not be able to choose to feel differently during the 90 seconds, you can stop yourself from reacting from that anger, especially when you know that intensity of that moment will pass. It's so empowering to realize we have that control, that our anger doesn't control us, that we have choices along the way to react differently.And I actually had a really interesting example of this just two weeks ago. So, I was in a hotel room and the fire alarm went off. So, it's like wake the dead fire alarm in a hotel. I was in a deep, deep sleep. My whole body, like I sit bolt upright, I'm super activated, my heart's pounding. I'm like, what's happening? There were fire trucks, the whole nine yards, but about 20 seconds in, I realized that the alarm still wasn't going off. The fire trucks had passed by. There wasn't really a threat, but my body was still on high alert. Heart banging, all the things. I tried deep breathing. I tried any tool I can think of, but it was only until about the 90 seconds passed, I felt my body calm down and I took a deep breath and I was able to go right back to sleep.It was such a stark contrast and I think it was easier to notice in this situation, because I wasn't feeling the need to pull myself back into that state of alarm, because I knew that it wasn't that. I didn't need to buy back into it. I think it's harder when you're still mad at that person or that situation in front of you, but it's there. It happens. That pause is there and so, watch for it and it's pretty cool and kind of wild.PAM: Yeah. Yeah, that is such a great example. Yeah. I think it's just so helpful to play with some tools, to see which ones can help us to just calm our nervous system down a little bit in the stress of the moment.I mean, for me, a big one is deep breathing. So, a few deep breaths and not just like a deep breath, but concentrating on a slow out breath and envisioning the tension that I'm feeling washing out with my breath. Right? So, as you mentioned, often I'll excuse myself to go to the bathroom for a minute or two to do that. As you said, we may not be able to make a different choice in those 90 seconds, but we can try not to react. We can try to give ourselves space to let anger, fear, whatever it is, course through us for that period of time.And to highlight what you said, because I don't think it can be said enough, it's about releasing the intensity of the emotions that are brought out by the trigger so that we can focus on the situation or conversation at hand and later doing some work to dig deeper and learn more about the trigger and where it comes from. Because if we ignore the trigger, figuratively stuffing it down, rather than setting it aside to be explored later, chances are it's going to keep triggering just as forcefully each time similar circumstances arise. If we get pretty good at stuffing it down and moving on, we can start to feel like a martyr, which often ends up disconnecting us even more from family and friends and our loving relationships. And if we find it harder and harder to do that over time, we're kind of on our way to burnout if we're not going to process some of this stuff, right?ANNA: Oh my gosh. Exactly. Our triggers are pointing out areas that might need some healing or at the very least, some acknowledgement and attention. So, it isn't about ignoring them, it's just about choosing our reaction in the moment that best aligns with the person we want to be.I think it might be helpful for us to just take a minute to walk through some common triggers, remembering that they are going to be super specific to each person, because it's all about our past and the things that happened and how we process that. But it can give you an idea of the things to watch for and a big piece of that is also going to be that body feeling, so, watching for that.But one of them is getting in trouble. So, this is a trigger that many share from our time in school. Sometimes it can be from our family of origin reinforcing that as well. So, if you're in a situation where maybe someone's questioning you or maybe you realize that you made a mistake, you can have this all-over body reaction and it can cloud your judgment about the next steps that you take.But you can keep in mind that, at that point, you're reaching from a place that potentially is decades past, where as a child you had very little control. In the situation in front of you, most likely, mistakes are viewed very differently and are not caused for such intense reactions. So, calming your nervous system so that you can clearly talk about what happened and ask some clarifying questions is going to serve you and the relationship much more than this oversized reaction that really won't make any sense to the person in front of you.PAM: Yes, exactly. It won't make sense, as we talked about earlier. That can be very helpful too. A trigger that I've explored pretty often over the years is the fear of things going wrong. I thought I was being helpful in pointing out all the challenges that I envisioned that could come up with whatever the other person wanted to do or suggested. It's where my brain quickly went and eventually, I rationalized it as a skill. Let me tell you all the ways this can go wrong, so that you can come up with plans B, C, and D, or just realize right now it's too risky and move on to something else. See how much time I saved you?But when I realized that my help actually created more conflict, I got curious and dug deeper. I found fear consistently being triggered underneath my professed help. I noticed that the fear was generating a kind of tunnel vision for me, in which pretty much all I could see were the things that could go wrong. And when I shared those things, others didn't take them as me being helpful, but as me not trusting them to make reasonable choices or to navigate things if they took a new turn.I came to see that when I let fear trigger my reactions, when I tried to instill my fear into my partner or my children, even under the guise of being helpful, I was hijacking their experiences and learning. So, no wonder it often led to conflict.So, I've gotten much better at instead looking at all the fun and interesting things that could come from the thing they're wanting to. At seeing their choices through their eyes, like we talked about way back in episode four, or even just getting curious and asking them what they're excited about.I also got better at asking if they wanted to hear any feedback about challenges I thought might pop up. So again, it's not about stuffing that down, it's not about never thinking about it. It's like, okay, I'm going to set that aside for a bit and I'm going to look at this first, look at all the cool things and why they're very excited about this.So, what was really interesting to me was asking them if they wanted to hear that feedback and the conversations that came up around that were very eye-opening. I learned that, so often, they had already thought about that same challenge and had a plan in mind in case it happened. And what was super fascinating to me was that their thinking about that wasn't driven by fear. It was just part of thinking about how things might unfold. They were just more clues to me that fear didn't need to be part of the picture, part of the conversation.ANNA: And fear is such a big one for so many of us. And it is interesting, I think, to tune into any kind of habituated responses like that, especially if we notice they're causing ruptures or disconnections in our relationship, because I feel like, just like you found, just scratching beneath that surface will reveal some kind of trigger, some kind of fear, some kind of something that keeps bubbling up that we've kind of put a habit around that really isn't about the moment and just keeping us from looking at it.So, one of my triggers is around control. So, I don't like to be controlled, and if I get a whiff of someone trying to control me, I'm going to start bucking. The challenge for me is that my reaction is usually not in proportion to what is actually. So, I do my best to notice it rising in my body. For me, it's a very physical experience and I like to name it just for myself. So. I'm like, okay, you're starting to feel controlled. Let's take a closer look and see what's actually happening here.And so often, I mean, honestly, I'd say like 99% of the time, it's all about that other person, and they really aren't intending to control me or really even thinking all that much about me at all. And perhaps it's they're not feeling heard about something or supported about something. So, if I spend that time to really listen and understand where they're coming from, then we can find a path through whatever the issue is.But if I start bucking against this perceived control, then the conversation invariably goes sideways. And it's just so often, again, it's just this defensive reaction in me doesn't leave space for any learning about what's actually happening for that person in front of me.PAM: Exactly. Because so often, we can quickly shift the conversation to be about the trigger instead of what's going on in front of us. Like what? And they're like, what the heck happened?A bit of a twist on that for me is that agency is very important to me, meaning choosing what I do. So, what can happen often is I'm intending to do something soon, then someone, often my partner, asks me to do the thing. Well, suddenly, yes, that whole body rush. Suddenly it feels like I've lost my choice, my agency. And now I'll be doing the thing to meet their request rather than doing it because I want to do it, even though I was already planning to do it. Resistance just immediately floods through me, and I need to work through that first, find my choice again, and then do the thing that I wanted to do all along.What that also means is that I am careful with my asks of others so that they aren't received as demands and leave space for a cheerful, "Yeah, I was already planning to do that this afternoon."ANNA: Yeah, I have definitely felt this one, too. And again, for that person asking, either they may just be processing out loud, they may be trying to check things off of our joint list. They're not trying to take away my agency and it still feels like they are. So, recognizing that trigger just helps me not snap back at that and just like, okay, that's about them. I'm planning to do it. It's almost even hard to kind of explain why that triggered reaction so intense. Because it doesn't make sense to the situation.And that's, again, your clue to say, okay, this is not about this person or this situation. This is about something that stems from long ago, most likely.And so, I think another flip side of this is that it can be really helpful to recognize when someone you're talking to is triggered. So, that will help you not take their actions personally. You can see that they're bringing an energy from somewhere else into the conversation and at that point, you can help slow things down. That will give them permission to slow down as well. It's never a time to push a point when you have somebody who's triggered in front of you. It will not go well. Asking for a break for yourself can give them a moment to regroup. Sometimes there's space for gentle questions, but often it's just better to just slow things down and allow them to ground back into the moment.We don't want to meet that with defensiveness or I really think you'd see when you start looking, that's where so many conflicts happen.In our closest relationships, I think it can be helpful to talk about this beforehand and have a plan if one of you is triggered. You can each decide what would feel okay in the moment. Is it moving towards a break? Is it a code word? Is it a somatic tool? Having some tools handy will help you both navigate those moments, so that it doesn't spiral into a deeper conflict. Because when we're in our rational brains, we don't want some trigger from our childhood to be impacting this relationship in front of us.PAM: Yes. When we begin to recognize when we are feeling triggered, it does become easier to notice it happening with others. And vice versa, because maybe we notice it in others first, which then opens our eyes to recognizing when it's happening to us. But either way, our world gets bigger and our compassion grows, I feel.And I also found it really helpful to chat with others about triggering situations outside of the strain of conflict. So, as you mentioned, we can talk about ways to share observations that the person seems triggered without further triggering them or us. And that can definitely look different for different people.How would you prefer someone to share that kind of information with you? And we can chat about different tools to play with to help release some of that intensity and bring us back into the moment with clearer eyes. Which tools work better for each person? How can we keep those tools close at hand and easy to access? That is another fun thing to play with. If it's a spray, if it's a smell, we can keep those things in our pocket. Put them in a basket in a main room, those kinds of things, because these are positive things, these are helpful tools. It's not like, oh my gosh, I'm failing, so I need to go and do this thing. Right? Not that at all.And we can also chat about different ways to approach conversations that have a better chance of just not triggering the other person's trauma or bad memories or fears. We don't want to trigger that so that it rushes to mind for them. So, it could be something simple as a change of phrase or Tone, as you mentioned, or energy. That can sometimes be all it takes not to trigger a trigger in the first place.And we can talk about how each person likes to process things like challenges and triggers. So, are they or you more of an external processor wanting to talk about it as they or us peel back the layers? Or more of an internal processor wanting some quiet time and space to think things through on their own? Or is it more of a mix dependent on the circumstances?And of course, all of these are not one and done conversations. We'll learn more and tweak things along the way. We'll try out a tool. It helps. It doesn't help. Maybe it helps for a while and then it stops helping as much. But this deeper understanding of ourselves and our loved ones most definitely can help us navigate conflict and triggers with more grace and compassion.ANNA: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I mean, it's a process, but with this greater understanding of ourselves, with this shared language that we're talking about, we'll be able to cultivate an environment where we can stay connected. We don't take things personally and we can remain open and curious.And I think, again, as we've been talking about, just bringing awareness changes what's happening in the home, because we have this language, we have this understanding, so it's not just running through the motions and kind of repeating the same fights, or repeating the same triggers or getting triggered every time something happens. So, I really love just these simple things that just bring new language and new awareness to the situations.PAM: Yeah. I feel, for me, the biggest thing was it helped me not take things personally. Understanding the nuances of all these different situations and how all the different pieces of who we are play into the relationship and conflict and conversations and triggers and all those pieces help me understand that, oh, this isn't all about me. And it's not them doing something wrong. It's just who we are. And that was so valuable to me in navigating relationships.ANNA: 100%. Okay, so let's talk about a few questions to consider this week. First, are you aware of your triggers? If not, look for themes when you find yourself activated, that seems a bit out of proportion with the situation. And be honest about that, because sometimes we're like, no, it was that serious. But the feeling in your body, you'll start to recognize it. Knowing our triggers really helps us be more intentional with our actions. PAM: It's feeling it in our body and like as you mentioned, it's like, no, it's not the trigger. If it happens multiple times. Like if it keeps happening over and over in similar situations like that, because the first 10 times, it's like, no, it's the thing. Yeah. Why does this thing keep happening?ANNA: It's not the thing! Oh my goodness. Okay. Number two. Can you think of a time when acting from a trigger impacted a conversation and what would it look like if you had a do-over? And I think that'll be interesting as you kind of recognize like, oh yeah, that tone, that something, is a trigger for me that then we kind of have this escalation or this same conflict.PAM: And I like the idea of thinking of it as a do-over, as in it helps us to more easily bring to mind choices in the moment. Because so often, when we're triggered, we just see the one thing. We're very focused on the one thing. So, we do our little bit of help to get us through those 90 seconds, through that first thing. And if we've thought about other possibilities, other ways we might choose to react, other kind of questions to ask in the situation versus declarations, if we've got that, it's closer to top of mind. So, over time, we can get to them a little bit quicker so that we can change, make a different choice, in recognition that we have a choice. And then as we talked about over time, we can tweak that and play with it.ANNA: Definitely. So, number three, have you noticed triggers in your partner? And so, this is interesting, because like you said, as we recognize it in ourselves, we start recognizing it in others, but it's also that repetition that you're talking about. So, it's like, oh, every time I ask them about this thing, they kind of get snappy with me or whatever. Okay. Most likely, that's not about your question or what's happening. There's a trigger that's being set off that would be helpful to understand. So, look for those, again, repeating things or repeating energy even, like the same energy's coming. What's the common denominator?PAM: Yes. I love that so much, because what we can do when we can start to recognize that repetitive reaction was seemingly over the top, because we can get stuck in, that is just over the top! I should be able to ask that question, so I just keep asking it again because their response is wrong.ANNA: If I just keep asking, it's going to get better.PAM: They'll figure it out. That might be a trigger. It's almost a response that they aren't able to control. That's when I can start thinking, oh, I'm going to play around with my tone, the energy, the timing of the question, the wording of the question, like there's so many ways that we can communicate something, that we can start to play with that and learn more. And then maybe in an off time have the conversation and ask them why are you feeling like that?ANNA: We're bringing more compassion to it. And again, these are the people that we love. This is who we want to be in these relationships, even if we get a little like, that's over the top and too much. Okay, so question four, what tools do you want to put in place with your partner to help each other navigate when one of you is feeling triggered?I really do think this is a cool conversation to have, especially if you notice some of these repeating fights or things happening, just like, "Hey, let's figure out, how do we take a timeout? How do we do that so it doesn't end up triggering that." Because we have abandonment triggers and then somebody feels if somebody's taking a break, then that can trigger something. But if we have some agreements ahead of time, if we have some plans in place, then we don't have to take it personally. It doesn't have to feel like that. And we can just give each other the space we need to be present and be intentional about what's happening in front of us.PAM: Yeah. I feel like with those conversations over time around it, it just helps lighten the weight too of the moment, to have somebody just recognize that we're triggered, recognize and not escalate back to us even. You could just absorb it for us and just show compassion, as you were saying. That's where we're going.ANNA: We want to cultivate that. For sure. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us this week and we look forward to next time. Take care!PAM: Bye.

For our first episode in our Relationships series, we are excited to dive into the idea of Bids for Connection. This term, coined by Drs. John and Julie Gottman, describes a wide range of attempts at connection and conversation that many of us don't even notice. We have the choice of turning towards a bid, turning away, and turning against. Noticing and intentionally responding to bids for connection from the people in our lives can be an easy way to increase connection and strengthen our relationships.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Does looking back on the last week through the lens of bids for connection change how you see any of your interactions with your partner or children?2. This week, when your partner or child asks something of you, take a beat to consider the motivation behind the ask. Is it possible it’s a bid for connection? How does that change your response?3. Have you found yourself turning against recent bids for connection? Are you feeling overwhelmed? What are some things you might do to help reduce your overwhelm?4. Do you recognize some of your recent requests of others as bids for connection? Did they turn toward you? Are there ways you might tweak your bids to invite a more positive response?TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to earlier episodes, particularly the first 14, our foundations series, because we continue to reference these fundamental relationship ideas and tools pretty often. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review wherever you listen. That definitely helps new people find us.So, today's episode is part of our Relationships series, and we're going to talk about bids for connection. This concept comes from Dr. John and Dr. Julie Gottman, who have been studying relationships for decades. And it can be a helpful lens through which to look at our interactions with the people we love.So, a bid for connection is a small action that shows that a person would like to connect with us. It could be like, "Look at this," or, "I'm exhausted." Or just a hug or a request for help. Or even I have heard these, a loud sigh. It's an opportunity for us to make a choice in how we respond. The Gottmans described three possible directions that we can take.So, "turning towards" means enthusiastically meeting the bid with connection, looking towards the person, responding with validation, increasing those feelings of connection. The person feels seen and heard, and the relationship is strengthened.Now "turning away" could look like staying mostly unengaged. So, maybe continuing to look at whatever you're working on, glancing up for a second to say, "Mm-hmm," or replying, "In a minute." Sometimes it feels like that's the most we can do, but over time this type of response often leads to disconnection in the relationship. The person feels a little rebuffed, like you're uninterested in them.And "turning against" is usually the result of actively being in a state of overwhelm. It looks like more aggressively rejecting the bid for connection. "Can't you see I'm busy?" "Oh, here we go. What now?" Or even just rolling your eyes rather obviously. Turning against the bid damages the relationship and makes it more likely that the person won't make future bids for connection with us.ANNA: Yeah. This concept has been so helpful for me. It helps me see the moments where more connection is possible. And I know the person that I want to be is one who turns towards those bids for connection from the people in my life. But we do get busy and in our heads, and it's not always super clear that it's a bid for connection, because it rarely looks like, "Hey, I want to spend time with you."And so, I do really like keeping this idea top of mind as much as I can so that I notice the more subtle cues that someone's looking to connect. Because it really is one of the easiest ways to keep relationships in a good place. Connection is the foundation of any healthy relationship, and the stronger and more secure the connection, the easier it is to navigate the ups and downs. So, finding ways to keep the connection strong is so helpful and we don't want to miss these easy ways to do it.PAM: Absolutely, absolutely. And something I've found helpful is using this idea of bids for connection to look at those requests from my partner or kids, like you said, they don't always look like what they are. And it's particularly when they request something that we know they could do themselves. So maybe they ask you to bring them a drink or a snack or bring them their phone. At first, we may think or even say, "You can get it. You're closer." But if we instead get curious, we can take a moment and ask ourselves, if it's something they can do for themselves, why are they asking me to do it?So, maybe it's about the act of getting the thing and we realize they're busy with what they're already doing, or we learn they're resting a sore leg, or that they're feeling a little bit under the weather. But if none of those fit, it may well be a bid for connection. Not that they can likely name it that way, as you said, but they are feeling a need to connect and this felt like a way that they could reach out.And it's super important to note that meeting the request is not the same as meeting that need for connection. So, for instance, getting the drink doesn't mean their need has been met. So, if you bring the drink and immediately go back to what you were doing, 10 minutes later they may ask you to bring them a snack. That's another clue that it's not really about the thing, it's about connecting with you. The request is actually an invitation for you to join them for a few minutes to connect, to ask about what they're up to, and listen to their answer, to wholeheartedly join them in their activity for a while, something that fills their connection cup.And it really helped me to remember they aren't trying to frustrate me. They are trying to meet a need. And the need for the drink is just a surface need. We know that, because they could meet it for themselves if it was just about that. The deeper need they're expressing is more likely for connection or maybe for reassurance that we value them and our relationship with them more than the thing that we're occupied with. It also helped me to remember that even seemingly negative behavior can be a bid for connection. So, particularly if regular bids have been ignored, they can get louder and more negative in an attempt to express how important it is for them to connect with you, to feel seen and heard by you.ANNA: I love how you mentioned those odd requests that clearly they could do for themselves. It's like, "You're a lot closer to the kitchen," or the light switch, but it doesn't take much scratching below the surface at all to see that it's not about the light or the glass of water at all, but about needing that moment of connection. And like you said, that need will most likely not be met by just getting the light or the drink. Especially if I add a tone to it, like, "Here's your drink," or, "Fine!" The requests will just keep coming, like you said, and they could turn a little bit more negative or they'll move on to some other way, which could just be even harder to understand.And for some reason this piece is kind of interesting to me because asking for something that they can do for themselves, we seem to have a harder time offering grace around this to children. If a neighbor were to ask us for water, we'd hop up and happily get it, but if our child does, we can start the, 'You can get it yourself," kind of lecture tone, and somehow then we'll tie it into this independence agenda or assigning some kind of future significance to this one little ask. "They're never going to learn to do things for themselves," which of course does not hold up to much scrutiny at all. But you see parents go there all the time. And the thing is, they really will learn to do the things for themselves. And most likely already know. But the request is, again, not about the water or the snack or the act itself. It's about this need to connect with you.And I just always want to keep in mind the person I want to be in the world. I want to show kindness and consideration to the people I love, really to most people. And what I find is that I do receive it back in turn. So, instead of thinking, they will never learn to do anything for themselves, you can reframe it as, they're learning how to be kind and a loving person in a relationship, an incredibly helpful skill that will serve them the rest of their life. Because the thing is, if I would do something for a friend or neighbor, why wouldn't I do it for the people I love most in the world? It was just such an interesting question for me to ask myself. And it always reminded me that I wanted to be giving my best to the people that I love. I want to assume positive intent, even if it isn't clear in that moment.And when we were talking before about HALT, I mentioned how the L for Lonely often ties into the bids for connection, and it's more along the lines of what you were talking about when it can kind of get a little surly or grumpy. If we have this grumpy tone, sighing, maybe some stomping about, it really can be about feeling disconnected. So, checking in and making sure, am I paying attention to what's happening? Have we been separate? Have I been engaged in my thing and maybe they're looking for me to kind of see what they're up to?I want to ward off any escalation that could then lead to a conflict, because again, if someone gets extra surly and then they get snappy, then we can get locked into some kind of a conflict. And I actually think that once you have this idea as just part of your relationship, as part of your family, as part of just the culture and the environment you're in, then the negative bids lessen, because you have some language and recognition around feeling disconnected and can then find those positive ways to connect.PAM: Yes. It gives us that language so that we can start just communicating more through it. Because connection just becomes part of the fabric of the family, I feel, weaving through all different kinds of moments. So, from those deeply connecting joyful ones, to disconnecting conflict, to bids for connection, and the varying responses in between. It's so rich. It's so rich. And then, like you said, when we can communicate more through that lens, there is less chance that it escalates to go off the rails. And of course, we can also make bids for connection, inviting our partner or child to join us in an activity or asking to join them in what they're doing, or opening up space for a conversation that's interesting to both of us. Just don't have expectations of their response or take their response personally, because that's not helpful. Their response is about them, not about you. That said, it doesn't mean ignoring it. If we're feeling ignored after a few attempts to reach out, it's helpful to have a conversation with them about how we're feeling. Because so often we're drawn to telling a negative story about what's going on, when actually, we're missing some information from their perspective.Maybe I say, "I've been trying to connect with you the last couple of days, asking you to watch that new show with me. I'm starting to feel like you don't want to spend time together," and their response may well be, "Oh, I just didn't want to watch that show. I heard it's boring. I didn't realize you were looking to connect. Would you like to go for a hike together on the weekend?" "Sure!" or not. Suggestions like this, it's an opening for a conversation so we have the opportunity for everybody to share what things are looking and feeling like to us and then we can find a path forward together that is meeting all of our needs.So, I just wanted to share that in my experience, the story that I've gotten stuck replaying in my head, that keeps me even more disconnected because I'm in my head, right? And it often really isn't how the other person is seeing it. So, it is so worth taking a step in and just saying, "Hey, something's up and I'm not seeing it this way. What do you think?" ANNA: The stories are so powerful and they so often derail us. Being more clear on stating the needs instead of jumping to a solution can help us define the ways that feel better together. The need in this situation being to spend time together or to feel connected. The proposed solution was watching the show. But we know that there's all kinds of ways that we can reconnect. And so, we don't want to tell a story around that.And again, I think just keeping this top of mind helps us communicate the need more. And so, instead of being like this kind of subterfuge like, "Okay, we're going to make this little bid," we can be more aware of, hey, I'm asking about the show because I want to be with them, so then I can be more clear. So, definitely watch for any stories you're telling. And whenever you find yourself assigning thoughts or feelings to another person, you are telling a story. So, when that story is making you feel disconnected, just take that step back and ask some questions. Be more clear about what your needs are, and then you'll get a better sense of what's going on for the other person. And you can both work on finding solutions that feel good to everyone to see if the hike makes sense, or if something else, another activity makes sense. But it's that conversation, right? We're starting the conversation and we're being more clear.It's hard when we have to guess about people. And again, I think just bringing this language into our lives helps us communicate more clearly and really understand better what is driving our behavior and the behavior of those around us. And it doesn't have to feel like such a mystery when we do that.PAM: Because people, particularly those we love, don't need to be the unpredictable puzzles we to make them out to be. And we don't need to be an unpredictable puzzle to the people that we love. That's relationships, connection, conversation, language. Just learning about each other is just so incredibly valuable.And these bids for connection, looking at things through this lens, I just found really helpful for me to just take the pulse of the relationship. So, here are some questions around bids for connection to ponder this week.Number one, does looking back on the last week or so through the lens of bids for connection change how you see any of your interactions with your partner or children? It's just really interesting to use this lens and look in and see, oh, you know, maybe they meant this. Maybe they were thinking this.And now, this week, when your partner or child asks something of you, try to take that beat to consider the motivation behind the ask. Is it possible it's a bid for connection? And how might that change your response?Number three, have you found yourself turning against recent bids for connection? Are you feeling overwhelmed? What are some things you might do to help reduce your overwhelm? So, recognizing that we're turning against bids for connection isn't about beating ourselves up or, oh my gosh, you did something wrong. No. It's a wonderful clue that, oh, there might be something for me to look at. Am I feeling overwhelmed? Right?ANNA: Right. And I would say it's often assigned to the relationship and it's often about the context. So, if you're rejecting bids for connection, you may just be like, ah, I'm really struggling with this person and they may be thinking, they don't love me, they don't want to be with me. When really it is this overwhelm and stress at work. There's some kind of contextual pieces like we've talked about before. So, just look at it as that clue, that little red flag of like, hey, I want to tune in a little more before this becomes a rupture in the relationship.PAM: Yes. Because there is so much subtext that we're communicating with our actions. So, recognizing that they may be seeing our actions differently than what we're meaning by them. So again, language and communication is so helpful with that.And our last question, do you recognize some of your recent requests of others as bids for connection? Did they turn towards you? Are there ways you might tweak your bids to invite a more positive response?Because you know the other person. Coming out and explaining, I really want to connect with you, spend some time with you, is that a helpful way to approach it? Or one thing that was really helpful to me was recognizing, you know what? What I really want is to connect with them. I don't really care how. So, that helped me get to a mindset where I'm happy to just sit by them and join them when they're doing their fun thing. I'm just going to soak in their presence and their joy, their laughter, whatever it is. And that's going to fill my cup. It doesn't need to be, I want to connect with this person and I want to do it through something that I love to do. We can put so much inside our relationship!ANNA: We can. But I think that's that self-awareness piece, too, and I think this is an important piece, because again, it's about the clarity of the need. So, right. You were able to identify in that situation, hey, just being close by feels good and just knowing what they're into and what they're laughing about, that feels great. And sometimes it might be, no, I want to have a deep conversation, or I want to talk about this thing that's coming up or that just happened. But then we can be more clear. So, then it's not, we're sitting down with the expectation of this big conversation when maybe the child or your partner's involved in something.So, again, more clarity around what your needs are, and I feel like that's our responsibility, right? To understand our needs and to communicate them clearly. And so, all of these things, and just looking through this lens of bids for connection over this next week, I think you'll see some of these pieces and then you can kind of fine tune like, hey, am I being clear and am I being open to what they're trying to communicate to me as well?PAM: Yes. Which brings up just one other piece. There's lots of pieces, but something that I learned over the years that clarity is just so incredibly valuable, because at first we can think, oh, you know, we love this person. They love me. They should understand me. They should know when I am feeling a little left out, or that I'm feeling like I want to connect. They should sense through my body language or something and they should make the effort. You know, that is a lot of expectations to put on someone. And can we really do that for everybody else?So, being clear about our needs doesn't say that they don't love us that much or whatever. They don't understand us. They don't know us. Being clear is just so valuable so that other people know where we are and can respond in ways that are helpful, because, you know what? They love us, too, and they also want to be, they're in relationship with us. It's not a one way thing. Right. But they need to know what's going on.ANNA: Yeah. None of us are mind readers and so, yeah, I love that point.PAM: Okay. Thank you so much everyone for listening, and we will see you next time. Bye!

We're back with another episode in our Parenting series, in which we explore our relationships with our children. In today's episode, we're talking about celebrating the child in front of you. Most of us bring ideas to parenting about what childhood should look like and what our children should be like, but this can create disconnect in our relationships and make it harder to see the real, amazing people in our lives. Giving space for our children to be themselves and to be different than we were expecting leads to all kinds of amazing places!We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. In what ways have you celebrated your child for the person they are?2. What does your child love? How do you see that as part of who they are?3. What visions did you hold of having children? How has that vision helped or harmed your relationships with them? 4. Take some time this week to think about your family and how you are all individuals, see and celebrate the differences. THINGS WE MENTIONEDThe Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison GopnikTRANSCRIPTANNA: Hi! And welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and just really have enjoyed how they're all building. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you would subscribe and share. We really appreciate your support as it grows.Today's episode is part of the Parenting series, and we're going to be talking about celebrating the child in front of you. Parenting can bring up a lot of things for people. And we want to do our best. We want to do all that we can. We want to do right by these children. We want to make sure that they have every opportunity to live their best life. And while all of those things and more come from this very loving place, it can sometimes lead us to developing expectations for our children and pushing them towards the things that we think are best. All the while, we're holding out this endpoint, this goal of a child successfully raised and a job well done.When we bring the lenses we've been talking about on the podcast to this idea, it can really help: being open and curious, there's plenty of time, consent, connection. All of the topics we've talked about before are critical to bring it to this relationship with our children or we may miss who they actually are and what they want from this life.PAM: Yes, yes, yes. Everything we talk about on the podcast applies fully to all our relationships with the people we love of any age. Now, I do imagine that for some listeners, while it's been interesting to consider these ideas with regards to relationships with other adults, for the most part, they might not seem very applicable to relationships with children. And if that's you and yet you're still curious why you might want to consider doing things differently and what that might look like, I invite you to check out the book The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us about the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Allison Gopnik. And we'll put a link in the show notes. She's one of the world's leading child psychologists, a professor of psychology and affiliate professor philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. And in this book, she explains how the familiar 21st century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong. It's not just based on bad science. It's bad for kids and parents, too.And I do love her gardener and carpenter analogies for parenting styles. So, with the carpenter model, parents are working with a goal of producing a particular kind of adult. They are essentially trying to shape their child into a final product that fits the vision that they had in mind, their blueprint.So, for them, parenting is about control. On the other hand, gardener-style parents work to create a protected and nurturing space for children to flourish. She explains that a good garden is constantly changing as it adapts to the changing circumstances. And a good gardener quote, "works to create fertile soil that can sustain a whole ecosystem of different plants with different strengths and beauties and with different weaknesses and difficulties. In this way, being a good parent won't transform children into smart or happy or successful adults, but it can help create a new generation that is robust and adaptable and resilient, better able to deal with the inevitable, unpredictable changes that face them in the future."And she also dives into the rewards of being a parent. And it's not your child's grades and trophies. She writes, "They come from the moment by moment physical and psychological joy of being with this particular child. And in that child's moment by moment joy in being with you." And by the end of the introduction, she sets us up with this. "So, our job as parents is not to make a particular kind of child.Instead, our job is to provide a protected space of love, safety, and stability in which children of many unpredictable kinds can flourish. Our job is not to shape our children's minds. It's to let those minds explore all the possibilities that the world allows. Our job is not to tell children how to play. It's to give them the toys and pick the toys up again after the kids are done. We can't make children learn, but we can let them learn."Okay. I think that shift in perspective from trying to shape a child into our vision of perfect to discovering, supporting, and celebrating the unique child in front of us makes all the difference in cultivating strong and connected lifelong relationships with our kids. That's the difference. You are going to be in relationship with your child far beyond their childhood, right?ANNA: Yes. That's the hope anyway. And it really is such an apt analogy, and I think it helps us to step back a bit and actually just kind of see how it's playing out. We can think about how it felt in our childhood and what kind of relationship we want to have with our children beyond those expectations. What do we want that relationship to feel like? Something that compounds this tendency to control or have expectations is that we often come into parenting with these preconceived notions about what childhood is like. This could stem from our own childhood, which maybe we loved, or maybe what we bring is in reaction to our childhood, what we want to do differently. But either way, it's a reaction to, from the past, not a response to what is actually in front of us, the child and the family we have right now.Sometimes we think our child will be like us. It goes back to how people are different. Our children are different. And if you have three kids, each one of them is their own unique person with their own way of being in the world. We don't want to hold this image we have in our head of them over top of the person that they actually are.And this goes to ideas about family culture, too, which you'll hear, "We are an outdoor family," "We're a family of travelers," "We're a family of," whatever you finish that sentence with, it deserves a second look, because it's oh so very rare that an entire family wants to move through the world in the same way. Instead, we can embrace the idea that we are a family of individuals and together we support one another to live our best lives.PAM: Yes, yes. I love that image. Supporting and celebrating each family member, especially children, as the unique individual that they are in this moment. We're not trying to mold them into an individual.They are an individual right now, and that actually better fosters a family atmosphere of joy and harmony than, "Our family is," or, "Be nice to each other, you're family," all those phrases that just come rolling out of our mouths.I also find that another common way that parents lump their children together and thereby undermine their individuality is by how they measure fair. The idea behind fairness is definitely an important one. To be fair is to be free from bias, is to not show favor for one child over another. But how do you measure fair? I find, and I remember, many families measure it based on quantity. And we strive for equality. We give all our kids the same number of gifts for holidays, or we spend the same amount of money on their birthdays, or we sign them up for the same number of rec activities. We can cling to this equality paradigm. But the scorekeeping can get so tiring. You just have to keep track of all this. And when you think about it, equality in what you give each child really isn't a helpful measure of fairness, because what each child actually needs, each individual, is likely different. And to see this individuality in action, it helps to move past that image you were talking about that we have conjured up in our minds of that perfect child.No longer trying to cajole each of our kids into that mold with varying levels of success and instead just look clearly at the individual child in front of us and engage with that person. When we can do that, each child feels seen, loved, and accepted as part of the family, even if what that support and engagement looks like is wildly different for each child.So, at any given time, maybe one child needs more of your attention because they're sick or they're injured while another is in the midst of a busy season with our favorite activity and need you to provide supplies for it or transportation and maybe a third is in a social season and wants your blessing to invite friends over regularly. So, you may be giving each child very different things that take varying amounts of time, effort, money, energy, all those pieces. But when their unique needs are being met, they each feel seen and secure and celebrated for who they are as a person.ANNA: Gosh, I love that reminder that fair isn't the same as equal. We want to help each person in our lives pursue the things that they're interested in, and that can look, as you said, just wildly different.People feel much more seen and loved by tailoring our engagement and our resources to what suits them and helps them along their unique path over what an equal share of something they may not even want is.And I think it can be a really helpful framework to realize that what your child loves is who they are.So, using the things we've been talking about to connect with your child, listen, be open, have the conversations, really lean to learn what they love and why. It may be that they love art or soccer or video games. Taking the time to understand and support their interests shows them that you see them and that you're celebrating the things that they love and in that, you're celebrating them.And it's such an incredible gift to give the people in our lives that we love them without judgment. And I think it's so important, because I think so often for many of us, love had a judgment piece attached to it, and we can let that go. For many reasons we feel, I don't know, comfortable judging children it seems, how they spend their time, what they're doing, how they're doing it. And I think perhaps we feel like it's coming from a place of love. It's an attempt to give our best advice, but more often than not, it's so disconnecting and it harms the relationship. But that doesn't mean that we can't share the things that we've learned over the years, but with an understanding that those were our takeaways and theirs may be very different, and they may have to learn it all on their own.I know we can wish to save them from some of that hard work, but it just doesn't work that way. I'm sure we can all think back to times that our parents thought they knew what was best for us and they wanted to save us from this problem that we were running headstrong into, but it just never landed well, and I actually believe it creates what we're fearing, because then our kids are less likely to come to us as they're figuring out things, because they're fearing our judgment or our direction, or that we're going to co-opt whatever it is they're doing.If instead, we can stay connected and curious, we can act as that trusted advisor and a sounding board as they find the past that make the most sense to them.PAM: Yes. It is so interesting, isn't it, how we feel more comfortable judging our children than other adults. And I think that ties back to that carpenter parenting style, right? Which I think for many parents is the adult-child relationship we know, because that's how we grew up. We compare the child to the blueprint, we judge how close they are to that ideal, and then we have to use control tactics at that point to make the adjustments that are needed to get them back on track. And absolutely not as starkly negative as that sounds right. We love our kids and we want what's best for them, but the real question is, who gets to define what is best?As a carpenter-style parent, we want to define that, right? It's our blueprint, our vision of the best path from naive child to successful adult. They're our child. We want them to listen to us and learn from our mistakes so they don't have to go through similar challenges.But, as you said, that's just not how human beings are wired to learn. And we differ from our children in many significant ways, right? And regardless of age, we all want to learn through our own experiences. Think about how we like to learn. We all want to explore the things that we find fascinating, and our children will feel more supported and cared for when they know that we have their backs, that we love them and celebrate who they are. They feel safer coming to us with questions and to process things that have happened, knowing they won't be judged or scorned, but that we'll do our best to help them figure things out for themselves. So, we're not there to tell them direction, but we are there to help them process and think things through to understand it for themselves. That's where the real learning is. When they see the context, they see the choices, they see how things unfolded.Now definitely, we can share our experiences with them as information that they might find helpful. But we can do it without that expectation that they adopt it wholesale. Again, we're different people and we're all in different places in our lives, too. When we were at that age, what life was like at that age is different than what life at that age is like for them, too.And my goodness, the lightness and the joy that comes with celebrating the amazing child that you love is priceless versus the weight we carry when we're always judging and trying to get them back on our track. Just night and day.ANNA: Absolutely. And we can take that weight off of ourselves and off of our children, and it frees up energy to create these amazing relationships that last throughout our lives. And I think the other piece that can't really be overstated, too, is that when we're coming in with that judgment and control, we're really short-circuiting the learning. We're really not allowing them to learn about themselves.So, if they love something intensely, but we're saying, "Hmm, that doesn't align, that's not as academic as we want it, that's not as sporty as we want it," whatever the thing is, then they're left doubting what they're loving, what they're thinking. And so, this process of them discovering who they really are is just being tamped down and short-circuited by us, which then just spills into their adulthood.PAM: And what they're learning is about us. They're learning that sports is important to us, that we love hockey or we love soccer or we think that's important. And back to our last episode, the self-awareness piece. We are not helping them gain any self-awareness when what they're learning is about us and what our priorities are.They're not having a chance to explore the things that they like and what their priorities are, and to have those experiences. There's nothing wrong with an experience that they afterwards say, "I don't want to have that experience again," That's learning. ANNA: Right! And it just makes for a richer experience. Again, we've talked about in the last episodes, when we go tunnel vision with this outcome or solution, we're missing the richness, we're missing the tapestry that comes from all the uniqueness of the people around us. And so, I'm excited that we're talking about just celebrating our child and all the people around us really. This is just about celebrating the people around us and their uniqueness.So, a few questions to consider for this week. In what ways have you celebrated your child for the person they are? What does your child love? How do you see it as a part of who they are?I think that's a big one, because sometimes it's hard. The things they love, maybe we don't understand it. Why are they so fascinated by that? Why do they keep wanting to go down that one path? But really sink in with that.PAM: Those are great questions for us to ask ourselves, as we're talking about, peeling back those layers. If we don't understand, that doesn't mean immediately stop them. It means, oh, why? Why is this very interesting to them? And yeah. It's amazing what you discover when you start peeling back those layers for yourself.ANNA: And just lean in, lean into that excitement from them and just bask in that piece and you'll learn a lot. And then, what visions did you hold of having children? How has that vision helped or harmed your relationship with your actual children?PAM: There's a distinction.ANNA: There's a distinction for sure. The children in our head are not always the children we have in front of us. Take some time this week to think about your family and how you are all individuals. See and celebrate the differences. And again, this is for every member, adults and kids alike. How different does that feel to think we're all celebrating the uniqueness? They're in it together supporting one another. It's just such a different feeling.PAM: Yeah. And I think that is a place where we can all connect, too, as we're talking about connection, is that we can each find the things that light us up and we can connect through the fact that they light us up. We can celebrate that joy, that fun. "Oh, you love that so much. I love this just as much. It's so fun when we get a chance to do it and we don't want to do anything else," and conversations can go there. Connecting with our kids or our partner doesn't mean that we have to love the thing they love as much as they do, but it means seeing how much they love that, celebrating how much they love that, supporting them to do it as much as they would like to be able to do it, all those pieces.It really is when you can peel that apart. I don't have to love it as much. I can celebrate that they love it that much. And then I can think about the things that I love that much. It's just so rich. The world opens up for the family as well.ANNA: And I think what you'll notice very quickly is how people respond to that, how they open up more and tell you more and feel more trust and feel more seen and heard. So quickly, that will happen when you start to celebrate the things that they love and really take an interest. Again, that doesn't mean you have to jump in and join them, but just taking an interest, whether it's a video game or a sports thing, or a music thing or an academic thing, whatever it is, just giving that time for that connection is just so rich and important.PAM: Yay! ANNA: All right. Thank you so much for listening, and we hope to see you next time. Take care.PAM: Bye!

This week, we're back to our Conflicts series and exploring a really useful tool: the acronym HALT, which stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. So often when we find ourselves in conflict, there are underlying contextual issues that intensify the situation. When we can get curious about what's going on for ourselves and the people around us, we can find ways to address the discomfort so that it's easier to be creative and find solutions to the real problems underneath.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Over the next week or two, just take some time to notice what your body feels at random times. Are you feeling hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Each of these can feel different for different people—what do they feel like for you? Consider how they feel both physically and emotionally.2. Think about a recent conflict. Might any of the HALT factors been at play? For you? For them?3. Think about a way to remind yourself to consider HALT when you’re sensing an edge to yourself or to someone around you. Maybe a reminder on your phone wallpaper? Or a note on the fridge? Or a representative object you keep in your pocket? Something that helps you keep the idea top of mind until it becomes a habit to check in to see if anyone’s hungry, angry, lonely or tired.TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! We are so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.So, if you're new to the podcast, we do encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes, particularly the first 14. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and have really enjoyed how they've been building on one another, so it would be great to get that foundation. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review wherever you listen, because that definitely helps new people find us.Today's episode is part of our Conflict series. And actually, starting with this episode, we're embarking on a four-episode mini-series, a series within a series, diving into different aspects of self-awareness, which is so valuable for helping us navigate conflict with more grace, compassion, and effectiveness. "And how?" you ask? Well, when there's conflict, it really helps to be able to communicate to the other person what we're upset about, why, and what we feel from our perspective might help resolve the conflict. So, those underlying needs. And to do that, we need to have a pretty good handle on what's going on for us. So, that's what we're exploring with this series. We need to understand ourselves well enough to recognize and identify the feelings that are being sparked by the conflict.Maybe it's anger, frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, fear, and so on. There are so many different emotions that can be sparked. And then to dig into why those particular feelings are provoked by this particular situation. So, making connections about understanding ourselves better.Also to notice any solutions we might be feeling attached to before we hear what the other person wants to share. If we jump to our solution ahead of time, that can also make the conflict more challenging to navigate. And also to recognize and acknowledge the story that we're telling ourselves about the other person. So, if we aren't able to do this kind of internal processing, we aren't likely to have enough information about our thoughts and feelings to navigate the conflict more productively, by which I mean with enough depth to actually learn more about each other and find a path forward that we're both comfortable with. So, yes, I am looking forward to this series very much.To start us off with this first week, we want to look at the immediate circumstances that surround a conflict. And to do that, I know we've both found HALT to be a really useful tool to help bring more awareness into play. And HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, and reminds us to take a moment to tune into our bodies. It is surprising how often one or more of these are at play exacerbating a conflict, which means it's also valuable to consider HALT from the other person's perspective.So, let's start with H for hungry. When we're hungry, we're often not able to think as clearly as usual, right? We feel irritable. We tend to snap at people, and we often aren't able to give space for listening or for being creative and coming up with solutions. We just want this conflict to be over already and even better if it goes our way. So, thankfully this one is relatively easy to take care of once we notice it's at play. We can share what's up. We can grab a quick snack. Maybe we say something like, "Let's continue our conversation in the kitchen. I'm feeling hungry and need some food so I can give you my full attention." Or a glass of water or a cup of tea.It's a quick acknowledgement of what you're feeling and how you want to address it. And interestingly, as we mentioned, playing with these things, I've noticed that continuing our conversation while I'm prepping food or grabbing a drink sometimes helps bring the confrontational energy down a bit.Because we're not literally face-to-face anymore. There's just more space for us to use and take up.ANNA: Yes. This is definitely something I have to watch out for. I can move from everything's fine to hangry really fast. And while it's so important to tune in to what's happening in our bodies, like you're talking about, it is helpful to keep HALT in mind for the people around us, too. If I feel things starting to get a little bit of an edge or something, just that off energy, a quick check-in about where are we in the day, is dinner running late? Did this person skip lunch? Is it mid-morning and we haven't had breakfast? Just checking in to see if hunger could be a factor in the edge that I'm hearing.And sometimes it's fine to point that out, right? And sometimes it won't help at all. So, definitely know your audience and know how far down I am on the hungry/hangry scale before you tell me that I need to eat. But if I think it's a factor, I will just move myself and the discussion to the kitchen, like you're talking about, grabbing a snack for myself, offering a snack to them. I might bring snacks to my partner or child wherever they happen to be, if they don't move with me but I'm still sensing this kind of energy that's escalating, especially if we're talking about siblings.It was just such a common theme with our girls when they were young that I told David he was going to need to tattoo, "FEED AT THREE" on his arm to remember that that preemptive snack made all the difference in how the rest of the day played out. He already knew to make sure that I was eating at regular intervals, but it was just this reminder that yes, something that seems like this huge conflict just completely dissolves when we have a snack and just hang out and start eating something.PAM: Yeah. I love that and just a fun joke that also helps it stick. That can be referred back to. But noticing those kinds of patterns is so very valuable in understanding not only each other, but the context and how I can go from everything's fine to horribly hangry so fast, to be able to see that the context matters. It's not just about the thing that you're in conflict about, right? Context really, really matters.So, speaking of that, next up is A, which reminds us to check in with ourselves to notice if we're feeling angry. So, when we're angry about something, that also tends to seep into our interactions with others, even if they're completely unrelated. And that makes sense, doesn't it?If, say, we had a conflict at work that day, we may well be preoccupied, playing it over and over in our heads, even after we get home. And that keeps us steeped in those emotions. Anger simmering just below the surface and ready to lash out at the slightest provocation.And that said, sometimes I don't actually realize that I'm feeling angry. And at those times, what I notice first is often that I just have a short fuse. And that's my clue to take a moment to dig in. To go through HALT and see what resonates. And that's when I may realize I'm angry about something.Maybe someone made a comment to me earlier in the day and I thought I'd just brushed it off. It rolled off my back, but I find that it's still simmering there in the background. So, once I'm aware of it, I find it's just a bit easier to now hold it apart from my current interactions so that they don't escalate, or at least I can let my family know that my frustration or my sharp words aren't about them. They're about what's going on with me and something that I am processing.But now what I can do is intentionally process that anger and process that situation, moving through it in ways that work for me rather than having it just stewing away in the background. ANNA: And being more intentional about how you're interacting with the people around you that may have absolutely nothing to do with what's sparking that anger. And so often anger is the presenting emotion, but there's so much more behind it. And recognizing and sharing as much as we can with the people around us just helps them to understand and support us. So, I love that piece.And here again, if I'm sensing an edge in a person I'm with and hunger doesn't make sense, I want to understand if something else is going on with them. And I might ask, "Hey, how was work or school today?" Or maybe I knew they had a call earlier and ask about that, or ask about a project I know they were working on that was causing some frustration. So often, people just need to feel heard and validated, and then they're actually able to move through whatever those stuck feelings are that, like you said, maybe they don't even recognize in that moment that's creating this sharp edge in their tone or whatever is going on.And so, my job is to not take it personally, to be curious and interested, to be the safe place so those feelings can be addressed and not fester when they can then come out in these ways that are more hurtful and sharp. And even if that ship has sailed and somebody snaps, I can recognize that that's about them and not me and choose to lean in and be kind like we talked about last time.PAM: Exactly, exactly. Making that choice to be kind in the moment and not taking it personally. It makes all the difference, it really does, in moving through that.So, next we've got L. And feeling lonely can stem from feeling disconnected from the people around us, particularly family, because at first it's like, how can I be lonely? I've got all these people around me. We're stuck in this house. But when that happens, I can get cranky, sniping at my loved ones, and paradoxically pushing them even further away. So, I'm creating more miscommunication and more disconnection. So, noticing my crankiness. So, we're back to that self-awareness, right? Something's got to trigger me to like, oh, what's going on? Then I can pull out HALT and hopefully soon realize that I'm actually feeling lonely. No, I am not hungry. I ate half an hour ago. And no, I don't feel angry or mad at anything in particular. Ah, let's check in with loneliness. So, now that I'm aware of that underlying feeling, I can be more considerate of myself.And for me, that means instead of staying on that surface level and pushing people away with my cranky words and actions, I can make choices from that deeper level of awareness that I'm feeling lonely right now. So, I can more intentionally reach out to others to connect. I can invite a partner or a child to join me in an activity that we enjoy together. I can focus on cultivating laughter, connection, and joy to fill up my cup. And if that feels too hard right now, if we're not able to muster that energy to think of something and go out and invite someone, we can absolutely join them in whatever they're up to. Because right now, my connection with them is the priority, not the activity itself.So, you know what? If they're doing something that they're choosing to do and they're having fun with it, I can join them and just quietly soak in that joy, connect with them through their joy in what they're doing. Even if the activity isn't something that I super love or would choose to do on my own, that's not the point. I'm not looking for an activity. I'm looking for connection. I'm feeling a bit lonely and disconnected, so I can join them in whatever they're doing and enjoying and use that to connect with them again. To get some joy just by steeping in the joy that they're having. ANNA: I love that. When we see this crankiness in a person that we love, we can think about our connection and at least just bring it to mind. Have we had time together recently? Are they feeling connected to us? We normally are and just sometimes we notice the day has slipped away from us, or we haven't had our normal check-in or it's been a busy few days even. And so, all of that happens. And in a few weeks, we'll be talking about bids for connection. And sometimes those bids are positive attempts at engagement, but sometimes it's just not as clear. So, checking in and noticing if we've been prioritizing our connection. It can be, has our child gotten time with their friends? It may not be with us directly, but just being aware that this could be at play with a foul mood is so helpful, because sometimes we or the person doesn't even realize that's at play and a bit of connection to fill their cup just totally turns things around.But this is one of those, like you were talking about with anger, I think sometimes we don't notice it. Because, like you said, we're around people and we've got people at home and maybe we even were at school or we were with a bunch of people. But depending on our personalities and how we fill our cups of connection, we really may not have had that quality time or deeper conversations or one-on-one that maybe we were looking for. And so, it really helps to keep those things in mind for ourselves and for those people that we love around us. And again, it's so much about not taking it personally, so that we can be the support we want to be for the people in our lives.PAM: Yes. Yes. And we keep mentioning that in multiple episodes because it is key not taking things personally because people's behavior is about them. It's giving us messages and clues about them, and conversely, our behavior is about us. So, even if we try to blame it on others, at first, like, "You're making me angry," it really is about our reaction to whatever is going on.So, lastly, T. When we're tired, I think it can be similar to being hungry, at least for me. It's hard to think clearly. We may feel frustrated and snippy. It's hard to listen to and empathize with others, but here the solution is just different. Rest rather than food. So, sometimes we end up tired and irritable pretty quickly, having ignored, pushed through, or not even noticed earlier signals that our body was trying to send us. So, letting others know you're feeling tired and cranky is important. It's valuable. And again, helping them understand why you may be behaving a bit out of character.Communication, information, that it's about you and your tired state. It is not about them, and that can help stop conflicts from bubbling up that serve no purpose other than damaging the connection and the relationship. And even better, I found, this was my experience when I started playing with it, when the other person knows what's up, they may well help you settle in for a nap or into bed for the night. When loved ones learn your frustration or your saltiness isn't a judgment of them personally, but has an unrelated reason, you're tired, they can quickly become understanding and helpful.So, we say we're tired, but we're pushing through to get one more chore done before we drop for the night. And maybe, maybe just one more, but when someone else says, "Hey, that can wait till tomorrow. You're so tired. Why don't you just go to bed?" That can help knock us out of the tunnel vision of, I must do this, that I've gotten stuck in, and remind me to take better care of myself. And I have found myself at times like, "Oh, I can't let anyone know that I'm tired, because they'll tell me to stop." ANNA: You're trying to trick them, but it's not working.PAM: I know, I know. That trick just doesn't work. But I think our society undervalues rest in service to productivity so much and that is the tunnel vision that I get stuck in and it's easier to get stuck when I'm tired and when I'm off. ANNA: I do think this is one that can sneak up on us. It’s so common to push through being tired. There's just this expectation of it almost. And we may not even realize how much it impacts us, but it often does. Checking in with someone about how they slept. Do we need a break, a nap? Or just some quiet rest time can help. The 20-minute power nap can be a nice reset. And if rest isn't possible in the moment, just saying, "Hey, let's talk about this tomorrow. Let's put this thing aside," just helps us move from that kind of tired, grumpy, that can then go into a full on conflict if we push through those early signs. Remember that there's plenty of time and not pushing a sense of urgency when we can see someone is not feeling their best. That just leaves space for us to come back fresh and in a more creative mindset, which will make moving through a disagreement so much easier.So, again, because we're talking so much about this context, we don't want to take something that's so contextual, like being tired or hungry and then making that define a relationship, because we're now having fights about something when really it's this contextual issue. So, it just makes it so much easier to do these little check-ins.PAM: Yeah, absolutely. And I think once we start looking at this, it can be surprising to discover how often conflict erupts or gets so much worse just because one of us is out of sorts if we're hungry, angry, lonely, tired. We don't have our usual well of patience, our ability to listen attentively or even the capacity to think creatively, either one of us when we are in that state. When we can recognize that our reactions or their reactions seem out of proportion, that can be just a nice clue that we can check in with HALT and focus on addressing any of those underlying needs rather than getting defensive and focusing on that surface conflict.It is so easy to just feel defensive and like, nope. And you stay stuck there. It's like we talked about in the last episode, getting to those underlying needs. I've found so fascinating too, is that there is a good chance that once we've met that underlying need, the original conflict actually just kind of melts away right, back to being kind, not right.When we're being kind and we're looking at these underlying needs, oh my gosh, the right/wrong thing just even melts away in the first place. It's not something you need to go back to.ANNA: Right. Oh my goodness. Yeah. HALT has resolved so many conflicts for me over the years, and there's just such value in bringing myself back into my body so that I am finding the root cause instead of blaming the person in front of me or thinking that there's something wrong with the relationship as a whole.And like you said, we often find that once we address whatever the HALT issue is, it just melts away. Like it just suddenly, whatever the edge was about that particular issue, we're able to be creative again. We're able to find a solution. We're able to look at those needs. We are so influenced by what's happening in our body and then these other contextual issues. I just want to always look there first before going too far down and back and forth about something that just might fade away if we had some more food and a little bit of sleep and giving some grace to those around us. It's a kindness to them and also to ourselves. It's one more way we learn about one another and learn to navigate life together.So much of this happens by slowing things down, giving space to look around and tune in before engaging into a conflict. We can address the contextual issues and if the original problem's still there, okay, we can approach it then with curiosity, asking questions, expressing our feelings and needs, but it's going to be a lot more intentional and less charged if we work through those contextual bits first.PAM: Exactly. Yeah. That's why we wanted to start with this one because yeah, it is in the moment. How are we in this moment? So, as you contemplate HALT as a tool for increasing self-awareness, particularly when it comes to navigating conflict, like self-awareness is good, but it is extra helpful when we're navigating conflict, here are some questions that might be helpful for you to consider.So, number one, over the next week or two, just take some time to notice what your body feels at random times. Are you feeling hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Get used to just asking yourself those questions, whether or not there's conflict going around, because each of these can feel different for different people. So, discover what they feel like for you. It'll be easier over time for you to more quickly identify that. And consider how they feel both physically and emotionally. Because there can be physical aspects as well.Question two, think about a recent conflict. Might any of the HALT factors been at play? Think about it for yourself and think about it for the other person.Number three, think about a way to remind yourself to consider HALT when you're sensing an edge to yourself or to someone around you or between other people. I have done all of these over the years, so maybe a reminder on your phone wallpaper, so that you just see that when you turn on your phone and it's like, oh yeah, HALT. What about that? Or maybe it's a note on the fridge. Just the word HALT. Doesn't need to be a big message. Or a representative object that you keep in your pocket. Just something that helps you keep the idea top of mind until it becomes a habit to check in, to see if you or anyone else are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.Thank you so much for listening and we will see you next time. Bye!

This week, we're expanding our Conflicts series by diving into a favorite mantra of Anna's, "Be kind, not right." When we find ourselves in a disagreement, we usually feel pretty strongly that we have the right answer or view of the situation and we'll continue to defend and explain to convince the other person they're wrong.But this approach will never improve a relationship and it can do a lot of damage. It's valuable to consider whether it feels better to let go of some of that defensiveness in order to learn more about the situation. We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. How would choosing "Be kind, not right" change exchanges with the people you love? 2. Do you feel resistance to setting aside your position? What does it feel like to play with that idea? 3. Think of a recent conflict you were engaged in. What was the underlying need you were trying to meet with the perspective or path you were arguing for? Can you think of another way you could have met that need? Might it have been met with less resistance?TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hi and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast! We're so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and just really have enjoyed how all that's coming together. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating or review wherever you listen. That definitely helps new people find us.So, on today's episode, it's part of our relationship series, and we're going to be talking about a mantra that has served me well over many years, and that is, "Be kind, not right." When we find ourselves in a disagreement, we usually feel pretty strongly that we have the right answer, approach, or view of the situation. And we spend the discussion or conflict trying to convince the other person that they are wrong. We will defend and explain and pick apart their position. And it doesn't mean that we're holding any malice necessarily. We just truly believe we're right and that they need to understand that now.But here's the thing. This approach will never improve a relationship and it can do a lot of damage. We talked about listening a few weeks ago and how listening helps us learn and understand our loved ones and where they're coming from, but sometimes it's hard, because we really know we're right and we really want them to understand.And so, one of the quick tools that has helped me when I'm stuck there is to think of this person that I love and realize that I would rather be kind than right. I can be right all day long, but if it disconnects me from the people that I love, what have I really gained? I have to ask myself if I really want to just sit here alone in my rightness.PAM: That's such a great way to describe it, because it conjures up such a vivid image in my mind. I'm like sitting on a stool by myself off to the side. My body's upright and tense. I'm ready to ward off any detractors, just sure that my take on the situation is the right one, and I'm just waiting for them to come around.And as I just kind of sit there, it does feel disconnected and lonely in some ways. So, I think contemplating what I'm getting out of standing resolutely in my rightness is so helpful when I'm starting to feel stuck in a conflict, when I notice that I'm repeating myself, trying to convince them I'm right, yet having nothing new to add to the conversation.So, at that point, I can start by just releasing the question of who's right or wrong for now. I can always come back to that later if need be. But for now, I can ask myself some questions. So, what do things look like? What's the energy in the room? How are the people involved feeling, including me? What's my connection with this person that I love feeling like right now? What are my priorities in this moment and why?ANNA: Exactly. And this can be a time for being open and curious, which you've heard us talk about so much. Because being open, asking ourselves questions, looking at the situation with a wider angle lens, can help us see things that we've been missing. And it's like you were saying, you weren't bringing any new information. We're just kind of hammering that same thing.So, we want to open it up a little bit. I think it's important, or at least it is to me, to remember that I don't have to give up my idea of what I think is right. I can hold on to that and still choose to react to the person in front of me with kindness.What I've found is that, when I'm able to do that, I actually learn a lot about what's going on for the person. And we are typically able to actually remain connected while we navigate the disagreement, because we don't get locked into this attack and defend mode. We're really trying to understand each other better. And remaining connected is the key to smoothly navigating conflict. Be kind, not right, is just a helpful reminder that my priority is to be in relationship with this person.When I can keep that front and center, it's easier to find the softness. It's easier to remember what I love about this person and why I want to set aside my ideas in the moment to connect and hear them. And again, that knowing that I don't have to give up my belief about the right, because that can take me a few minutes, it's really just more about learning more.PAM: Yes. Yes. I really think that can be a big stumbling block. I've experienced that as a big stumbling block. The idea that being kind and compassionate with the other person during a conflict, like the idea that that means we're implicitly admitting we're wrong. When I first came across that, it was a very novel idea, that my goal when navigating conflict doesn't need to be to win, to get the other person to concede defeat. Instead, it can be about remembering that my ultimate goal is to prioritize my close relationships, recognizing that the connected and respectful long-term relationship that I want to have with this person is of higher value than the perception of winning or losing this particular battle.Absolutely, that said, it is not an easy shift to make, and part of that is definitely because the idea of winning is so tightly wrapped up in our culture as a measure of our value as a person. A win is another tick box and another tick box, and the more you have, the better person you are. But eventually, I managed to give myself permission and some space to play with it.And what I learned through that experience really was pretty amazing for me. As you mentioned, when I didn't lock myself into that attack/defend mode of communication back and forth, I instead was asking questions, trying to understand their perspective. I just learned so much more about them, about how they tick, and what they value, and why, and just how their day is going in this moment.ANNA: Yes. And it works in all kinds of situations. Just to give a silly example, let's say your partner was supposed to make a phone call to get the car fixed. You both agreed that they would make the call that day. Well, the next day arrives, the call wasn't made, and now they're changing their story.Well, they didn't know or they thought it was later. You're hearing some excuses. And so, we can have an argument about the original agreement or we can extend kindness and say, "Okay, well I guess we had a misunderstanding. No worries. Do you want to call now or should I?" Nothing is gained by me trying to convince them that I was right about the plan and point out how they fell short. It just makes them feel bad. It disconnects us and we still haven't made the call.And so, when we catch anyone in a story, be it a child or a partner, there's always something behind that. It's possible that they feel unsafe telling us the truth. That is always something I want to examine.Why would someone feel that way? Have I been reacting in anger? Do they feel like they'll get in trouble? That can be a trigger for a lot of people. But that's not an environment I want to cultivate in my home or in my close relationships, because we all make mistakes. We all forget to do things.We all have tough days.But when I'm able to show up and be kind and listen, I learn more about what's going on with them. Maybe they were overwhelmed that day. Maybe something happened at work or school that put them in a bad space. I would much rather know that and be there as a support, than to prove I was right and leave us both feeling bad.And so, this can also apply to just differences in beliefs. We'll often be faced with people we love seeing situations differently. It could be political in nature, or just the way we want to handle a situation. There's no one definitive answer for all the things. There's always nuances. And even if I feel very secure in my belief, which I often do, I will leave room for others to have their own.Because, again, if we can remain open and curious, we will learn something. It may not change our mind, but we will have a much better understanding of the other side of the argument, and that's just always worth something. This is especially true of people we want to be in loving relationships with. And what I've found is that when I choose kindness over being right, we leave the door open for both parties to learn more about each other.PAM: Yes. Choosing kindness and curiosity really helps me better understand the underlying needs that they're trying to meet. You know, why do they feel that they need to make up the story? I don't need to argue about the excuse or win the excuse. But oh my gosh. To ask questions about it, to get curious about that, and to even ask myself questions like, why is this important to me? Why is it important to them? How does their stance in this conflict or even conversation meet that underlying need for them?Because once we can get to talking about our needs rather than the surface expression of them that we're arguing about in this moment, we have the opportunity to find a path forward through the conflict that actually works better for both of us, better than the original solutions that we had each proposed and were arguing back and forth about.When we move away from the focus of the conflict being determining who is right and who is wrong, and instead choose to navigate the challenges and the conflicts through the bigger picture lens of kindness, I just find that it makes such a huge difference in our days. It's like, we're together. Right?ANNA: It's such a huge difference. That feeling of, we're in this together facing the challenges as a team. I don't want to pit myself against my partner or my children. I want to keep things open and encourage conversations and learning. And what I've found is, when we're working together, we find the ways to meet everyone's needs much faster than if we're all in this very defensive stance of trying to explain our needs and defend our needs. I don't want that idea that we have to defend our needs to be a part of the equation with the people that I love. It's like, no, we'll figure this out together.PAM: Oh, you know what I think is really interesting too, is when I'm coming into those complex conversations? It's the the fact that so often, even with myself when I proposed a solution or like, this is what we need to do, and I'm trying to convince them that this is the right way, I haven't really thought about what the needs are underneath it. I have already jumped to the solution.So, that's why taking those couple of minutes to just pause for a second, and think, why is that the only solution that I see? Opening up to other possibilities. And the same with somebody else. When they are saying, ah, I need to do this and I need to do this now, that's not literally the need. So often, that is the path forward or the solution to the need. So, let's dig a little bit deeper, whether you can do that in conversation with them or just yourself thinking about it like, oh, why is this so important to them? Why is this the direction they need to take now?And when we can peel back a layer on it and discover what's underneath and just start pointing the conversation in that direction, that's where all the rich stuff happens and the learning that we're talking about.ANNA: Right. And just one more quick thing about that, because so often, that is so important to catch, am I jumping to solutions or am I really expressing my need? Because there's a big difference. And the problem with jumping to solutions is we're jumping to the best solution for us. And what happens when we're dealing with other people is, that may not be the best solution for them in that they might want to move through that in a very different way.And so, when we get so locked in on our one solution, this being right, we just lose sight of so much, and it really can damage the relationship. And this is in business practices. This is in all areas where we just need to leave that open, express our needs, so that we can then meet the needs as opposed to barreling in with the best solution.PAM: Exactly! And when we can do that, get to that layer underneath, it's not admitting we're wrong. Because it's like, oh, there are other possibilities to meet this need that can mesh with the other people who are involved. So, right back to that, be kind, not right. Doesn't mean you're wrong. It just might be the, the proposed solution or the way you end up going looks different than what you first thought.ANNA: Exactly. It may not work for everybody. And we can still get our needs met. Anyway, it's super fascinating. I think it'll be fun for everybody to kind of think about this one for a while. So, we'll dig into just a few quick questions for this week.The first one is, how would choosing "Be kind, not right" change exchanges with the people you love? I think it's just really helpful to look at some of those exchanges. And do you feel resistance to setting aside your position and what does it feel like to play with that idea? Because you've heard that both Pam and I have had to do a little bit of work to get to that place of setting aside our position, but I think that key that we talked about there at the end, getting to your need, because your need is real and valid, it's just don't jump to that solution, because the position is really that solution that you're trying to push on someone else. And so, I think that'll be interesting to just, how does it play with letting go of that one right way and settling into communicating about needs and hearing about other people's needs?PAM: And I think thinking about it as play, like, I'm going to play with this, because if we try to tell ourselves to do it different, it's also telling ourselves we were wrong and bringing up that whole resistance to it. But it's like, you know what? Let me explore it, play with it, and compare. I have lots of experience with handling it this way, let's handle it a little bit differently and just see which actually feels better.ANNA: Exactly. Okay, last question is to think of a recent conflict you were engaged in. What was the underlying need you were trying to meet with the prospective path or the path that you were arguing for? And can you think of another way you could have met that need? And might it have been met with less resistance?So again, that peeling back to, am I communicating about my needs or am I communicating a solution that's kind of bulldozing through other people? I think that'll be a really interesting nuance to tease apart as we think about conflicts and more challenged conversation. This doesn't have to be big, hard things. This can happen in a lot of places in our life, but, how's that coming across to the people around us?PAM: Yes. And I think here is another great place to just think about that productivity lens too and the urgency thing that we've talked about, too. I need to solve this fast. I need this need met immediately. We need to do this quick. So, it can be a bit hard at the beginning to just leave some space for these more creative, different ideas. This is one way it works. Boom. No, but hey, maybe there's other path. And as you said, it might be met with less resistance from the other people who are involved.ANNA: Right, and I think what you'll find is that, it's much easier for people to validate and understand and solve for our need than to validate our proposed solution that may be impinging upon them. So, I think what you'll see is just the conversations are so different when we have that focus.So, anyway, excited as always to talk about all the things. So, thank you so much for listening, and we will see you next time. Take care.PAM: Bye-bye.

This week, we're sharing the first episode in our Parenting series, in which we'll explore our relationships with our children. We are excited to bring this new lens into our conversation! We decided to start this series with school, because it's a significant part of many children's lives. Yet, we don't need to bring school home. When it comes to our relationships with our children, life can be so much bigger than school. We can choose to put it in perspective as just one aspect of their lives.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. How does it feel to contemplate prioritizing your child, and your relationship with your child, over their school grades?2. What was your school experience growing up? Considering what we talked about in episode 3 about how people are different—and children are people too—how is your child different from you as a child? How is their school experience different from yours?3. What are some aspects of school that you might consider not enforcing at home? Where might you consider your child’s needs more important than the school’s expectations? What might that look like?4. Does your story of your child change when you don’t include how they perform at school? If so, how? Which feels better? Which feels more true to the person your child is?TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas in the first 14 episodes and have really enjoyed how they're building on one another.If you've already been enjoying the podcast, we would love it if you could share it with someone in your life that you think might benefit from contemplating these ideas. It's super easy to share. Just send them to podcast.show/living joyfully. They can listen and read the show notes right there, or they can pick their favorite podcast player and it'll take them to the show. So, thank you so much for helping us spread the word.And this is our first episode in our parenting series in which we'll explore our relationships with our children. And I am really excited to bring this lens into our conversation. Now, we decided to start the conversation in this series with school because it's a significant part of most children's lives. Yet, spoiler alert, we don't need to bring school home.When it comes to our relationships with our children, life is so much bigger than school. That said, it can be hard to remember that in the thick of things while you're figuring out the day-to-day logistics of getting kids to and from school, of packing lunches, of finishing homework, of getting paperwork signed. But it's true.When we can take a moment to release the artificial urgency that's often generated by those schedules (and check out episode eight, There's Plenty of Time, if that is feeling hard) it can be invigorating to remember that life is so much more than that. Our relationships with our children are bigger than navigating their school attendance. School often looms large in our lives, but we can choose to put it in perspective. We can choose to give our relationships with our children priority.We have evenings and weekends at our disposal where we can choose to give priority to connecting with our kids, to engaging with them, and having fun together. Because when we pull up to that bigger picture, our relationships with our children will last for our lifetime, whereas the compulsory school years are only a dozen or so years of that. If we prioritize school over our relationships with them during childhood, though, what shape will our relationships with them be in the many decades still to come?ANNA: Yes. It's really so empowering to step back a bit and realize that we can absolutely prioritize the relationship with our child, even in the context of school. And that said, it does have a way of creeping into all the aspects of life. So, I think it really will be fun to step back a bit and be really intentional about the choices we're making and put it through that priority lens that we talked about way back in episode one. Keeping that lens handy as we navigate things that feel like have-tos helps us take ownership for our choices and act with clear intention.PAM: Absolutely. Yeah. Just going back to what our priorities are, what our whys are, that can just be so helpful to bring everything into context.So, now that we have put the school years themselves into a clearer perspective against the lifelong relationship that we're going to have with our children, let's look more closely at your child right now. Because your child is so much more than their grades. You know them in a much bigger sense than the school does, than their teacher does. You see them in different situations doing different things. You see the things they love to do, because you're with them when they have the chance to do them, and how they almost effortlessly learn when they're engaged in those activities.You see them grow and change over years, a perspective that their teachers just don't have. You can help your child feel seen and heard and valued for who they are as a whole person. School is just one aspect of their lives.And you can see things through your children's eyes. You can see all the learning they're doing beyond the school curriculum and their official grades. You can see them using what they're learning day-to-day in their conversations, in their activities, in their skill development. Those are more meaningful expressions of learning in the bigger picture than grades on tests. And yes, absolutely, grades have value when it comes to college applications and things. Yet the relentless judgment of grades as a reflection of the child's value as a person over those school years can be so harmful.ANNA: So harmful. There was a thread I read recently on Instagram where adults were talking about their memories of school and it was so intense to read as people talked about how those years felt to them. And it was interesting, because it was a mix of people. Some had excelled at school and had done really well, others had given up on it, but all of them were impacted in ways that have stuck with them and have required some unpacking over subsequent decades. And I was like, wow. It was hard to read.I think many of the negative aspects can be mitigated by connected relationships in the family, though, (and I think that's why we wanted to talk about it) by parents seeing the child as a whole honoring what they love, especially if it falls outside of what's valued at school.When I work with teens and families, they're coming to me because things are getting pretty dire, and so often, it boils down to the teen not feeling seen, heard, or understood. The pressure, the weight that's being carried, is massive for these kids. And validation and understanding around that works wonders.Many of the parents have bought fully into the importance of grades and performing in a way that prioritizes school performance above all else. But when you're faced with your child's mental health suffering, it casts it in a very different light. You start to see the bigger picture and realize their mental health is actually the most important thing to you and for them.And, here we go again. There's plenty of time. There's not one path to success and happiness. As much as school tells us that they have the right path and the answer to all the questions, they don't. It's not one size fits all, even for attending college and pursuing more traditional paths. More and more colleges are valuing different paths and students who are engaged in the world pursuing passions.But most of all, we want our teens to feel strong, confident, and connected. Focusing back on the relationship to really know your whole child, what they love, what weight they're carrying, what brings connection to the teen years that many people feel is impossible. It isn't. It's there for us if we move beyond acting as the school's enforcer and instead prioritize our relationship and partnering together.The teen years are pretty amazing, and while that can be surprising to some people, they really can be when you focus on the relationships and seeing the amazing person in front of you, hearing them, understanding them, partnering with them.PAM: Yes, yes, yes. I will say the teen years can definitely be amazing. So, as we start playing with our thoughts in this direction, another aspect that I want to touch on is that school is a choice. So, for example, you may not want to homeschool your children, yet remembering that it's a valid option reminds us that sending our kids to school is a choice, certainly throughout most of the world. And that can feel so empowering.Like, we're not doing anything differently, but the minute we remember this is a choice. The shift! The energetic shift that we can feel. We can choose how our family engages with the educational system in so many ways beyond just the compulsory attendance aspect.So, one thing to be aware of is that starting to think about school as a choice may well bring up our own school experiences, as you were mentioning, Anna, and we can carry the impact of our experiences for many years. So, maybe we felt very controlled, like we needed to submit to the system's authority. Maybe we acquiesced, maybe we fought it, and maybe those feelings all come flooding back as soon as we step into a school, even as a parent. We instinctively feel we need to do what the teacher tells us. But no. We're adults. It is definitely worth the effort to process our experiences growing up so we better understand them and better understand ourselves.So, while our school experiences can inform our choices, they needn't spill over into our current interactions. Recognizing our power doesn't mean that we need to be confrontational or argumentative with teachers or administrators. It does mean that we don't need to thoughtlessly take on whatever expectations they try to throw our way. We get to choose. We can prioritize our relationships with our children. We can prioritize them, as people, and that can make a world of difference in our family's lives over our family's lifetime.ANNA: Oh my gosh. Exactly. And I think reminding ourselves of the choices is always so important. And it's not just homeschooling, it's the myriad of options and talking with your child about what they want out of the experience, because ultimately it is their life, their education.So, working with them to understand what drives them, what lights them up, how to fan those fires, instead of extinguishing them. We'll have a much better chance of helping them live their best life than thinking of traditional kind of one-size-fits-all school as the only option. And I want to acknowledge that it is scary to question some of these things that we've been handed. We've all been told is the only way.And we're not saying throw it all out. You can if you want, but it's more a call to just take a closer look, to look at our own experience in school. How did it serve us? And looking at how it didn't. How is it serving our child now? How is it falling short? Again, it's about bringing intention to those choices and making those choices together so that there's ownership and consent.PAM: Absolutely. Back to working together as a team. We are supporting them and helping them. And when there are challenges, we're helping them figure out ways to move through that, as well. I can just feel them feeling seen and heard when we have these conversations instead of shutting down any challenges they might be facing.So, lastly, I want to mention, what does it look like when we decide to thoughtfully consider how we engage with the school system? Because, as we said, we don't need to bring school home wholesale. We can choose our language around school. School can be a way to learn new things, but it's not the only way. School has a certain set of things they teach, the curriculum, but that by no means covers all the interesting things there are in the world that we and our kids can learn.Kids can learn interesting things in and out of the classroom. We don't need to value school learning over life learning, because learning is everywhere. And we know our kids. We can see through their eyes, recognize the things they're learning throughout their days. We can choose not to bring the ethos of school into our home, not to be a teacher substitute that values the generalized curriculum over the individual child. When our focus is instead on our child, on our relationship with them, and on learning wherever and whenever it happens, it's amazing the fun and engagement and just pure joy that can bubble up through our days.ANNA: Yes. I mean, what we say and the energy we bring to it has such a huge impact. By valuing all types of learning, we're showing them that the world is rich with opportunities. If they don't fit into the mold of school perfectly, that's okay. We see their value and the value of the way they learn. And maybe that's more hands-on or deep dives, things that don't work quite as well in school. Then they can put those things into perspective.And even if our child is excelling in the school environment, it's helpful to check in about what they love and exposing them to all the different ways to live, because maybe they're good at doing what's needed for the environment, but when that's over, they're left looking around wondering what they love, how they want to spend their time.And I think it's important to mention that schools have a deficit focus that kind of goes unnoticed, but it's big. They're trying to bring everybody to a center line of knowledge, and unfortunately it doesn't allow us to develop our strengths as we struggle in areas that we don't enjoy or pick up easily.And while we may not be able to change that approach in school, you can make sure that there are ample opportunities and support for your child to explore their passions, whether it be art, writing, math, sport, dance, plants, frogs, whatever is is. Together, you can find ways to help them dig into their passion and know that you see and support them doing things that they love, because no matter what the passion is, no matter how tiny and niche there are people out there making money pursuing it, creating careers and a life around it.Just exposing kids to all the ways there are to live in the world, all the paths, will help them so much as they try to find their own unique path. No one is served by the idea that there's one right way, one path to success. There are countless 40-year-olds out there struggling because they bought that story and now realize it's a myth. But again, connecting with your child or teen now, really hearing them, helping them find their path, not only preserves your relationship, but gives them a strong foundation from which to build a life they don't have to start unpacking in their forties. PAM: Yes, yes, yes. And I want to bring that up once more, what you were talking there about a child who is doing well at school, who's excelling at school. Because if we just leave that as the one right path, because they are successful on that one right path, who knows? When they graduate, it's like, oh, is that the path that I want now when there are so many other possibilities?So, even if things seem to be going "well" and smoothly, it's still beautiful and connecting and wonderful to help them also explore and have fun outside of school, find their passions. Or maybe it's a passion that they've found, something they love that they're enjoying through school.We can bring more of that into their lives outside, getting to know them and helping them feel seen and heard by you, not just through the school experience, as well.So, as you contemplate how you see school weaving through your family's lives, here are some questions that we hope you will consider. The first one is, how does it feel as you contemplate prioritizing your child and your relationship with your child over their school grades? Again, it's just like, contemplate for yourself. It's okay to ask yourself any question. Any question is okay.Number two. What was your school experience growing up? Considering what we talked about in episode three about how people are different and children are people, too, how is your child different from you as a child? How is their school experience different from yours? And I think this is a great one, because sometimes, as parents, we can have like this image of a child in our mind and that's what we're comparing our child against.But if we can let that drift away, that image of what we thought a child should be or could be ... We wanted our child to like the same things that we like, so we could do them together. If you can let go of all those pieces and just look at the child in front of you and think about how they're different, whether it's in their personalities, the things that they like to do, like all those pieces. Just look at that for a while and think about the differences. That can help us see through their eyes more easily than just our lens of how we're looking at things.Question three or group of questions number three, what are some aspects of school that you might consider not enforcing at home? Where might you consider your child's needs more important than the school's expectations? And what might that look like? Just play with that for a bit.ANNA: Yeah. And I want to add the, what does it feel like? here, too, because I'm guessing as even you contemplate this question, you're putting yourself back in that role again of, "But I have to," and so then that's cool to notice, like, "Okay, I am bringing some of that into this exchange with my child and their relationship to school." And so, yeah, just contemplating those questions and how they feel and what it might look like, I think, would be really interesting.PAM: Yeah, that's the wonderful thing and why we keep talking about energy and how we're feeling, because often our brain doesn't yet maybe notice or want to think about the thing, but if we notice our body's tensing up, that's just a clue that there's something there. Or we notice thinking about something, oh, that feels lighter all of a sudden. I didn't know I wasn't breathing deeply! Wonderful, wonderful clues.Okay, so our last question. Does your story of your child change when you don't include how they perform at school? If so, how does it change? And which story feels better? Which feels more true to the person that your child is? I love that one. ANNA: Me, too. Because so often, that is the only way we interact with children is, what's your favorite subject? What'd you do at school today? And so, really, is that the story you're telling of your child?Is it steeped in this school or are you seeing these other aspects of them?PAM: I remember when I first noticed that the first question other adults in the world asked my kids when they met them was, what grade are you in? And that's fine. I'm in grade whatever. Yet, oh my gosh, the lens of school is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. And your child is more than their school attendance and you don't need to bring that home. It's absolutely an aspect of their lives, but it's not all their lives and it doesn't define who they are as a whole.ANNA: And I guarantee you that they want to be seen as more than that. Even if they love school, they want to be seen as more than that. And so, that will just be really fun to check in and see.PAM: Yes. I love that. Thank you so much for listening everyone, and we will see you next time. Bye!ANNA: Bye-bye. Take care.

This week, we're sharing our first episode in the Conflicts series and we're talking about the importance of listening. We live in a world where, often, loud voices prevail. We want to get our points across, convince, explain, and control. But when it comes to our relationships, it's only through really listening that we learn about one another. Listening with openness and curiosity can improve our conversations, lessen conflicts, and strengthen our relationships.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Recall a recent disagreement with your partner or a close friend. Did you find yourself immediately feeling defensive? Was it hard to fully listen to what they were saying? What was going through your mind?2. How does it feel when someone takes the time to really listen to you? When that happens, do you feel more open to listening to them? How do things unfold from there?3. Have you noticed that you are more apt to take your partner or child's upset words or actions personally? How do you think that impacts the discussion that follows? Do similar conflicts seem to happen over and over?TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what it means for how we move through the world.So, if you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some really foundational relationship ideas and have really been enjoying how they're building on one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and a review wherever you listen. That definitely helps new people find us.So, we've finished our foundation series of episodes and now we'll be rotating through three new series and they're going to be Conflicts, Parenting, and Relationship Tools. Today's episode is the first in the conflict series and we're going to talk about the importance of listening.We live in a world where, often, loud voices prevail. We want to get our points across, convince, explain, control. But when it comes to our relationships, it's only through really listening that we learn about one another. And through that learning, we start to understand motivations and perspectives. I would say that 95% of conflicts I see between couples or really, people in general, stem from one person taking the actions or words of another personally and then reacting from that place. And we've talked before about the importance of remaining open and curious and in practice, that involves a lot of listening.PAM: Really. It does so much. And for me, it harks back to what we talked about in episode three. People are different.While my perspective feels like the right take on a given situation, remembering that people really are different helps me, as you said, be open to other possibilities and get curious to learn more about how the other person is just seeing things. And to do that, I need to really listen to what they're saying. And pulling back another layer on that to really hear the nuances of what they're sharing. I need to shift to being open, to taking in their words. And that's where getting curious takes me.I may well still think that my perspective is the right one, but if I can make that little shift to being curious about how they're seeing things and how they got there, I can open up enough to hear what they're trying to say. Because if I don't manage that, if I try to listen while staying stuck in my perspective, there's a good chance that the only pieces I'm going to hear, that I'm going to be taking in from their words, are those that connect to my perspective. So, I'm thinking, how does that fit with how I'm seeing things? How can I use what they're saying to convince them that I'm right?ANNA: Yes. But the thing is, we aren't going to learn more about how they're seeing the situation if we're always putting it through our filter and to go with our argument. This maybe goes back to our confirmation bias, and things we were talking about a couple episodes.The first step, I feel, to really listening, is to let go of that need to defend or explain our position. That can happen later. So, you don't have to let go of your beliefs to really hear another person and I really feel like that's where we get stuck. "If I'm listening and not defending, does that mean I'm agreeing?" We're kinda like, "Hmm, I don't know how that feels." But it's not about agreeing or disagreeing. It's about listening to understand the situation through the other person's eyes, because without that understanding, we just get stuck in a standoff, each defending our vision of what the situation is.And we just want so much more than that from our close relationships. And I feel like quieting our thoughts is key to really listening. So often, we're formulating our response in our head and just like you were saying, looking for those pieces we can pull out that works with our story and the other person's talking and we're not listening at all, because we're just looking for those little keywords to put into our argument. But what we're missing is this critical information to understand the situation and the person in front of us.And I think that remembering there's plenty of time can also help here, too, because this isn't a race, right? If we can just drop any sense of urgency about getting our point across, it can help leave space for being open and curious. And the person that we're talking to will sense it. Just that shift alone will change the energy of the exchange.PAM: Oh, absolutely. The whole energy of the conversation shifts just when I'm open to new possibilities and perspectives, when I'm up for trying to see things through their eyes and check out episode four to dive more into that as a foundational relationship tool.To reiterate what you said, Anna, because I think it is such a common sticking point, listening attentively to the other person rather than immediately jumping in to argue my point doesn't mean that I'm conceding that they're right and I'm wrong. Productively navigating conflicts is so much bigger than deciding who's right and who's wrong, and listening is at the core of doing it well.Because there are always going to be conflicts, right? It's not about trying to get to a place in a relationship where there are no conflicts. We're different people and sometimes we're going to see things differently. So rather, it's about gaining experience with tools that help us move through conflict with more grace and compassion for the other person and for ourselves. That helps us avoid the standoffs that can do so much damage to our relationships.ANNA: Right, exactly. Because there absolutely are going to be times when we aren't seeing things the same and that makes sense. That's okay. That's just part of life and being involved with humans, you know? But we do have a choice about how those times play out.Is it a chance to learn more about one another? Or does it become the screaming match or the rupture that takes time and so much energy to find our connection again? I really do believe and have seen we can remain connected through disagreements, by being open and curious and truly wanting to understand our partner or child. They will sense that and we'll feel the difference as well.And so, one of the next pieces I want to talk about here is learning how to reflect back what you're hearing for clarity. And this serves a couple different purposes. First, you're making sure that you're really hearing the intent behind what's being said, because sometimes as words come through our filter, we can twist it to things that maybe aren't actually there. And so, it gives that person an opportunity to hear that and also shows the person that we're listening and that we want to understand. I actually like to specifically say, "I really do want to understand," just with earnestness, so that they know that even though I may be taking a minute to get it, I am committed to understanding. And it just sets a tone and can just bring down that activated energy. And this part I feel like gets easier as trust is built, a trust that, at our core, as people who care about one another, we want to understand each other and we're in this together.And I think it can also give information to your partner about how they're coming across, how what they are saying is landing, but it happens in a way that feels a lot less confrontational and in an environment of learning more about one another versus this accusing, blaming, "You're saying this," kind of thing that it can so often devolve into.And so, it might sound something like, "I can see how hurt you were when I didn't make it to your show," and here you might want to go into the reasons you didn't make it to the show, but don't. Just let them have their emotional experience, really hear them. And after a reflective statement, let them fine tune their message. Even if you get it right, they may want to go deeper, they may want to clarify.And all of this goes hand in hand with validation, which we're going to talk about in depth in an upcoming episode. But even just truly hearing somebody is validating and shows that you're engaged and care.And again, during this active reflective listening stage, it's not the time to defend or explain. That's just going to keep the person feeling like they have to defend and explain longer. And so, then we have the battle of who can defend and explain the longest. There's going to be time for you to be heard, but taking this time now to listen will make all the difference in avoiding or deepening a rupture.PAM: Oh my goodness. Yes. Taking the time to listen and reflect what you're hearing hits so many valuable relationship notes, like just giving it space, back to that urgency piece you mentioned before.So, as you mentioned first, and it may seem obvious, listening truly does help the other person feel heard. And giving that space after reflection helps them move through their processing. They're learning more about themselves as they hear it back. It's like, yeah, does that land exactly how I meant it? Or what's a little bit deeper? So, just take a moment to think about what that feels like, for somebody to feel heard. Imagine your partner or your friend attentively listening to what you are saying to them. They're really seeing who you are in that moment and fully trusting you that it's your truth. They get it.Now, when I imagine that, my body actually physically relaxes and I find myself taking a deep healing breath. I want to listen to the people I care about in a way that helps them feel that. And next, taking turns to reflect back what we're hearing helps both of us just hone in on what's really going on for each of us.I know for me, navigating conflicts can sometimes be about peeling back the layers around why I'm feeling conflicted. So, maybe at first all I can really say is that hurt my feelings. But as the conversation continues, as I listen to what they're sharing, as I contemplate that and try to put my perspective into words, I may be able to share that hurt my feelings because of x. Then maybe I connect it to an experience in my past that I notice being triggered by what's going on.As we each hone in on the fuller context of what this conflict is triggering for each of us, we learn more about them and about ourselves. And that is information that can help us approach things differently next time, so they're less likely to provoke conflict in the first place.So, engaging in this process of listening and reflecting while we're navigating conflict helps us eventually emerge with a deeper understanding of each other, strengthening our connection and growing our trust in one another.ANNA: And as I mentioned earlier, this really does get easier the more you do it, because there will be this growing trust that there's space for everyone to be seen and heard. And this is the environment that we want to cultivate, an environment where there is this deep trust and safety because as we keep saying, everyone is so different. This type of environment leaves room for that.And because we aren't taking other people's actions or feelings personally, we're able to listen and learn more, which is then forging these deeper connections. Connections that make weathering these ups and downs and all the things that life brings so much easier and much more enjoyable as well.PAM: Yes, and I think another piece that we're learning as we're building that connection is we're learning our language. How we express things, how we can express things that other people can understand. The kind of language other people use and what it means to them. We are learning so much.So, as we share examples about the way we might express something, that's the way we would express it. There may be different words that you would choose to express these thoughts and ideas for yourself. But that is what these conversations help, this listening to hear the words and what they're actually saying and what they're meaning by it, what the intent is and how they're receiving it and reflecting back. As you say, this is how we're cultivating and growing that connection and trust and learning the tools and the ways that we, whether it's we and our partner, close friends, children, the way that we can navigate, because it can look different for each of those too, right? ANNA: It will. It really will, but I think, again, you can feel the energy difference of, hey, we're going to have disagreements or not see things the same way, but we're here to learn more about each other.It's not about blaming or any of these pieces. And, like you said, that reflective piece allows us to understand how we're coming across. It allows them to understand how they're coming across to us. It helps all of us just understand, hey, some of this language that may be my go-to isn't landing well, or some things that were fine in my family of origin do not work in this other relationship. Or again, from child to parent to friend to whatever, it's all going to be different. But if we keep that energy of learning, of just being in this together and, hey, we're a team, we're going to figure this out, it's so different than this competitive, win/loss attitude that's so prevalent in our culture.So, it's very different. And yet I feel like while it sounds like a big shift, I don't know that it's that hard, because we all want to be seen and heard, so it just helps feed itself on how much easier it is and how much better it feels.PAM: Absolutely. I love that.ANNA: All right, so we are going to end with some questions to consider. The first one. Recall a recent disagreement with your partner or close friend. Did you find yourself immediately feeling defensive? Was it hard to fully listen to what they were saying? And what was going through your mind and even your body sensations? What were you feeling? Because that's really important sometimes. And like you said, when we give space for that, we can feel that relaxing. And if we don't, that amped up, activated energy really impacts the discussion.PAM: And seeing in that question, it's just our ourself doing the processing. We're going out to anybody else, so we can play with all those different things. If you didn't feel you were defensive, then maybe you want to ask yourself, well, what would reacting or feeling defensive look like? And then you could say, oh, well maybe I was saying those things, maybe it was being taken that way, et cetera.So, yeah. It is so fun and interesting just to ask ourselves questions and play around with how we're feeling.ANNA: Right. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so number two, how does it feel when someone takes the time to really listen to you? When that happens, do you feel more open to listening to them? How do things unfold from there? So, again, this is just a walk through some scenarios and feel that energetic difference. Feel how different it feels in your body, these two types of exchanges.PAM: Yeah. It makes such a big difference. Because I feel like our feelings, how it feels in our body is often maybe the first thing that we notice. And so, now it takes us into noticing that ahead of time so that, if we're starting to tense up in a conflict type situation, then it's like, oh, oh, something's going on here and I can go back to the conversations I've had before and notice just a little bit more quickly maybe when I'm feeling defensive.ANNA: Yes. So important, because we're going to get those first clues before it actually really starts to unravel, so we can start looking for that.Okay. And our last question is, have you noticed that you are more apt to take your partner or your child's upset words or actions personally? How do you think that impacts the discussion that follows?Do similar conflicts seem to happen over and over? And this is just going to be so critical, because that piece of taking it personally, number one, it is really where everything derails, but it's super discounting to the other person, too, because they're trying to explain something to us that's going on with them, and then if we make it about us, then suddenly they're either having to like, oh, you know, you're okay, or, I didn't mean this, or whatever.But we're losing that exchange about what's actually happening and it really does create a rupture. So like really looking at, am I taking this personally? And what could I do differently? Maybe ask some questions. Maybe just pause and let that wash over and really hear what they're saying.PAM: I love that, because when we take it personally, we so often make it about us and then it moves in a completely different direction at that point, which leads to that question we were asking about whether these similar conflicts seem to happen over and over, because that is an amazing clue that, oh, there is more processing to be done here.ANNA: Exactly. Because we're not getting to their thing. We're not even getting to why it's being brought up, because then we're shifting it to be about us, or it's an attack, or we're getting defensive.We're not getting to that listening stage. And I think that's really important to point out before we go too. The purpose or the side benefit about this process is you don't keep repeating the same issues. You're going to have new ones and different things, but there will be tweaks and deepening and more understanding of each other, because we are hearing each other through those times. So, we're really understanding it. So, it's not needing to keep bubbling up or we're not needing to get louder because we weren't heard. And so, yeah, I think there are so many benefits to digging into this a little bit more.PAM: Yeah. And noticing the overall pattern. As you said, we may be tweaking. And then the next time it comes up a little bit differently and a little bit differently. But if we look back over time, we might notice some patterns in there that tell us, oh, there's something over here. Because there are layers and layers and layers of all this. Oh, yes. And listening is what helps us move through it.ANNA: Yes. Thank you so much everyone for being here with us today, and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.PAM: Bye, everybody.

In this week's episode we're talking about moving from control to connection. Power and control are pretty insidious, seeping into so many corners of our lives. We talk about dropping the need to be right, considering the context of the moment, and the value of transparent communication. Reaching for control is often a red flag that shows where we might want to dig deeper, to figure out what's really at play. Moving towards connection helps strengthen our relationships and makes navigating conflicts so much easier.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.1. Next time you’re talking with your partner or friend about what to do next, try adding “for me” to the conversation. Like, “The right thing to do, for me, is X.” How does that feel? How does the conversation flow from there?2. Do you notice yourself grasping for control more often in moments that have a sense of urgency for you? Can you remind yourself that there’s plenty of time? Does that help?3. Do you feel resistance when someone else tells you what to do? Why? Does it feel like they’ve taken away your choice? Do you purposefully avoid doing that thing now, even if it seems like it might be helpful?4. Turning that around, do you feel resistance from your partner and/or children when you tell them what to do? What does their resistance look like from your perspective? Now shift and see the situation through their eyes (see episode 4 for more details).TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are so happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas in these first 14 episodes and have really enjoyed how they're building on one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we would love if you could share it with someone in your life that you think would benefit from contemplating these ideas. It is super easy to share. Just send them to pod.link/livingjoyfully. From there, they can pick their favorite podcast player and it will take them right to the show in that app. Thank you so much for helping us spread the word.So, back in episode two, we talked about connection and how connecting with another person creates a feeling of being in alignment with them, where each person feels seen and heard for who they are. Yet the cultural and conventional wisdom that surrounds relationships is steeped in power and control, which is almost the opposite of connection.Now, granted, I think many people would answer that they prioritize connection over control, especially in their closest relationships, like with their partner and children. But what's interesting is that what that looks like day to day can be a lot more nuanced than we first think. Power and control are pretty insidious, seeping into so many corners of our lives. So, this week we want to talk about what the shift from control to connection might look like in our relationships.For me, one of the most impactful paradigm shifts, as I moved away from using power and control as a relationship tool to focusing on connection, was a shift away from needing to be right, which to be clear is not the same thing as being wrong. That's one of the societal frameworks that keeps us stuck in control-based relationship dynamics, that one person is right and the other is wrong. That right and wrong, black and white thinking is overly simplistic, particularly when it comes to the complexity of being in relationship with another human being. Not needing to be right means not needing to be universally right. It means recognizing that people are different, which we dove into back in episode three.What I can say is, "This is what feels right for me." We aren't in competition with the people we love. It is not us versus them. When I don't feel the need to judge the other person's choices or interests as right or wrong, I am so much freer to connect with them as the unique person they are and to show up as the unique person I am. For me, releasing the need for the other person to agree that I'm right weaves together nicely with the idea of being open and curious that we talked about a few weeks ago in episode 11. I can know what's right for me and I'm curious to discover what's right for them. ANNA: Yes! I think our culture sets up competition and black and white thinking pretty much from the get-go, especially in school. And while leaning into that paradigm might serve us in that environment, it does not help with our relationships at all. We want to cultivate an environment where we're learning about each other, not pushing a particular agenda. And understanding we're not universally right about all the things is a big step.And if I'm having trouble finding that energy, I'll use my mantra, "Be kind, not right," because at this point, I'm usually looking at the choice of being right and harming the relationship or being kind and staying connected. And I just always want to stay connected to the people that I love, because it's from that place that we move with the most ease through our days and through any issues.And over the years, it's been interesting to see how, when I can refrain from jumping in with my idea of what's right, I can learn so much. Because we are all so different. We really can see the very same situation completely differently. And when we leave space to see through another person's eyes, we find that maybe things really weren't as black and white as we originally thought they were.PAM: Yes. Choosing to give that space to listen rather than jumping in with my two cents was a pivotal shift for me in cultivating connected and trusting relationships. There was space for me to learn so much more about my partner and kids and about the situations and how they saw them. So often, situations were, and are, so much more nuanced than I first thought.So, another valuable shift that has helped me move away from control and focus on connection in my relationships has been recognizing that so much of life isn't as urgent as we're led to believe. We first talked about that in episode eight, "There's Plenty of Time." And I really do love how so many of these foundational ideas weave together. That's why they feel foundational to us. You'll hear us mentioning, oh, this one and this one.So, when something feels urgent, it makes sense for us to be tempted to fall back on control tactics. Because we feel like we need things to happen quickly. We need to solve this fast. But so often, that urgency isn't real. It's ingrained through societal messages like, doing things faster is better. The first person across the line wins.But truly, when it comes to relationships, it's not a race. And doing things in connection is better. So, sure, it can take longer to have conversations and come up with a plan that works for both parties, rather than just telling them what to do and expecting it to be. Yet the resentment that builds in the relationship as a result will eventually need repair. So, I think it's more like a tradeoff, right? The time upfront to prioritize the connection or the time later to repair the connection. So, for me, the relationship is just much more enjoyable and fun when I prioritize the connection as much as I can versus the ups and downs of control, repair, control, repair.Enough things, when you think about it, really do come up in a relationship that need repair. I don't need to create more by stepping in and trying to control other people. Because I sure don't like when they try to do it to me!ANNA: Right! For me, it's really an energy thing. Like, where do I wanna spend my energy? Because I can tend towards controlling things in the environment, but it's like, do I want to spend all that energy trying to control humans that don't want to be controlled? Or do I want to have that connection? Do I want to do that upfront work with those conversations. And for me, that just felt better in my days. It just felt better with my kids. It feels better with my partner.And I don't know if we can ever mention the culturally embedded sense of urgency too much, because it really is this state that keeps us from tuning into ourselves and to others. And letting go of it is so liberating. When something's a true emergency, we'll know, and we'll act on it right away. Every other time, we can take that pause and tune into the people around us to really understand where they're coming from and also tune into ourselves so that we can communicate our needs in a way that isn't pushing through someone else's consent or running over top of their needs.That self-awareness piece is so critical, and it takes some time to develop, because many of us did not have our needs acknowledged as children. So, it's hard to even know what we want or why we want it. Teasing apart the cultural shoulds and have tos from our true inner voice takes practice, especially if we were discounted as kids.But as we learn to listen to ourselves, we're then able to communicate from that place. And it's more honest and it's more understandable. When we're throwing shoulds and have tos at people, shoulds and have tos that we may not even fully understand or buy into, it's just a recipe for misunderstanding and disconnection.But when something truly means something to us, we can explain the why. And then we leave space for the other person to do the same. We can have these more interesting conversations where we're learning about one another and where we can find solutions that feel good to both of us. And that begins with the generous assumption that there may be more than one right way, our way, to look at a situation.PAM: Oh, it's so true. Developing that level of self-awareness where we better understand and can communicate our why is pretty key to moving from control to connection in our close relationships, and I see it as a wonderful spiral.As we better understand ourselves, it opens us up to recognizing that others have that depth as well, which helps us give space to learn more about them and connect more deeply with them, which in turn inspires us to dig deeper ourselves and round and round. Because there is no need to wait until we think we perfectly understand ourselves and give ourselves an A before opening up these conversations.I think that's one thing I can promise. There are always more layers. Always, always. It's an ongoing journey.All right, so, one other thing I want to mention is that when we're feeling the urge to reach for control in our relationships, sometimes what's underneath that is fear rather than judgment. Controlling the other person feels like the safer choice to us. When that happens, it's also worth digging into seeing where that's coming from. It is always worth digging.So, maybe it's something we've absorbed about relationships growing up. A really simple example might be if growing up our parents were adamant that we, that's that royal family we, must always be sorry after a disagreement, whether or not we felt it. That message was ingrained in us, and now we're an adult, and if our partner doesn't tend to apologize automatically, we may find ourselves trying to convince, in other words control, them to do so. The perfunctory apology feels safer to the relationship for us, because that's the message we absorbed growing up.But is it really? As we become more insistent, they may well become increasingly resistant. Few people like that feeling of being controlled at any age. So, it's worth digging deeper to discover where we've picked up messages about being in relationship with others that lead us to reach for control, and then taking the time to ponder whether they actually make sense to us now. We've got an experience now. We have real people in front of us that we are in relationship with. Is it working? How is it working? How is it feeling? It's so worth taking the time to dig into that.  ANNA: It really is. And I think control is pretty much always hiding something. And I think you're right that it is often fear and judgment. And it's so helpful to dig into that, because then we can understand the fear. I feel like it's rare that fear can stand up to shining a light on it, when we really call it out in front of us. It tends to lurk back in the recesses. I think insecurity can also be tied up in it as well. And if we're unwilling to look at where that's coming from, it can cast this huge shadow on the relationship.I've worked with couples where one of them looks to control to help themselves feel safe. But what that looks like is saying things like their partner needs to delete Instagram or change their communications, or stop doing X. And even if the partner agrees in the moment, it's this very shaky foundation to build upon, because trust is one of the most important elements of relationship. We build trust through conversations and owning our own pieces, through hearing our partner, and offering that generous assumption.So, we can look and talk about what feels scary about Instagram, we can walk through it, own our pieces, and keep having the conversation. Because no one wants to feel controlled, and a coerced mind is not a changed mind. So, at the first sign of trouble, those shaky agreements are thrown out the window and then feelings are hurt. We need to understand the why behind actions for them to have meaning. That only happens through really listening to one another and finding a path forward that works for everyone.PAM: Yes. I love that so much. A coerced mind is not a changed mind. Just thinking for myself, for me to change my mind, I do need to understand the why behind it. I need that bigger picture. It needs to make sense to me. And pulling it back to being open and curious, I want to be open to learning more and to changing my mind, because again, I'm not clinging to my perspective, my right answer, as the right answer for everyone. I'm curious to learn more about it. It just all weaves together so beautifully, doesn't it?ANNA: Oh my gosh. It really does. And we also talk a lot about context, and I think it's important to think about context as it relates to control, as well. If we find ourselves grasping for control in our relationships, or we see our partner trying to control us or our children, look at what's going on in the wider context. Because I've seen over and over again that if work feels out of control, we clamp down at home. And if home is feeling out of control, we clamp down at work. And that leaves the people impacted really reeling, having no idea where it's coming from. And it can lead to some pretty big ruptures.So, owning when things feel hard and out of control and realizing that trying to control others won't change that. It just ends up disconnecting us from the people who could actually be providing support during the challenges. And when we see it happening, that's where I think some narration can really help our partner. "I'm feeling a lot of pressure at work and it feels like we might not even have jobs next week, and it's making me feel freaked out and snappy." That helps our partner know what's happening in our mind, helps them not take it personally. And it keeps us honest.We don't need or want to take things out on our partner, but when we're operating on autopilot, we often will, and it just never feels good.Context includes a lot of things, not just work and home life, but smaller things like sleep and have we eaten and hormones and visiting relatives and bigger things like death and major changes like moves or a new job. Even when it's something positive that's happening, it can still be adding to our sense of overwhelm and triggering that need for control. So, being honest with ourselves and really taking responsibility for how we're showing up can help so much. And if we see it in our partner, we can gently hold space for them to view the larger context, to try to make sense of the behaviors that are causing harm or disconnection.I really believe our natural state is to want to be connected. So, given the opportunity to be seen and heard, we'll choose to find a way back to it. If we trust our partners and our children in that, it will create an environment where we're helping each other and finding solutions, and then we see there's no need for power over.PAM: Yes, there is no need to exert power over others. We really can instead work together as a team. And while it is absolutely not an easy button, my goodness, it feels so much richer and vibrant and real. Feeling seen and heard and understood just makes a world of difference for everyone at every age. And that happens through being in connection with another person, where we can share that this stuff is going on right now, or, "I'm having a hard day." Even when we just feel like we've been beaten down a bit, we are snappier. We just jump to the answer, because we don't have time, or we don't have the capacity to think of all these other options. And you don't want the other person to think, oh, that's weird. They're acting strange. ANNA: What's happening there? But it's really the connection that would help us through those T tumultuous times when we tend to reach for control. So, it's like, use it as a red flag, create a culture where you can talk about when that control starts to seep in. Because really what's happening is we need more connection, and so, just understanding that can really change things in a home, especially if there's just a lot of tough stuff going on.PAM: Yeah, that is such a great point, because not only if we can express what's going on in our heads, it doesn't have to be a big, long explanation of all the things. It's like, "I'm feeling overwhelmed right now." Then not only did they not take it personally when we're feeling snappy, like you said, their support is then yet another benefit. It's like, "Oh, is there anything I can do? Would you like to go take a little break? I'll look after this for you."So, not only are we not making them feel bad about themselves, not creating a disconnection, we're also getting the support alongside it so often. So, it's just good. Connection is so good in so many ways.All right. So, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore the idea of choosing connection over control.Next time you're talking with your partner or friend about what to do next, try adding, "for me," to the conversation. Like, "The right thing to do for me is X." How does that feel? How does the conversation flow from there? Just opening up the possibilities. "The right thing to do is," like how closed down that feels. "For me, it's this." That just invites someone else to say, "Well, for me, I'm kind of feeling Y. Is there a way we can put X and Y together and then we'll all be happy?" That's just a great baby step to take in that kind of situation.Okay. So, question two, do you notice yourself grasping for control more often in moments that have a sense of urgency for you? Can you remind yourself there's plenty of time? And does that help? Why or why not? Is there more to dig into there?ANNA: Right. But it's that red flag. Just know that control is the red flag. Start looking at the other pieces and the context, the sense of urgency, the other things that could be happening. It just gives you a lot of information.PAM: Yeah. Okay, so question three. Do you feel resistance when someone else tells you what to do? Why? Does it feel like they've taken away your choice? Do you purposefully avoid doing that thing now, even if it seems like it might be helpful? I'm definitely guilty of that. It's so interesting to dig in and just to see, because it can happen. In our world, it often happens. Somebody's just telling us what to do, right? To take a moment to just see how that feels can be so valuable.Question number four, turning that around, do you feel resistance from your partner or your children when you tell them what to do? What does their resistance look like from your perspective? Now shift the situation and see through their eyes. You can listen to episode number four for more details. And what does it look like now? I find it fascinating to think of, what does their resistance look like? Because it's often not a shouted no in your face or, but all of a sudden they may be in other rooms.ANNA: That withdrawing or it comes back a little bit later. Just watch how, when we're trying to control other people, how it impacts all the energy of the house, even when it's not someone that we're even directly controlling. There's just so much to be aware of there, and it's usually, again, just hiding some other piece, that digging in that we talked about that's so important.PAM: Yeah, exactly. Because when we can take that time to dig in that little bit, then we can shift to the conversation that we're always talking about. That conversation brings that connection. So again, it's not like we're stuffing down the things that we're feeling and seeing, but we're being open to learning how other people are seeing it and to understanding what it looks like through their eyes.Okay. Thank you so much for listening to us chat again. We are so excited to be having these conversations with you, and we would love to hear about how you are engaging with the questions, and we will see you next time. Bye!ANNA: Take care.

Let's talk about cognitive biases. Commitment bias, confirmation bias, and negativity bias are common thinking patterns that can lead to errors in judgment as well as conflict in our relationships. We dive into how they show up in our everyday lives and how becoming aware of our brain's tendencies can allow us to be more open and curious and to find more joy and connection in our relationships. We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.Examine your thoughts around quitting, sunk costs, and commitments. Are those thoughts serving you? Do you and your partner see them in the same way?Describe a time when confirmation bias stopped you from seeing someone else’s point of view.Do the Joy Writing exercise for your partner or another loved one. Reflect on how it felt and how it changes your energy when you read it.TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We're happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and really have enjoyed how they're kind of playing off each other and building on one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and review. That definitely helps new people find us.In today's episode, we're gonna talk about a few common cognitive biases that trip us up as we navigate our relationships. Cognitive biases are basically mental shortcuts that our brains will take as they try to quickly process the vast amounts of information in our very complex world.So, let's start with commitment bias and the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is associated with the commitment bias, where we continue to support our past decisions despite new evidence suggesting that it isn't really the best course of action. We fail to take into account that whatever time, effort, or money that we've already expended will not be recovered.And this could be something as simple as finishing a meal or a movie one of you isn't enjoying, because you've already paid for it, or something bigger, like finishing a college program even though, at this point, you're pretty sure you don't want to work in that field at all, but you stay because you've committed to it.This can cause friction in our relationships when we have different ideas about money, commitment, and what those things mean. Very often, the idea to stick it out at all costs was pretty much ingrained in us as children. Somehow we're a failure if we quit or we would be wasting the money, so we have to stick with it to make these expenditures worthwhile.It's really worth examining those beliefs if you see them coming into play in your relationships. Understanding sunk costs helps us see that the money is spent, period. The choice then becomes whether I want to take what I've learned about myself and move on to something else I can enjoy or stay with something that I don't.Take the money out of the equation because it's already gone, but what can I get out of that situation? What I get out of is up to me. Just learning that we don't like something has value. Letting go of judging ourselves or our partners as failing when we decide to quit something goes a long way to learning more about each other. And providing unconditional support as we figure out what we want to do with our time.The conversation is so much more valuable when we're looking at the nuances of the situation. And this also comes into play big time with children, doesn't it?PAM: Oh, it definitely does. We think we're teaching our children something positive by insisting they stick it out and follow through on their commitments when we sign them up for a rec class or they join a team. But the message they're often absorbing is, don't try new things unless you're really sure you're going to like it, or you might get stuck having to do something you really dislike.It can be so helpful to frame these kinds of choices, not as commitments, but as opportunities to try something new. You're paying for the opportunity for them to try it out and discover if it's as interesting as they imagine. Insisting someone not quit doing something they're not enjoying or just judging them negatively when they do is disconnecting and damaging to the relationship. And to what end? Because they definitely learn something more about themselves through discovering they don't like the thing and they can use that knowledge along with the time they freed up to pursue something else more in alignment with their interests.So, when you think about it in the bigger picture, they'll find the things that they love more quickly this way. And it's in finding the things they really enjoy where you'll see commitment in action. Even when things get frustrating or inconvenient, they'll show up. So, it's not about teaching commitment, it's about finding the things they are excited to commit to.And that definitely applies to us as well. Sometimes it's easier to think about it in the context of another person, but then to make that shift to realize this applies to us. We don't need to pressure ourselves to follow through on commitments if our enthusiasm has waned and we are ready to move on.Instead, let's celebrate that. Yay! Look what we know. We know more about what we like and what we don't like, or even more about the environments in which we're comfortable. That's another big piece of it too, right?ANNA: Yes. I love celebrating when we're learning more about who we are and how we want to move through the world. And I love the idea of paying for the opportunity. It's such a helpful framework. We're always learning and I want to support my kids, my partner, and myself in trying things that seemed interesting to us.I didn't need to have an attachment to the outcome, because no matter what, there will be learning, even if it's just, I really don't like this particular activity.And so, it goes back to conversations too though, because we can talk about the money involved in trying something and we can see if there's ways to trial it first, and what would be some of our other options. But I didn't want to get stuck only looking at decisions through the lens of how much it costs.It's one part, but it's not the only, and I usually found it wasn't the most important part.And it was actually my finance major husband who first told me about sunk costs when one of our children wanted to quit a class they were taking and it made honoring where they were and what they were learning so much easier, because I could let go of any guilt or baggage around the money part. Because the money's already spent, and again, this was work I needed to do for myself, as well. Giving myself permission to try something, even if I wasn't perfect at it, even if I decided at any point along the way that it wasn't working for me.PAM: Yeah, it's interesting how it's often easier to give grace to other people than it is to give it to ourselves, but we're people too. And I wanted just to bring back that point, when we talk about sunk costs, it's not about ignoring the money. It is once it's spent, but it doesn't mean we don't have that conversation up front. Maybe this is gonna be a big chunk of our budget and we want to look at all sorts of possibilities. If there is a way to get some experience with it before spending the larger chunk, that can be a valid way, too. Again, back to the conversations.ANNA: That's the richness of the conversations and staying connected and the baby steps from last week. It all wraps together.PAM: Okay, so now let's talk about the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to process information by looking for or interpreting information that is consistent with one's existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring what feels like inconsistent information. "That doesn't make sense. I'm going to toss that."It's hard to be open and curious when we're filtering information through our existing beliefs. This can sow disconnection in our relationship in a few ways, like discounting the other person's ideas or always bringing the same old ideas to our conversations. We are less creative.And in conversations, we tend to listen to the other person with an eye to picking out the bits that match how we see this situation, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago as well. And we're just waiting until we can jump in with those pieces, rather than hearing the full picture of what they're sharing.When our confirmation bias is in full swing, we are not seeing that bigger picture, are we?ANNA: Not at all. And it really reminds me of our talk about seeing through their eyes from episode four. If we're only seeing through our eyes, we already know what we're looking for and it colors everything. I think this comes into play when we're upset with our partner or children, as well. We tend to see things that confirm our ideas about them.With our partner, it could be reading into every little behavior and thinking, see, they don't care about my feelings. Hello, writing stories! And with kids it can be seeing dysregulation and blaming a video game, because we're thinking that video games are bad, when the dysregulation could just be a need for connection, some food, or some rest, something carried over from school that morning.With our partners and children, we don't want to be writing stories about the meaning of things. If we have an idea that's causing distress, they don't love me, they don't trust me, they don't like this or that, ask them. Open the conversation and enter it with that open and curious mindset we talked about earlier in the month. Upsets can rarely survive the light of inquiry, openness, and understanding.PAM: Yes. The stories we tell ourselves, right? So, for me, the clue is noticing when I'm telling myself a story about someone else. That's when I need to step carefully, because I am not them. I don't know all their personal history or the extenuating circumstances they're seeing right now. I don't know they were tired or feeling frustrated by something completely unrelated. I don't know until I ask.Because when I'm telling myself a story, it is pretty natural for it to be all about me. And definitely that works pretty well when I am talking about myself, how I'm feeling, how I'm seeing these things. But it can take me down all sorts of unhelpful paths when I'm making assumptions about how others are seeing me.As you say, it is so much better to have the conversation with them and just check in and see what's going on. ANNA: Yes, just get out of our head and get into that moment with our partners and loved ones.Okay, so the last one we want to touch on today is the negativity bias. So, the negativity bias is the tendency to remember negative events more starkly and more frequently than positive events.So, this isn't inherently problematic since it's a great way to learn from mistakes and avoid negative experiences in the future. You can see it's actually a survival skill. We quickly learn what can hurt us and what's dangerous, and we actively avoid those things. Our brain is wired to give us those things at a higher priority in order to keep us safe. We haven't really evolved out of that primal need to evaluate safety in our environment.But here's the thing. Most of us don't have tigers lurking around the corner, so bringing that intense survival energy to things like our relationships can cause a lot of heartache. We don't want to constantly be thinking about every negative thing that has happened. It keeps us stuck in the past and doesn't give our loved ones a chance to grow and change.PAM: Everybody just sit with that for just a little bit. It is so true that negative experiences stay with us longer and are recalled more quickly in a challenging moment. And, as you say, there's reasons for that.And not only does it play out on that personal level. We see it on a societal level, as well. Society in general is focused on the negative things that are happening. So often, those are the stories that are widely in the news and on social media. We find ourselves surrounded by negative stories, which fills us with more negative events to recall at a moment's notice, round and round. It can become a lens through which we see the world. Our negativity bias seeping into our confirmation bias.ANNA: Yep. And bringing awareness to these biases helps us understand that we need to be very intentional about changing our focus. Things like joy writing and gratitude practices can help bring our focus to all the things we love, all the things that are actually working.So, when I'm working with couples, I ask them to do a joy writing exercise. Basically, you each write down a list of things you love about the other, what you love about the relationship, beautiful moments, lovely gestures, things that can fill you with love when you're thinking about them. Keep it handy, have it on your phone or somewhere you can read it daily.Rereading it changes our energy and it changes how we interact with our partner, how we see our relationship. It keeps the focus on all the wonderful things there and it fosters that connection. And from a place of connection, we can move through the bumps of life with more ease. PAM: That is so, so true. Just the act of remembering the good side, alongside the challenges. It doesn't mean ignoring the challenges. It's not, let's just pack those in a box and forget about them. But remembering that so much of our lives are all these good things, too.So, as you mentioned, gratitude practices can also foster that loving energy towards our partner and our kids. We can make a point of writing down a few things that we're grateful for related to our partner and kids each day. It need only take a couple of minutes and we can share it with them too.This practice helps us notice the positive bits in our day and in our relationships, because they are there. And it's a great way to counteract that negativity bias.ANNA: Yes. And incorporating these practices and just keeping an eye towards what's working, what feels good, will help train your brain in a way that's more useful in our current environment. You'll still have the skills of recognizing danger, but will be less likely to label something that's just a bump in the day, or the relationship as something serious that feels very threatening.PAM: That's such a big difference there. Put it in the context, in the context of your whole day, not having this one moment that felt uncomfortable or challenging and having that override or color, the whole rest of your day, discount all the other bits that happened that were connecting, that were fun. They have so much value, too. ANNA: And I think just understanding that our brains tend to do that helps us just put that little check in place. Like, okay, wait a minute. Am I forgetting about all the good things and only focusing, because that's what brains like to do? And so, then we're able to take those additional steps and do those practices.So, here are some questions that you might want to ponder as you explore how these cognitive biases might be playing out in your relationships. So, first, examine your thoughts around quitting, sunk costs, and commitments. Are those thoughts that are serving you? Do you and your partner see them the same way? It could be some really fun discussions to have there.Describe a time when confirmation bias stopped you from seeing someone else's point of view. And this, you may even have to watch for, because it's so natural that we don't even notice, but just start seeing it as you're having conversations. Are we looking for what we want to see?PAM: Yeah. And that's where that open and curious piece comes in. That's just that little reminder, for me anyway, just to not get stuck in there. There's other possibilities.ANNA: Yeah. Love it. Okay. And do the joy writing exercise for your partner and other loved ones.Reflect on how it felt and how it changes your energy when you read it. I cannot tell you just how powerful this has been for so many people that have tried it and just really have enjoyed it.PAM: Yeah, I think that that it really does help just change our energy. Reminding us, oh yeah, these are all true. It's not like we're making up anything or trying to fool ourselves. Literally these are the things that we love about our partner, our children, the fun things that we're doing, the fun pieces of the day.And the one thing I want to mention about these questions is I love that we're going through and asking them now. And I really encourage people to take some time to sit with them, because it really is much more helpful I think to be thinking about these things outside of a particular challenge. But don't wait until all of a sudden y'all are arguing about, oh my gosh, our child wants to quit this activity, to have a conversation about sunk costs. Like you were saying, that could be a very fun conversation.When it's heated about a particular thing that's happening right now that feels urgent and feels like it needs a quick decision, that can be a hard time to have that kind of conversation. But if we can start playing with these ideas and asking ourselves these kinds of questions and playing through them without the pressure or urgency of something happening right in this moment, that can be so very helpful. ANNA: Right, because you're steeping in these new ideas and then they're there for us.When these challenges come up, we can recall back like, hey, I want to put it through this lens. I want to blow back a little bit and look at open and curious and see what else is at play here. I want to know that I have plenty of time. All these things that we're talking about can just be things that you keep in your back pocket as you go through and you'll start seeing how they're just helpful tools that help you navigate these things, so we don't have the spirals or the big blowups about it.So, I hope it's helping. It's been a lot of fun to talk about, anyway. So, thank you so much for listening and we hope to see you next time. Take care.PAM: Yes. Bye, everybody.

This week on the podcast, we're talking about baby steps. So often, when we're faced with a challenge or making a choice, we don't need to have the full picture or the final answer in order to move forward. By taking a baby step in the direction that makes sense to us or to our loved ones, we can learn more about the situation and see how it feels. One baby step can lead naturally to the next. As we keep communicating and checking in, we can find a path forward that works for everyone.We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.Does it feel like many of the day to day choices you’re making are urgent? Are they really? If you haven’t listened to episode 8 yet about Anna’s mantra, “there’s plenty of time,” I highly recommend it.Thinking back, can you remember a time when you felt pressured (often by ourselves!) to make a decision quickly yet the better choice wasn’t immediately clear? Can you think of a series of baby steps that might have helped? Feel free to get creative!Is there a choice or a goal you’re considering right now that feels big? You don’t need to know exactly how you’d get there, but can you see a baby step in that direction? Can you do that and see what happens?Are you more of a leap-first person or a firm-footing person? What about your partner? Your children? How can understanding that help you communicate with them about future decisions?TRANSCRIPTPAM: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. We are happy you're here exploring relationships with us, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas in these first dozen episodes and have really enjoyed how they are building on one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, please share it with the people in your life that you think would benefit from contemplating these ideas. It's super easy to share. Just send them to pod.link/livingjoyfully. From there, they can pick their favorite podcast player and it will take them right to the show in that app. Thanks so much for helping us spread the word.And so, this week, we are going to talk about the idea of baby steps. When we're trying to make a choice, so often, we don't need to make the big, ultimate decision right now. This builds on the idea that there's plenty of time, which we talked about a few weeks ago. These are the threads that are moving through them all.So, maybe we're not yet sure whether we want to pursue the end goal that we're considering. When we find ourselves here, what's often missing is more information or experience. So, taking the next baby step in that direction can give us more information to help us make that bigger picture decision. Sometimes we need to take quite a few baby steps before we get a keen sense of what we ultimately want to do.Or, maybe our partner or child wants to do something that stretches our comfort zone. Chances are, we don't need to make a yes/no choice immediately. Staying open and curious, which we talked about last week, can help us take the next baby step in that direction and just learn more about what it entails and how it feels. It can also give us a better understanding of why they're wanting to go in that direction and some experience that can help us better explain our perspective. We're learning more about them and we're learning more about ourselves.That deeper level of self-awareness and having a better grasp of the language around their goal, now we can have more meaningful and connected conversations with them. There's just so much we can learn when we try just that next baby step, isn't there?ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. And it really is the natural extension of last week's discussion on being open and curious. When our partner or child brings us something they want to do, sometimes if we don't see the whole path clearly, we'll just shut it down. At the first thought of resistance, we're just like, "No, that doesn't sound doable." But if instead we can ask some questions and start walking in that direction, we learn so much more about each other and also about the task at hand. What does it really mean? What is it really going to entail?We don't have to commit to that end goal, like you're saying, right away. Taking that first step helps us learn more and keeps us connected.PAM: Yeah. Yeah. So, I have a story to share about taking baby steps and stretching my comfort zone, that, looking back, I do remember fondly.It's an example of how we don't need to make all or nothing decisions immediately, and how choosing the next baby step does not mean that you've committed to a big yes right now.So, this happened years ago now, in the aftermath of a big January snowstorm. My daughter was maybe 13 or 14 and we had tickets to see a concert in the city about an hour away. So, that morning, the snow was falling heavily and I was sure they'd cancel the show. People were being told to stay home if possible. I was looking forward to settling in and hanging out around the fire in our wood stove.My daughter had been looking forward to the show and was understandably disappointed. I told her that I was pretty sure they'd reschedule the show. So, she wouldn't miss it. It would just be postponed. She kept checking the website. And by early afternoon, they announced that the show was going to go on.Obviously, she wanted to go and I wanted to stay home. I imagined all the hurdles in our way. And it seemed like way too much work, yet I could see her immense disappointment and I chose to shift to being open and curious about the possibility.And though I couldn't yet muster a, "Yes, let's go!" I did manage to take a baby step to meet her with a maybe. Though the snow had now stopped falling, I explained the obstacles I saw and that I was willing to try the next baby step and see how it looked. If it looked okay, we'd try the next baby step and the next, and she agreed.So, step one was, clean off the car and shovel enough of the driveway to get out by our planned departure time. And we did it, even after the snow plow went by and created another curb of snow at the end of the driveway that we had to dig through again.So, step two, is our local rural road plowed and safely drivable? Once we could peek out and see the road, that was a yes, too. Step three was pack the car with extra hats and mitts and snacks in case we get stuck along the way. Done.By the time we pulled out of the driveway, it felt like we were on quite the adventure. I was rather surprised we'd actually made it this far, but there was no point that said, "Stop," so we kept going. Step four, as we slowly drove into the city, I reminded her that if the road or the traffic got bad, we would turn back. Even in her excitement, she was fine with that. It turned out that though the roads were snow-covered, they had been plowed, so it wasn't deep, and traffic was very light. Slowly but surely, we made our way into the city.Step five, we pulled into the venue parking lot. We were both so surprised to find ourselves there. It was almost surreal. I can still remember the feeling. So white and quiet outside. And inside, the concert turned out to be a very intimate show. The band thanked those who showed up and really connected with the audience as they played. It ended up being a pretty magical night.I remember that day vividly because it was a great reminder that, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, when I'm feeling like I need to make a big yes/no choice, taking baby steps and looking around after each one to see what's up and see how I'm feeling can be a really helpful way for me to move through it.I could acknowledge both my discomfort and her enthusiasm, holding both of them gently in my hands. And baby step by baby step, explore whether we could find a path forward that worked for both of us.And that said, sometimes we don't have the capacity for that, and that's okay. Sometimes we start out and come to an impasse. That's okay, too. But sometimes we find a path of baby steps that works out. And over the years, that happened way more often than I expected. That inspired me each time just to give it a shot.ANNA: Just to give it a shot! Oh my gosh. I love that story. And I think what I want to highlight is that by being open to those next steps and communicating along the way, you stayed on the same side.You were a team. You were solving it together. You were traveling those next steps together. And you could have shut it down with a no saying, it's just too snowy, which really wouldn't have been that unreasonable of a reaction. But most likely, it would've led to some kind of rupture, even beyond the disappointment. Maybe even a slammed door or just some kind of upset. But instead, you dug into your concerns. You were honest about them, talked about them, and slowly started to address them together, knowing that at any time you could change your mind.And what she saw was that you were trying, and again, that you were working together. And that is just such a different energy than making top-down decisions. Because had it not worked out, she would've seen the path of why it didn't work out. The road's impassable. We can't get the driveway dug out. The car's not starting. Whatever the real thing would've been, as opposed to you inside by the fire making that choice for her.I think we can do this with our partners, too. They'll have an idea and instead of examining where our reactions are coming from, we just react and we shut it down and it's really disconnecting. And interestingly, we can do this whether the idea has anything to do with us or not. It's really easy to fall into that trap of pointing out all the problems. Instead, we can listen, ask questions, celebrate the excitement that the person has for the idea. That's what keeps us connected and helps us find the next steps that make sense.So, it's back to being open and curious. I want to cultivate that mindset when someone comes to me with an idea, because from that place, we can figure out any resistance and start to address it with those next baby steps. And the key with this process is to remain connected and curious. I can be honest about what's coming up for me without judging or shutting down what's happening for them and where they want to go.I think part of it is releasing any sense of urgency, which we talk about a lot. I know sometimes I can feel pressured when somebody comes to me with a request, but what I've learned is that, if I answer from that place, I most likely will say no or something that disconnects us. It's okay to ask for some time to think and gather your thoughts and consider things. And that's back to, are you an internal or external processor? Taking time to think about what's causing the resistance helps you to be able to communicate that with your partner and child.And honestly, the first step is often just listening, like really listening. What's behind the request? What are they excited about? How do they see it playing out? Then perhaps the next step is really still information gathering. There's a lot you can do that's pretty low stakes, but it shows that you're open to understanding and trying to find a path forward, and it just makes all the difference in a relationship.PAM: Yes, as an internal processor, I have said to my kids over the years and they learned to work with, "If you need an answer right now, it's gonna be a no. But if you give me a few minutes to just take it in and figure out how it feels and what it looks like," I just need to process it and it's not something I can do aloud. As an internal processor, I just need to do it in my head. And do the different paths. Okay, so this is the change, this is what that change looks like over the rest of the day or week, depending on what it is. And then I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's all good." And then I go back and say, yes, or I actually discover what the hiccup is, and then I can go and say, "Oh, but look, that impacts this for me. How can we address that?"But if I need to answer right away, I would say no. And most people are not like, "I'll take the no right away, please." So, seeing through their eyes is just so very helpful, because that's what each baby step can help us with. So, even if I don't get to a place where I share their level of excitement about the thing, I can definitely often get to a place where I can appreciate their excitement. And want it for them. That makes all the difference in the world for me.ANNA: So much. And I think just what you were just talking about it, it's important to acknowledge that there are differences that we can learn about in each other. And we talked a bit about that in episode three, but I think this is another potential difference that can trip up relationships.So, you're going to have the people who like to leap first, ask questions later, and then you're going to have people who really need to feel out every step, to confirm that there's some firm footing here before I go any further. And understanding where you lie on that continuum will help you communicate with your partner.So, if you're a leap-first person and you're partnered with a firm-footing-only person, you can take that into consideration, just like your kids were able to do, and see that their questions are not about discounting your idea at all but that they're trying to make the idea work for them.So remember, often our work is to not take things personally, but to see that our partner's actions or behaviors are trying to meet a need. And so, then we're learning about one another and we're learning about how to approach these conversations. So, even when you have two different styles, you can find ways to come together honoring each other. That starts with setting any defensiveness aside and trusting that the two of you will keep working to find a path forward that feels good.You may find some unique combinations of leaping and planning or leaning on each other's strengths to get the best outcome, because so often in these situations, it's really a bit of both, right? Leaps of faith and some pre-planning that get us there. And sometimes there's certain situations that are better served by one or the other, but knowing each of your strengths puts you in the best position to get where you want to go together and helping one another. Knowing that there are options and keeping the lines of communication open helps us remain connected even if we're navigating difficult decisions or stretching our comfort zones.PAM: Yes. Our differing personalities are such a great thing to consider when we're talking about goals, paths, and what that next step might be. It makes all the difference. And as you were sharing there, what comes to mind for me is just the experience. Each time we move through it, we're building trust with the other person. Trust that I will consider the kind of person you are. What feels good to you? What doesn't feel good to you? I'm not gonna try and railroad my answer. But I'm not going to just accept your answer either and be martyrly about it, because that's going to lead to burnout. That's going to lead to overwhelm, all sorts of places. And sometimes that happens, but then there's work to move through that and to get back to connection from there.So, the more I can bring myself and be open and curious about other people, each time that happens, we build a little bit more trust that this process is working for us, no matter what path we ended up on. That, to me, was always one of the most fun things. Yes, there was a hard piece about the uncertainty, like going into the conversation, not knowing where we'd go, but oh my gosh, the places that we ended up so often were way more interesting and fun than the original path that I thought of.ANNA: That's so true, but that's because we were open and created this environment where they could feel open to ask and respect and understand, and all of those pieces that weave together to create these strong, connected relationships that we're talking about every week.PAM: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore how taking baby steps can make choices and decisions easier. It's a skill that you can definitely get better at through experience.So, number one, does it feel like many of the day to day choices you're making are urgent? Are they really? If you haven't listened to episode eight yet about Anna's mantra, There's Plenty of Time, I highly recommend you start there.Question two, thinking back, can you remember a time when you felt pressured (and that can be pressure we're putting on ourselves) to make a decision quickly, yet the better choice wasn't immediately clear? Can you think of a series of baby steps that might have helped you along the way? And feel free to get creative. It can feel like, oh, that's just more work. But, oh my gosh, the journey is the experience.ANNA: Exactly. And the creativity is all a part of it and what makes it a little bit lighter, not so much weight, as we can be creative together.PAM: Yeah. All right. Question three. Is there a choice or a goal you're considering right now that feels big to you? You don't need to know exactly how you would get there, but can you see a baby step in that direction? Can you do that and just see what happens?And lastly, are you more of a leap-first person or a firm-footing person? What about your partner, your children? How can understanding that help you communicate with them about future decisions?All right. Thank you so, so much for listening and we will see you next time. Bye! Have a great day!

Open and curious is a helpful mindset shift for navigating relationships and challenges. In this week's episode, we dive into Pam's mantra and some of the many ways that it has proven to be so valuable in our lives. Being open and curious takes us back to beginner's mind and allows us to see possibilities and question limiting beliefs that no longer serve us. We hope today's episode sparks some fun insights for you and we invite you to dive deeper with our Episode Questions. Join us on Instagram or YouTube to continue the conversation and share your reflections.Let’s dig deep, challenge paradigms, choose connection, and live joyfully!You can follow us on Instagram or YouTube. EPISODE QUESTIONSDownload a printable PDF of this week's questions here.Sign up here to receive each weekly PDF automatically in your email inbox.How does it feel to think about being open and curious about the people in your life? What do you discover through that lens? Try being open and curious while navigating a conflict this week, rather than jumping right to the solution you have in mind. What felt different? Think about something in your life that you’re feeling stuck around. What bubbles up when you approach it with openness and curiosity? What other possibilities exist? Next time you’re judging something your partner or child is choosing to do as “bad,” play with the question “Who would I be without this perspective? What would I do instead? How would that feel?” TRANSCRIPTANNA: Hello and welcome to the Living Joyfully Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us as we explore relationships, who we are in them, out of them, and what that means for how we move through the world.If you're new to the podcast, we encourage you to go back and listen to the earlier episodes. We started with some foundational relationship ideas and have really enjoyed how they've been building upon one another. And if you've already been enjoying the podcast, we'd love it if you could leave a rating and a review. That definitely helps new people find us.In today's episode, we're gonna talk about being open and curious. This is something you will hear us say a lot. I first heard about it from Pam and I find myself saying it daily at this point. When you think about the opposite, it's being closed and disinterested, so it's pretty easy to see why we both love it.I don't want to move through the world feeling closed and disinterested, and it definitely doesn't help us solve problems or to connect with the people around us.Being open and curious serves us in our relationships on a lot of different levels. When we're open and curious about our partner, we want to understand them, what's important to them, why they see things the way they do. We want to set aside any judgment and really lean into connecting with the person in front of us.When I find myself not understanding something they did or said, I can remind myself to be open and curious about it, to not jump to conclusions, to not write a story, like we were talking about last week.That gives us the best chance to avoid a misunderstanding. And part of being curious is asking questions and listening.PAM: Yeah. I love this so much. I have found open and curious to be such a helpful lens to bring to my relationships. For me, it's a quick way to get to beginner's mind, which is a place where I don't feel like I have to know the answers, and I'm just curious to learn more. I often feel a sense of wonder and a childlike energy when I can get there. And it's not childish. Childlike. There's a big distinction.So, when I'm open and curious, I'm attentive and I'm interested in hearing new ideas and new perspectives. I want to learn how the other person is seeing things. I want to learn what they're interested in and why it lights them up. And, of course, that doesn't mean forgetting about who I am.To me, beginner's mind is about understanding that the world is richer than just my story. My story, the one I tell about myself, is definitely a vibrant thread, but it also weaves alongside the stories of the other important people in my life. And it reminds me that their story is theirs to tell and I want to listen. I want to know them, not my version of them.And to take that metaphor just one step deeper, being open and curious reminds me to explore the tapestry of my life, which includes the people I love and care about, not just the thread of my story, thinking it's the one right way to move through the world. It's a tapestry of unique people and stories that weave together to create the bigger picture of my life, which leads us nicely into the next aspect that we wanted to talk about, doesn't it?ANNA: It does. Because being open and curious also really serves us when there's a conflict. So often, when we find ourselves in a conflict, we have in our mind the right answer, how this needs to resolve for me to be satisfied. And unfortunately, It just rarely works out the way we plan.If we come into the conflict pushing our agenda as the only way, we put the other person on the defensive and we end up spending a lot of time defending ideas back and forth, really rarely hearing the other person's perspective at all. And if we come into the disagreement with this open, curious mindset that we're talking about, we aren't abandoning our ideas, like you said, we're just remaining open to hearing the other person's perspective.That energy is felt by the other person, and then they are so much more likely to join us on the journey to understand and figure out options. We're going to be committed to finding something that works. We're going to get there faster by remaining open and not tunneling in on our one perspective or idea or what the fix should be.PAM: I know, for me, when I first heard the advice years ago to listen to my partner, it made so much sense. So, when we were navigating a conflict, I listened. But eventually I realized I was still holding tightly to my right answer, and my listening was mostly focused on picking up the pieces that aligned with my solution, right? Everything else just kind of flew by. I truly wasn't hearing their perspective. I wasn't hearing their story. I was only taking in what I thought I could use to support my agenda or my solution, that tunnel vision that you mentioned.And unsurprisingly, we often ended up at an impasse that way. Each person trying their best to defend and convince the other that their interpretation of the situation and their proposed solution is a right one. Our conversations were energetically draining and steeped in a power dynamic that definitely strained our relationship.So, once I came to recognize what was happening, I chose to instead try to bring an open and curious mindset with me into our conversations. How are they seeing the situation? What parts of it feel important to them? What parts feel especially challenging to them? Does that make sense alongside what I know about them as a person, all the things we talked about way back in episode three that make them the unique person they are, their personality, their strengths, their weaknesses, sensitivities, all those pieces?And in these more open conversations, with defensiveness down and curiosity up, there was space for me to share my thoughts and perspectives, not with the energy that this was the solution, but as more information to consider. And without that grasping and no longer feeling like the only choices we have are their initial solution or mine, we could often find a third or a fourth or a fifth path forward right through the situation that took each of our perspectives and needs into consideration.So, it turns out that open and curious mindset not only gave me the space to learn more about what was going on, it also gave me more space to get creative in finding a solution that worked for everyone involved.The process is like a muscle that gets stronger with practice. With each experience, where shifting to being open and curious helped us creatively navigate a challenge or a conflict, it became a bit easier to shift the next time, and then the next. Over time, I found myself shifting more quickly from defending myself to trusting that we could find a way through together. Being open and curious just helps me in so many ways, in so many situations with so many people.ANNA: Oh my gosh, yes. I see it in so many different ways and I feel like it's one of those tools we can cultivate that gives us something to do instead of taking things personally when we're in a conflict. And that is so key when we want to navigate those conflicts with more ease and connection.And this idea is also really important if we find ourselves stuck or with some limiting beliefs. Often this involves outside voices or some cultural constructs that maybe aren't serving us. And if we bring that open and curious mindset to it, we can start asking questions. Where are these ideas coming from? Are they serving me? Who would I be without them? What other options can I find?But we can only get there if we open up our minds beyond the parameters that are being applied to us by forces that don't know who we are or what's important to us. This allows us to start questioning these societal constructs. So, if I'm in a job that I don't love, why am I still here? What's stopping me from leaving? What would life look like if I made a different choice? How would that feel?And also things we view as "have tos". We talked about this a few episodes ago as well. We can start to question those have tos. And being open and curious allows that exploration to move us away from things that aren't serving us, the things we've just accepted even if we don't like the way they feel. "Relationships should be this," you know, "School looks like this," "Being successful looks like that."All these ideas are worth questioning, especially if we're wanting to live our best life, a life where we can truly thrive.PAM: Yeah. When we realize that we can question everything, that we can be open and curious about all the possibilities, I swear it just feels like the whole world opens up. I feel so much lighter. And it's fun that you mentioned that. One of my favorite thought experiments is to play with the opposite perspective to see how it feels, particularly when I'm feeling stuck or frustrated.So, say the story I'm telling myself is, I hate that my kid wants to play video games all the time. In my head, it's fascinating to explore the question, "Well, what if I was a person that loved that my child is excited to play video games all the time?" So, being open and curious means letting the likely immediate reaction of listing all the reasons I think that's a silly perspective just float on pass, because that's definitely not being open and curious, and then just noticing what comes up next. How would I feel in those circumstances when I saw my child happily playing?Well, I think I'd be happy too, because I like this. I'd probably have a big smile on my face.And then I was like, okay, so then what would I do? If this was something I loved and I was excited about, I'd probably join them, sitting with them, and watching them play. I'd listen attentively to what they shared. And they'd probably be really happy that I'm showing an interest in something that they really enjoy. I'd cheer with them when they beat the boss or finished the level or solved a vexing puzzle, and we'd celebrate together.So, I have that vision in my head, and then maybe it would occur to me to ask myself, so what's wrong with that? It sounds like I'd be seeing their game playing through their eyes, which definitely helps me better understand who they are. And it sounds like a very connecting thing to do, which is something that I want to do. So, when I play with that thought experiment, so often I discover that things aren't as bad as I imagined them to be on the other side. And I can ask myself, why was I holding on so tightly to my fear and judgment of the thing?It's just a great tool for me when I'm feeling stuck around what often turns out to be a conventional message that I've absorbed, that once I take some time to play with it and dig a bit deeper into it, I discover it really doesn't make so much sense to me in my life in this moment.ANNA: Exactly. And I think it's so interesting that we can find ourselves defending and enforcing ideas because we think we're supposed to, yet, when we choose to examine them, we find they don't serve us or our relationships at all. And that open and curious mindset allows us to tune into ourselves and evaluate ideas related to who we are and how we want to move through the world.Another time I use this idea a lot is when something bad happens, especially something that I might initially label as bad. Instead I can say, hmm, I wonder what's going to happen here. I wonder what's coming next. I don't have to have all the answers. I don't know all the things.So, being curious allows me to look for new directions around things that might first be considered roadblocks. I don't want to be shut down by what happens to me and around me. And the fastest way for me to avoid a spiral is to start asking questions and look at the issue with a wider lens, not jump into the judgment about it.PAM: Yeah, that makes such a big difference. When you can just know that there are other possibilities. We talked about that tunnel vision, and we can especially feel that when something is going wrong or bad around us and we can get really fixated and pulled into that. But when we can take a step back to start asking questions around it and just looking a little bit bigger picture, that really keeps the possibilities bubbling.ANNA: Right, and I think it's related to the things we've talked about with time. There's plenty of time. Because that's the other thing. You feel the expansiveness of that open curious mindset. So, when something happens, instead of locking in and the judgment, you can feel that expansiveness of, hey, I can take a few minutes to kind of look at this from the wider perspective. So, I like those inner things that we can find energy shifts, because that's what can help us move through any of these challenges, bumps, conflicts, whatever, with a little bit more ease.PAM: Exactly. The energy is the whole thing, because the energy is, is ours, but it's also the energy that we're bringing to our interactions with everybody around us. It's so helpful.ANNA: So, here are some questions you might want to ponder as you explore the idea of being open and curious this week. How does it feel to think about being open and curious about the people in your life? What do you discover through that lens?Number two, try being open and curious while navigating a conflict this week, rather than jumping right to the solution you have in mind, and then look at what felt different. How did that change how that conflict played out?Think about something in your life that you're feeling stuck around. What bubbles up when you approach it with openness and curiosity? What other possibilities exist that maybe you didn't see at first?And next time you're judging something your partner or child is choosing to do as bad, play with that question. Who would I be without this perspective? What would I do instead? How would that feel?So, hopefully you'll take some time to think about those questions and about what an open and curious mindset could bring to your life. And we really appreciate you listening and being here with us today, and we will see you next time.PAM: Yes! Bye.