Speaker 1: 0:01

Tanaz is a certified relationship coach, registered psychotherapist, podcast host and author. She helps individuals break free from their unhealthy patterns, regulate their nervous system and build secure, fulfilling relationships. Her work blends somatic healing, inner child work and subconscious reprogramming to help clients feel grounded, safe and emotionally empowered. And on this episode we dive deep into what it means to have healthy relationships with others and yourself. Enjoy the show, tanaz. Thank you so much for joining me on. We Woke Up Like this and I'm really excited to dive into these conversations around fear and intimacy. But before we do that, this podcast is all about waking up, and waking up to a new way of being, a new way of being in your own life. So I'm curious what woke you up to become so passionate about wanting to have conversations about fear and intimacy passionate about wanting to have conversations about fear and intimacy.

Speaker 2: 1:10

Well, thank you, joy, for having me on. And it was exactly that it's waking up and realizing I didn't want to have the life that I was conditioned to have. So I was conditioned to be a lawyer. I come from a Persian background, so it's either a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer, and I was really good at public speaking and teaching. So my parents just naturally thought law was the way for me to go, got my master's in dispute resolution law and realized I don't really like being on the reactive side of relationships. I, you know, did some training on family mediation and it just didn't resonate of like how did we get from I love you so much to who gets the plate and questions and fights and arguments. That just left a big question mark in my heart. And so I woke up. Literally I was like I'm not going to do this, but I didn't know what to do.

Speaker 2: 1:55

I had been studying different spiritual modalities, thanks to my mom, from the age of 18. So by that time I was around 24, 25. So by that time I was around 24, 25. And I knew that the answers would come if I would sit in the discomfort of not knowing. And so I did.

Speaker 2: 2:12

And I had a book club at the time and one of the girls said have you ever heard of coaching? And I was like I have no idea what that is, but let me look into it. And so I looked into it and it was. It was at the same time that someone else said have you ever heard about a podcast? I'm like I have no idea what that is. This is like 2017.

Speaker 2: 2:36

And so I really believe that the universe speaks to us through other people, and so I never take anyone's suggestion lightly. I honor their words. And so I looked into coaching. I became trained as a relationship coach and a couple of years later I went back to school for my third postgraduate degree in counseling psychotherapy just having more tools to help clients cultivate healthier relationships with themselves and others. To kind of be on the proactive side, because, based on the work that I've done, I've realized that the status of the health of our relationship is 50% our inner work, but also 50% relational skills that we just weren't taught and most of us didn't have it modeled to us in our family of origin, and when we know better, we can do better. So really being on the proactive side of cultivating healthier relationships.

Speaker 1: 3:25

Wow, I love that. You said a lot of things that I was like, oh wow, that's really powerful. And one of them was sitting in the discomfort and being okay with sitting in that discomfort and I hear you being open and curious and looking like when we're open and curious, we start to see those messages that come in and I just really just want to say I admire you for having the courage to follow that nudging inside of you. That said, I want to be on the proactive ends of things and not helping people solve the problem after it's done, or that you know, like, like you said, who gets the plates, rather than how can we heal and fix this relationship? What would you say are ways that people don't know, because you said you're what you said is right 50% your own inner growth and your own inner work, but then also communication skills. So what would you say are the master communication skills that couples or people looking for a relationship can master in themselves and with each other?

Speaker 2: 4:22

Oh, there's so many, and we'll dive into it because I love to be on the practical, proactive side. But before I do I also want to say that sitting in the discomfort of not knowing isn't easy. So I like sometimes I don't want to glamorize it, because you're going against generations of conditioning. You're going against your own like, your own belief system and your own worldview. Our brain is created for survival and part of that is like this knowing, this certainty. So if it feels uncomfortable, I want to honor that and say that you know to not expect something different. I mean, sometimes it comes with ease, but most of the times it is that it's very uncomfortable and challenging. But and that's where community comes in If we have a strong support system, people who can see us and hear us and understand us, it really makes the world of a difference. So putting yourself out there and finding that community can be really helpful.

Speaker 1: 5:22

but that said so, I just wanted to honor people's journey and process and thank you because you're right, it is not easy. It's not easy, it's very scary and it does take a lot of courage. And you're exactly right, finding those places to be held and witnessed and supported, as you're in this process, is so important. So, yeah, thank you for acknowledging that.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Now we tend to do what our parents did. So if I was raised in a family where you know, I didn't see healthy conflict between my parents, let's say one of them would storm out of the room, the other one would shout. That's what I know, that's how I know to communicate. So I'm going to repeat those patterns, those maladaptive patterns, even though I might know that it's wrong, but because that is what is comfortable to my nervous system, that is what is known. It's like we choose familiar chaos over unfamiliar peace. That's just the way the brain and the mind and the body is wired. We tend to repeat these patterns. So until we become aware of okay, this isn't serving me, and learning new ones and being patient with ourselves, it doesn't. The awareness comes overnight, might come overnight, but the change doesn't necessarily come overnight, because we need time and repetition to build new neural pathways and to build safety in this change in our body. So that's where a lot of somatic work comes in. So the Godman Institute, the leading institute on relationships based out of Washington State, has done a lot of research on this and they found four horsemen. So these are the four things that we should avoid when communicating. The first is criticism, so the problem is no longer the problem. You are the four things that we should avoid when communicating. The first is criticism. So the problem is no longer the problem. You are the problem. It's not that the dishes are unwashed, and it gives me the sense of anxiety when I walk in after work and see a mess in the kitchen. You are a messy person, you are selfish, you are dirty. Now, naturally, when we criticize someone, they're going to get defensive, which is the second horseman of I am dirty, I am selfish. Have you seen yourself? So the person who's getting defensive criticizes back and it's a ping pong, or they go into this martyrdom mode, victim of like you don't understand, I've had such a hard day. So instead of taking accountability for that person's experience, we go into victim mode. Now, nothing really productive comes out of this the criticism and the defensiveness. And then we have a third kind, which is stonewalling, and a lot of men tend to experience stonewalling, which is this physiological flooding. So I like to tell my clients you know, when you're talking to someone and they're just looking at you with a blank face and you're like hello, are you listening to me? Like what is happening? They want to speak. They just can't, and later on they'll be like you know I, just the words were not coming out. It's because it's the mind is processing this information at a speed that it's not able to process. So their heart rate goes up, their pupils might get dilated, they start to sweat and that again becomes a block in that communication. And lastly is contempt, which is criticism on steroids. We have verbal contempt and nonverbal. Verbal is sarcasm, belittling. Who do you think you are? Were you raised in a barn? Did your parents not teach you better? Or nonverbal, rollingittling. Who do you think you are? Were you raised in a barn? Did your parents not teach you better? Or nonverbal rolling our eyes, smirking. And their research has found that when contempt is present, it's a sign that respect is missing. But also there is a over 93% chance that this relationship will end in divorce. So it is a big indicator. So these four, I would say getting familiar with them and their antidotes which is, again, I love the Gottman Institute because they're like this is the problem, this is a solution. So they're giving us the tools of okay, for criticism it's gentle startup. For defensiveness, it's taking accountability, for stonewalling, it's taking a time out. And for contempt for the person engaging in it is doing trauma work to understand the root of this contemptful behavior and the person receiving it learning boundaries.

Speaker 1: 9:34

Is this a stair-step process or do people use one or all of these in a relational conflict?

Speaker 2: 9:41

At some point we might have all engaged in all four, but we tend to have one go-to horseman for ourselves, Like our automated response for, let's say, for someone might be criticism but the other person might be stonewalling. So becoming familiar with our go-to horseman and our partner's go-to horseman and being curious with each other and creating space for both of us to lean into the antidote.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Yeah, it's so true that we do like, even then, when we don't want to, we automatically go to how we learned, what those relational patterns we learned.

Speaker 1: 10:11

And, wow, for me, like I'm a runner, so my first instinct is I'm just gonna run away, I'm gonna avoid this conflict and not even deal with it, which then, of course, made my partner, my husband, feel really threatened, that I was abandoning him, and so we had a lot of conflict with our relational styles in that, and I remember one day in an argument, I had this thought pop into my head because my feelings got really hurt and I felt super triggered and I had this thought in my inside myself, going back to that part where you need to work on you too.

Speaker 1: 10:40

That said, what inside of you thinks what he's saying is true, that it's hurting you so much, and so I'm curious if you have any insights around that, because I found that our arguments led me into this path of I just learned to keep my mouth shut, stay, to go away and sit with this feeling and see how much of it was my own healing that needed to be done versus what he was actually saying and doing, because in a relationship, you absolutely know how to push each other's buttons.

Speaker 2: 11:07

Oh yeah, I love that you shared that. Thank you for that vulnerable share. Our partners are our best mirrors, right? They kind of mirror to us our deepest wounds, our triggers, and so, once it gets activated, I love the idea of walking away to reflect on it. But there's two side notes I wanna make. First is we gotta let our partner know we're walking away to reflect, because if our partner has a like, let's say, an anxious attachment style and we just walk out the door, they're gonna feel more abandoned, more wounded, and we don't wanna trigger that. So let's take a timeout. I tell my clients, find a word where it's like. Once one of you says it, it's like you're declaring it's a timeout. It could be apples or, if you don't even want to use words, use hand signals. But once that hand signal is given, both of you will walk away.

Speaker 2: 12:00

And when you're walking away, you want to let the partner know when you're coming back to so let's take a time out, let's reconvene tomorrow at lunch, let's talk about it later at dinner, let's talk about it over the weekend and then actually coming back over the weekend and talking about it. That's how you build relational safety. If I walk out and I say let's talk about it at dinner and I don't talk about it at dinner, I'm not going to trust you again. When you say let's take a time out, I can come back to you at dinner and say, hey, I'm still not ready to talk about it, let's talk about it tomorrow at lunch. So that part of it is so, so, so important.

Speaker 2: 12:34

I really want to emphasize that part, but also not getting curious with why we got triggered until we are regulated. So when we are dysregulated whether it's due to stress, trauma, emotional overwhelm a lot of the parts, different parts of our brain react differently to it. So we have the prefrontal cortex, which is our rational brain. It's responsible for rational thinking, for impulse control, emotional regulation, problem solving, communication. During stress or conflict, the amygdala, the fear center, it takes over and the prefrontal cortex goes offline. So it becomes harder to think clearly, harder to listen, to communicate. So it's not that we don't want to. Our brain actually is not allowing us to do it. So taking the time to first regulate and we're seeing it through research that our body needs a minimum of 20 minutes to regulate.

Speaker 2: 13:28

Now that I'm regulated, now that I'm feeling grounded, getting curious with huh, I wonder what that thing, what about what they said, triggered me? Which wounds did they activate? So really taking the time to regulate before getting curious?

Speaker 1: 13:44

Yeah, that's really important. When you're not regulated, then that curiosity is not going to be there. You're still in fight or flight and I think it was because of all of my mindfulness, training and self-awareness that I was very aware of what was going on, that I was able to step quickly out of that, engage in an argument, mindset and not take it, stopped taking it personally and I found it to be so transformative for me and what you said was so key for him. I did start doing that. I said I need to just go take a breather, I'm going to go for a walk, I'll be back in an hour and I made sure that I really honored that obligation, whatever I said, because it is like that getting rid of that contemptful feeling of I'm going to do what I want to do, I'm going to take care of me, screw you, which that does.

Speaker 1: 14:26

And I see a lot of couples start getting in that that hurt pattern that definitely comes from fear and wounding and not being aware of that. And let's talk about fear, because I know this is something that you're such an expert in and it's something that people don't always necessarily know they're experiencing when it's fear that's acting up. And I discovered that when I started having things go really awesome in my life, that I began this process of self-sabotaging this awesome life I was having, and so I was like, why am I doing this? And I realized that inside of myself I didn't feel safe to have joy and peace and actually have everything that I wanted to have, and I began to notice the anxiety that was kicking up inside of my body, even though there was nothing quote unquote to be anxious about logically, but it was definitely. My body had another story to tell. So I'm curious what you have to say about fear and how it lives in the body and how it manifests when things are going so great in your life that fear kicks up.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Thank you for sharing that, Because people often get surprised when I tell them maybe you're just scared of success and they're like who would be scared of success? But if success hasn't been around, if you don't know what that looks like, it's unfamiliar and anything unfamiliar is scary for the body. So now that's part deeply ingrained in our brain of you need to work really hard. Now there's this new narrative of you need to work really smart, but the majority of the narrative is you need to work really hard. So when something comes easy to us, we're like, like it's unfamiliar, it goes against our worldview, and we get in our own way.

Speaker 2: 16:10

Exactly as you said, we stand in our own the way of our own happiness, our own joy, our own success, expansive nature. So everything comes back to safety. How safe does this feel? The amount of joy that we have in our life, the amount of money, the career choices we make, the relationships we entertain? We do what feels safe, and so if a roller coaster experience is safe for us in a relationship, if bread coming is what is safe for us, if push, pull, hot, cold situationships where you're like walking on eggshells type of dynamic, feel safe to us. That's what we're going to entertain, and so our body holds score to it. For us there's a beautiful book by that body holds score by his name. I can't pronounce it.

Speaker 1: 17:00

Rivander Kolk, I think it is.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Yes, and it's such a powerful book because again, there's so much research on and this is a new area, relatively new area of psychology that the body holds on to memories. So let's say, hypothetically, you were in high school and you got bullied by someone who would wear the perfume Dior Sauvage. Fast forward 15 years. You're at a party and someone is wearing that same scent and they come around you and you suddenly feel this like feeling in your body body can't tell the difference that this is not the same experience as before. It just had that trigger reactivated. So, similar to that, everything is getting stored in our body. We need to be able to release it with different modalities somatic, experiencing different healing modalities, hypnosis your options are endless and you do what works best for you.

Speaker 2: 17:57

But we need to bring the body into the healing formula, to release that and to create a new baseline for safety and a new definition for safety.

Speaker 1: 18:07

And you mentioned a few ways of doing that the somatic practices and whatever those are, and for people who are listening, who need an example of what a somatic practice is and how it works, why do we need to do a somatic practice inside of our body? How does that create safety?

Speaker 2: 18:23

Yeah, definitely. So what we're doing is we are training the body, retraining the body to remember that memory, but not have the activation associated to it. So right now I am like, let's say, emdr, using your eye, blinking, using your eyes to reprocess. What we're doing is we're reprocessing that memory. So initially I think of that time that I got bullied, let's say in grade seven, and I get 10 out of 10 strong feeling in my body Through different practices, let's say through EMDR, I start to take away that activation slowly, slowly. So the memory is still there, but when I think about it my body is not responding the same way. We are moving towards neutrality, with somatic experiencing. You have to actually do the exercise, but a lot of it uses eyes, a lot of it the way your eye movement, a lot of it is body movement. So part of it could be shaking, like literally shaking these energies off of your body. It could be breath work through different breath work techniques. The techniques vary but ultimately the goal is to reprocess that memory and take away its activation.

Speaker 1: 19:41

So it's taking away that trigger. So you might, so you don't have the same emotional reaction to that perfume. You can smell it and remember, oh, so-and-so wore that perfume and it reminds me of her, rather than having that whole bodily like I need to get out of this party kind of feeling. Yeah, yeah, how do those two things tie into relationships, do you find, with fear and relating to one another?

Speaker 2: 20:07

When I work with clients, I tell them visualize a triangle. One part of the triangle is the psychodynamic. It's our childhood, it's our childhood patterns, it's our family of origin patterns. The second element of it is our cognitive the way we think, our belief systems, our worldview. And then the third part of it is the somatic. It's our nervous system and how these three all mesh in together. Let's take a dating experience.

Speaker 2: 20:33

I grew up in a family where it was very unstable. Parents were always fighting, maybe even normalized cursing at each other, hitting each other. So when I'm looking at my childhood, I'm noticing that pattern. My belief is it's okay to hit. You know, couples hit each other, couples might swear at each other. And the somatic is that when I'm in an environment where there is hitting and cursing, I kind of normalize it, I kind of accept it, I tolerate it, I might even normalize, like by normalizing. Sometimes, you know, I'll have a client come into session and be like it wasn't that bad and then they'll tell me the most horrific story, but for them they've created this narrative. It's not that bad and body is is trained to that. So now when they go into a healthy relationship, the first feedback is this is so boring, this is so boring and that's it. It's rewiring our body to become comfortable with boring and normalizing.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Boring for someone who is accustomed to that roller coaster yeah, it's so fascinating how chaos can become your normal and then it doesn't. It's like, without all the chaos to manage, then your life does feel boring and just flat, and I've I myself have had that experience in going through a sobriety process and getting sober. Like the first four months I was like, oh my gosh, everything is so boring. And now, of course, I'm like life is way more fun. That was artificial, that was artificial fun. That wasn't even really fun to begin with.

Speaker 1: 22:01

So I'm curious about in how people attract and I love this triangle you just said, because I'm like if people wore these triangles on their shirts, right where, when you're in the dating world, you're like, here's what you're, here's the baggage that I'm coming with, which I'm like there should be a dating app I've said called baggage claim, where everyone's just really honest about what they're, what they're picking up. But if you, if you could see and know these dynamics that not only the other person is carrying but you yourself are carrying, I'm curious how the process works in this pattern. Repeat, it's very unconscious of how you choose or select or are attracted to people who almost feel this need that you have and that they have to meet this need of chaos in your relationship.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Yeah, first of all, I love baggage claim. That is so smart. Whoever's listening to this or you should start it. You should definitely do it. It's so, so smart. I love it and you're right, we all come into relationship with baggage.

Speaker 2: 22:57

No one is perfect. Ultimately, we need to choose someone whose strengths we admire and whose weaknesses we can tolerate, and their weaknesses is not part of our non-negotiable. So let's say, my partner doesn't like to meditate, is it my non-negotiable? Hypothetically no, and that's okay and that's you know. There's differences or whatever it might be. Everyone has sets of weaknesses and sets of strengths. So that I really think is important to kind of take away from this fairytale Disney perfect myth. There is no perfect partner. I personally don't believe that there's the one for us. It's just the one that is most relatable to us in this version of us, at this level of consciousness that we are, and that's why, if we don't grow together, we grow apart.

Speaker 2: 23:46

But you know, I love how you said attract first and then you said choose, because I tell girls all the time listen, like you're going to attract a wide range of different people. Who are you going to choose? Who are you going to entertain and get curious with that. When you meet someone and they're after the first day, you're like, oh my God, I feel like I've known them forever. Is that the truth or is that a trauma bond? It's like ooh, like the discern between the experiences and allow yourself time. You, talking to that person 24-7 on the phone isn't going to expedite the process of understanding each other better. You want to see this person in different circumstances. How do they respond when life is not going their way? Because the first six months of the relationship, the hormones are doing the job for you. So who are they in different places and circumstances?

Speaker 2: 24:39

Are the three R's present? Respect, reliability, responsiveness. Does this person respect me, respect themselves, respect our differences? Can I rely on them? Can I rely that when they leave that door they're going to come back, that when they say they're going to call, they're going to call? And are they responsive to my feelings, my needs? And you know, when I bring something to the table, is there space for it to be seen? So the three R's really are the foundation. It's like for baking a cake, they are the batter.

Speaker 2: 25:09

So giving ourselves time to ask these questions, and then that's where discrepancy might happen. Of huh, I feel like I'm attracted to him, but I don't feel like there is that I can rely on him. Okay, let's get curious. So is this a pattern from your childhood? Is perhaps was a parent or a caregiver not reliable and that's just the way it was, and you kind of had to suck it up and normalize that? So when we give ourself time to reflect on these questions and bring our hormones out of the formula we can understand. Is it a pattern, repeating or not I love that so much.

Speaker 1: 25:49

Those three R's. Those are very important three R's any young couples that I know. So my niece was getting married and I said, well, before you marry him, you guys need to go to Ikea and buy something big and build it together and see how it goes, Because it tells you a lot about a person. When you're doing something difficult, you're working together, you have to cooperate Like there's a lot that goes into that. It's kind of a joke that I have with people because it's always really difficult, but I love how you said what are your non-negotiables? Is this something that you feel like you coach people on in relationships and setting up? What are your non-negotiables and do you consider your non-negotiables to be your boundaries in a relationship? Because I would say boundaries are not for other people, they're for you. That I'm the one who doesn't go against this boundary that this is something important to me.

Speaker 2: 26:37

Yeah, understanding our non-negotiables can be tricky when we haven't become fully familiar with a more healed version of ourself, right? So first, that's where the inner work comes on. Who am I? Who am I outside of this conditioning? Who am I outside of the labels that my parents have put on me, that society has put on me? So if you don't know your non-negotiables right away, it's okay and just be patient with yourself.

Speaker 2: 27:03

But a technique that I love is the six intimacy tanks. And when we think of intimacy we think of sex or physical. And I'm here to expand that definition for you and say let's look at intimacy through six different lenses physical and sexual, but also emotional, intellectual, spiritual and experiential. So physical is non-sexual touch we're holding hands, hugging, kissing. Sexual is sexual. In monogamous relationships it's a non-negotiable. In non-monogamous it might not be a non-negotiable Em non-monogamous it might not be a non-negotiable. Emotional is do I feel safe expressing my emotions to this person, my feelings? Intellectual is does this person intellectually stimulate me? Spiritual is can we talk about spirituality and rituals around spirituality and religion, but also our values and our belief systems? And lastly, experiential is traveling, going to restaurants, doing similar hobbies. So if I were to put all these six tanks? Yes, ideal for our partner to meet all six.

Speaker 2: 28:04

But, as Dr Esther Perel says, we are like living in a period of time where there's never been this much expectation on our partners as ever before. Now we expect you to be everything our best friend, our lover, our partner, this or that. And it's a lot of work and you know we can't control external circumstances. Sometimes challenges come up in life and we just don't have the capacity. I'm coming home. I've seen a lot of clients. I'm like, oh, I don't want to be there for my partner. I'm out of like a 10 out of 100.

Speaker 2: 28:35

And so we want to ask ourselves which one out of the six, which ones are my non-negotiable? Is it absolutely a deal breaker that my partner intellectually simulate me? Or can I get that need met at work for my colleagues or my best friends? And we want to put as many people as we can into these tanks because one day if our partner comes home like similar to what I shared and doesn't have the capacity and they are our go-to person for emotional then I can call my brother or my mom and lean into them for that meet. So I love this practice of writing the six down and then asking yourself which ones is absolutely a non-negotiable that your partner meets, and then who else can meet that, and opening that conversation and you might have different responses than your partner.

Speaker 2: 29:26

Your partner might say you know, for me it's super important that we have experiential intimacy and for me I might say it's super important we have emotional intimacy. How can we meet halfway, how can compromise, how can we meet each other's needs? But we're not going to know until we talk about it. And we really need to normalize talking about our needs, go on dates or when we travel, we go on a picnic. I feel so seen, I need us to schedule more of this and I would love for us to schedule more of this and expressing it, because your mind, your partner, is not a mind reader, despite what Disney has sold to us. They are not our mind readers. So we need, we are responsible for getting our needs met.

Speaker 1: 30:11

Oh, I love that so much. And even and I love the idea of having different people in each of those containers, because even my husband will I'll be trying to have a conversation with him and he will I mean, with his relational skills that we have now he'll say, sweetie, I want to hear this and be there for you in this. But I'm sensing that you might have a better conversation if you called your girlfriend. If you called your girlfriend and I was like, oh, you know what? You're right, I am going to go call a girlfriend about this, because she's going to be much more supportive in this situation than you are.

Speaker 1: 30:40

And I met this really old couple they were having we were at a restaurant and they were having their 60th wedding anniversary and they had all of their wrinkles all frozen in the right places. They just looked so happy. And so I went over and congratulated them and I said do you have any marital advice? And the woman said oh, it's easy. She said you have your thing, he has his thing, and then you have your together thing.

Speaker 1: 31:01

And I really liked that because it really, you know, it takes the pressure off of your, like you said, off of your mate, your partner, your spouse, to be everything for you, because, conversely, if you're expecting that of them, then they have the right to expect that of you back, and that's a lot of pressure to put on someone. And so I'm curious if you have any advice for growing together, because, as you are in a relationship for a long time, like I told my husband, we're going into our 14th year of marriage and I said, you know, we're about to start our third iteration of each other together, and so it's, you know, like every seven years you change, and that's definitely true of us. And so how do you re-evaluate and renegotiate your relationship with your partner? Do you do that with your partner? How, what would? What advice do you have around growing together instead of growing apart?

Speaker 2: 31:52

Well, congratulations on this anniversary that's coming up for you and I love the advice that she gave me. And then you and then us. Curiosity, I think, is a very powerful trait and skill I would say actually skill that if we strengthen, can really enhance the quality of our relationship. And curiosity that our partner's not the same person they were yesterday, especially in long term relationships. We just assume I just know you, but we're not. I'm not the same person they were yesterday, especially in long-term relationships. We just assume I just know you, but we're not. I'm not the same person I was last week. So if my partner makes that assumption, they're not really going to want to get to know this week's version's internal state. So, continuing to be curious with one another, tell me more about that. What's on your mind?

Speaker 2: 32:32

The Godman Institute suggests a State of the Union meeting which is in essence like a weekly meeting where we sit down and say what went well for us, what didn't go well and how we can make it better. So really creating carving intentional time out of our calendar to do that. But one other practice I'm all about practical tips is creating this list, so things that are for me that I don't want to share with you. They're for me, Things that are for you that you don't want to share with me, Things that are for me, that I want to share with you but they're not necessarily your thing, Things that are for you, that you want to share with me but are not necessarily my thing, and things that we like to do together. I have couples sit down and write this list and frequent this list, let's say every six months, every year, and see if anything has changed.

Speaker 2: 33:21

So let's say, for me and my relationship, my partner loves golf. I'm not gonna do it, so that's his thing. That stays for him. I love to bake he doesn't like to do that, things. That stays with me. But for example, I love to garden and that's something I'd like to experience with him. So I bring out that bid for connection. It would really mean a lot to me if we could do this, sometimes together and he'll bring his request. And then there's we both love to travel. So just same way that we would say to ourselves, saying it to our partners and just being curious with one another and each other's internal state. I say curiosity saves relationships. Assumptions ruin them.

Speaker 1: 34:03

What do you do in the case of? You are the partner you came into a relationship and let's say you weren't, you were still in your patterning and you weren't aware of the conditioning that you were in. And then you start doing self growth and personal growth and you become more emotionally intelligent than your partner and they're not doing the work. So what do you do or recommend for people to do then, when it kind of starts to feel one sided?

Speaker 2: 34:27

Honestly, it's different for everyone. I have seen couples where where the energetic frequency of that up-leveling was sacred and strong enough to pull the other partner into it, and it wasn't pulled in through dictating, it was pulled in through embodiment, right. So they first start to do the work and they're not dictating to the other person, they're not being their teacher, they're not trying to change the other person, they're not. They're not being their teacher, they're not trying to change the other person. They're so wholly invested in themselves that the partner after a while goes like you've changed what did you do, like you seem calmer, we're not finding as much what is happening, and they start to show a little bit of interest in that person's world. That can happen.

Speaker 2: 35:11

I've also seen couples who maybe have more of a logical element to their dynamic coming and saying listen, I'm doing this, it's important for me that you come on to this as well, because of X, y, z. And they'll come to couples therapy and they'll work on it together. Couples coaching, and they'll work on it together. And then I've also seen couples that, hey, I've changed and I'm not here to change you, but I also can't accept this version of you and the other person's like I don't want to change, and then it's all about consciously decoupling. So it's like, as I'm growing, can I still accept this person as they are?

Speaker 2: 35:49

Sometimes the answer is yes, because they lean into the other intimacy tanks from other people that they're getting in their community and their partner's still filling their non-negotiables, and sometimes it's no. So it really there's no one size fits all, but I would really say no one wants to date a teacher, like no one wants to be told what to do, and as much as our intentions are pure of like, I just learned something new. I want you to know it. Like you know, we want to share when we're invited to share, and the best way to do that is embodiment, practicing, practicing.

Speaker 1: 36:23

That is so true. I found that to be definitely the case in my relationship that as I changed my relationship with myself, it changed how I'm relating to the world, and that includes my relationship with my spouse, and he definitely started to level up automatically. And I joked and he's like. He said I'm just cheating off of your homework. Yeah, clearly, I said, but that's okay, it was really cute. Well, tanaz, I love this conversation. It's so valuable because relationships are just such a treasure and, like you said in the beginning, they are a mirror to us and we're a mirror to one another in our relationships. And the work that you're doing is so beautiful. I love the practicality of it and the science behind it and just all of the things that you're offering. Where can people find you and how can they work with you, and do you have anything interesting coming up that people might be interested in?

Speaker 2: 37:10

Thank you for creating the space and for asking all these lovely questions. It's been an honor to share. I am, my website is Minutes on Growth, so Minutes, and then O-N Growth. On my website there is a free ebook on nervous system regulation. So 11 tools that you can practice, and I want everyone to know that there again, no one size fits all. You wanna personalize and customize your life based on what you want and what works and resonates with you. Try the tools out, see which one you feel comfortable with that has a positive response for you, and then practice that tool when you're triggered or proactively, and that really will enhance the quality of your relationship with yourself and with others, platonic and romantic.

Speaker 2: 37:55

So I work one-on-one with clients or with couples and, depending on when this episode is coming out, I am hosting a women's retreat in Tuscany this summer, August 18th to the 23rd. It's a nervous system reset. It's called self-worth, self-care and sisterhood In my opinion, the three pillars of a feeling seen, heard and understood and appreciated. So if your nervous system would like to heal in community, that's an option. If you'd like to do it one-on-one, that's an option. I have a few masterclasses on my website that couples can purchase and watch over and over and over again, because repetition is key. I still watch them over and over and over again and yeah, there's a lot of tools on there to check Beautiful.

Speaker 1: 38:42

This was just such a great conversation and so many valuable tips and tools and I appreciate your time and your wisdom and this retreat sounds amazing. Thank you, troy, I really appreciate it. Thank you, thank you for listening to we Woke Up Like this. Your likes, comments, shares and subscribes help this content reach new listeners, and I so appreciate you and remember, luminous One, that your radiant and magnetic presence changes the world.