Change Your Brain Every Day - Are Your Friends Sabotaging Your Love Life?

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

Have you ever gotten together with friends for a good time, only to spend most of the time complaining about the challenges of dealing with significant others? This sort of activity may seem innocuous, but these interactions play a surprisingly big role in why marriages and relationships fail. In the third episode of a series on how to ruin your marriage, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the social aspects that play the biggest role in your relationships, and how you can use proper communication to maintain a healthy perspective.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome back. We're having so much fun with this topic on how to really mess up your marriage. How to ruin your relationship.

Yes, ruin your relationships. Wait. So the question for this podcast is who are the people in your life that are collaborating with you to ruin your relationship? Who are the people- Hardest people for you to deal with. That are conspiring with you- See, I like this. To hurt your relationship. So, okay, ladies, we need to have a talk. We just need to talk for a minute. This is something that I see so many women do. I don't know if men do this as much, but I know women do it and I've seen it.

And it was something that I vowed to myself before when we got together, before we got married that I would never do. And I actually started this before that, but cause I saw so many marriages ruined over this. Um, and people just becoming miserable when you have a problem. And this is funny. This is something my mom taught me as well. Um, when I got married, my mom said, do not come to me and complain about your marriage. And I was like, what? She goes, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear your problems in your marriage. And I was like, wow, that was harsh. But she was right. And I love that. And here's why. She's like, if he's beating you, then come to me. Otherwise, I don't want to hear it. And I really appreciate that now. I didn't really understand it then. But here was the thing. She was not going

to be the meddling mother-in-law, number one, which I really appreciate, and I'm sure you do. But the other thing is, I see women do this. They get together. We're the, you know, gatherers, men are the hunters, but we get together in this little gathering group, and we just start, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, about all of our problems. And the minute you start doing that, you will find the thing that is wrong and your brain will begin to spin on it.

And I really don't like that. I promised myself I would not do that. And I told myself that if you and I had problems, I'd never go to my girlfriends and start doing that. And I had one friend that would look for those problems and she's no longer my friend. She's no longer my friend. The friends that I have that I go to are friends who tell me, oh, I'll pray with you, but that's not how you handle

this. I mean, they'll actually hold me accountable. Those are the kinds of friends you want. You want to ruin your relationship? You want to mess up your marriage? Have a bunch of girlfriends who actually have some interest in you having problems because they want to go out with you because they are not happy themselves because whatever reason, that is how you mess up your marriage fast. That's like worth the whole podcast. You did that in two and a half minutes. I'm so proud of you. I've just seen it too many times. Who you hang out with. You become like the people you hang out with. And if you're spending time with people who are unhappy in their relationships, they will actually tend to magnify the unhappiness you might have and make you second guess yourself. Hanging out with people who ask the question, what is it you can do better will help you so much because people are contagious. When friends pray with you, what they're in essence doing is spinning it in a positive way.

They're looking for what's good. They're looking for how you can fix it. And that's really important. And often when you confide into your friends or coworkers on how awful your partner is, they're not getting- The full story. The full story. No. And so they're giving you advice based on your skewed presentation of what's going on. And even if you believe it 100%, right? Perception is reality. It's only your perception. It's not both sides.

And so I often say bonding, because we're talking about relationships, require two things. It requires time, actual physical time, and a willingness and skill in listening. So if you want to ruin your relationship, don't spend any time with your partner, be a workaholic. And don't listen. When they say something, talk over them. And as soon as something comes out of their mouth, you feel like you have to dominate the conversation and tell them your two cents rather than really trying to understand

what they're saying. And that's hard for a lot of people in this society of noise. If you think of CNN and Fox, there's really not a good model. Well, and some of us grew up not feeling listened to. And so sometimes that's the motivation. We feel like we're not being listened to. So we have to be, you know, and that actually you've been really good at helping me with that. You know, I also worked in a trauma unit where it was like chaotic and you had to sort of like speak up and it's a, it's a personality trait, but that really you helping me with that, especially with my daughter, has helped with all of my relationships. Learning to just shut up, bite my tongue, it's not always easy. And I want you to communicate clearly,

but what's really important, maybe even more important, is really understanding your partner. And that requires hearing him or her out and then repeating back what you hear to make sure you're clear. Too often people sit on a lot of pain and when that pain gets poked, we overreact and you're dealing with the pain, not the person. Right. I like that. Another thing, this thing, the phone. The phone, social media, it's a problem. So you need to be aware of what you are focusing on when you're with your partner. Presence is a really important thing. And I know we're busy. I know even in our situation, we have business to run. Life is busy. Life is intense, but at least dedicate a certain amount of time. If that is you and you know you're busy like that and you know you have a lot that you must attend to, I know a lot of doctors and

surgeons and things like that, they are married to that phone because they are on call all the time. But at least dedicate a certain amount of time with the exception of emergencies or whatever, that you're not going to be on your phone because it feels to the other person like they don't have your full attention. At least for me, I'll get up and walk away. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to compete with it. I call it the mistress. So I won't compete with it. It's like either I'm important enough for you to focus on while we're together during this time, or I have other things I can be doing. And so it's just a really important thing.

Think about what you're doing. It's a hard thing. It's become this addiction in our society and it's created for that reason. So just pay attention to it. You know, just know that that is, that's why it was created. It's why it's the way it is and try to be aware of it. And it's good to develop rituals. So if you want to ruin your relationships, have no time ritual. So- I love our mornings.

We, I make you coffee. And we sit together and I love it. Well, not coffee. I make you your- A quarter caff cappuccino. Cappuccino that's on tanaayman.com what's it called it's pumpkin spice yeah cappuccino and uh tana has manipulated me to thinking that only i can make it the way i do he can make it which is complete nonsense no it's amazing you But, you know, having folklore is good. And he'll often say, that's, okay, here's another tip. Here's another tip. If you nitpick at things with your partner, I think that, you know, focusing on little things

that aren't that, like, not necessarily that important. And if they're important to you, bring them up in a positive way. But you'll often, because we are so busy, you'll often say to me, did I tell you I love you today? Which is a really sweet thing. And sometimes you didn't because we're busy. We jump out of bed, we're running, we're like, whatever. But rather than going, no, you didn't. Like, I'll stop for a

minute and I'll think, and usually it's, you made my coffee this morning. You showed me. You didn't, you know. So it's a ritual that we have, whether it's, you know, 20 minutes in the morning, we just sit and talk about our days and what's going on. And we love it when our teenage daughter joins us. But that's a ritual. Right. And then we have time over the weekend to spend together. And being aware that those actions for me,

they equate to you telling me you love me. And I don't need to, like, I don't need to nitpick at you because you didn't say it. Yeah. Nitpicking is generally not helpful. No. If you're doing that, you have to ask yourself, what's the goal? I mean, if the goal is to torture the other person, then go for it, right? I mean, if it's conscious or if it's what your mom and dad used to do and you're just replicating that goal, you want to stop it. But there also might be a different reason. There may be something else you're actually trying to achieve and there's probably a better way to do it and you're just not aware

that that's what you're doing. So pay attention. So who are you hanging out with that is collaborating with you to ruin your relationship? You might want to rethink that relationship or that time. I like what you said in the last episode. Don't post their name. No, don't post their name. Please don't. We don't need like, no, we're not starting a war. I like what you said in the last episode

when you said you need to know your goal, right? You need to know your goal and that's how you base your actions on that goal. Like you want to have a good marriage and so you, it is what I'm doing, getting me what I want. And that's why I said in the beginning of the episode, I had a friend who was constantly looking for the negative because that friend was miserable in her marriage. She wanted me to spend more time with her. So she would find something negative about you or that friend is no longer my friend. And that's why,

because I know my goal. And so, so know your goal are the friends you're hanging out with, not just your actions, are the people you're hanging out with helping you achieve that goal. It's really important. So what's the single most important thing you learned from this podcast? We would love for you to post it on your social media. And tag us. And tag us, Brain Warriors Way Podcast.

We would just be so grateful. Leave us a review. You. And tag us. And tag us, Brain Warriors Way Podcast. We would just be so grateful. Leave us a review. You can also tag us. At brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. And if you have a question, leave it there because we're going to spend some episodes coming up just answering your question. And you can tag us personally as well, Tana Amen or Doc Amen. Just tag us. Let us know. We want to hear from you. We'll be back and we're going to talk about the spiritual ways you mess up your relationships. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that

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