Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Stay Happy in Your Relationships

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

When a relationship is good, it can provide us with a seemingly endless sense of joy and well-being, but when it’s bad, it can drive us to our deepest depressions and can even lead some to commit horrible acts. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen continue their discussion on happiness, this time with a focus on relationships.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the 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 nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We are in happiness week and we're going to talk about relationships and happiness next. But first I want to read this testimonial. This is another one from my website. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and have enjoyed them immensely. I got your cookbook from the library.

So FYI, you can get the cookbook from the library. So when people say that things cost too much, I just want to point that out. Got your cookbook from the library and I've tried several recipes, which both my son and husband thought they would not like from the description. I chose several I thought they might try. They have not been disappointed yet. I have never felt so successful with anyone's cookbook. Oh, thank you.

I'll be purchasing your cookbook soon. Thank you for making healthy food so delicious. I am forever grateful. You are such an inspiration. Thank you. That makes me so happy. I love that. See, we're talking about happiness. And food is a big component of happiness.

So this is good. And also being purposeful, having something you put a lot of energy into, be enjoyed. Right. And begin to change the health of that family. Made me so happy last night when you were eating my food and you kept going on and on and on about how much you loved it. It made me so happy that I made dinner again tonight. It's cooking right now. So let's talk about happiness and relationships.

Because one of the things I've seen is one of the quickest ways to be unhappy is to fight with your wife. Yeah, it's terrible. Or to have a bad relationship with a coworker. And, you know, it's what I've just seen. People actually get homicidal and suicidal when their relationships go south. And so has that ever happened to you where you've been in a bad relationship? Not that you were homicidal or suicidal. No, I went through a hard divorce.

I mean, a hard divorce. And it's terrible. It's a terrible thing. It's almost crippling at points. It's terrible. It's an awful thing. And the reason you went through a hard divorce is because the relationship was hard. Really hard.

Yeah, it's all about fit. And the reason he went through a car divorce is because their relationship was hard. Really hard. Yeah. It's all about fit. And sometimes they just don't fit. Right. It's all about fit. And I think it's okay to say it doesn't fit. That's one of the things that you. And be responsible for saying this doesn't fit for me.

It's one of the things that you helped me with because I had a lot of guilt. Just my personal religious beliefs and whatever. I had a lot of guilt, just my personal religious beliefs and whatever. I had a lot of guilt over it. But you really helped me with that. Rather than the guilt was really understanding the fit was never going to fit. It was never going to fit. And I would have raised a child in that chaotic environment. Well, and the research actually shows that it is better for a child to be raised in a divorce family than one that is in a chronic conflict. Right. And neither are good.

Neither are good. Neither are good, and we don't recommend that, but we also recommend the truth. But I do feel like, as far as happiness, speaking of happiness, she is able to have a home where, as a mother, I'm not chronically stressed. I'm not chronically unhappy. So she gets that as an example. She has a loving relationship that is her example now. And even when she did go to her dad's, at least he wasn't fighting with me. So it was just not, it was not good.

So what are the things our listeners can do today to improve the quality of their relationships and subsequently their happiness? You want my honest opinion on the first one, the first thing, And I don't know if you're going to agree with me. Take responsibility. It's always going to be the first thing I say. For your health, for your relationships, for everything. Take responsibility. Not blame. Why wouldn't I agree with you?

I don't know. Because I don't know what you're going to say. But my first thing. I have relating is the mnemonic I have for happiness that I teach my patients. And the R is responsibility. Oh, well, there you go. It's your responsibility. Yeah.

It's take a hundred percent responsibility. Yes. Now, if at the end of the day, it's not working, it's not working. You still have to take responsibility. But what is it I can do today to make my relationship with you, with my employees, with my friends, with my family better? Right. Responsibility does not mean blame. This is what I mean. And it doesn't mean that you have to be a martyr.

It doesn't mean you have to be, it just means own your part, be grounded, be responsible for yourself and be responsible for doing the right thing. That's responsibility. So what is it I can do today? Right. As soon as you blame someone else for the problems in your life, you become a victim and you can't change things. Right. And I hate being a victim more than anything on the planet.

It starts with responsibility. Yeah. That would with responsibility. Yeah. That would be my first thing. So I know how to make you smile. You do. And I know how to make you crazy mad. Thank God you don't do that very often. Now, I choose not to.

Right. Because I want to be happy. Right. But knowing you have some control. Yeah. When I see these teenagers that are really struggling with their parents, I often go, what do you do that makes your parents crazy? And they're like nothing. And you know, I'll nudge them and they'll tell me all the things they do to make their parents crazy. I said, you know, if that's true,

I bet there's things you do that make them happy. So let me give you an example this morning with a teenager. So this morning, our teenager, we have, I mean, as far as teenagers goes, she's an amazing teenager, but she's a teenager and she has her moments. And this morning, for some reason, it's so rare, but she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And I don't even know why. Just woke up in a bad mood.

And she's not, she wasn't being mean. She was just not in a good mood. And I couldn't, I was like, hey, what's wrong? she wasn't being mean. She was just not in a good mood. And I couldn't, I was like, Hey, what's wrong? I don't know. Okay. So that could have been an immediate fight, right? If I had pushed her at a time. So my part of being responsible, I could have pushed her into, you know, you need to tell me you can't act like that. It's just going to cause a fight. So my part of the responsibility was just let her be a teenager and go do your own thing. So I just like my part of being responsible is I love you. Have a good morning. And I walked away. And so I went and did my own thing. She, her part of being

responsible. And she's been getting this information for a while. She went for a run. Okay. She's like me. She uses exercise a lot. Um, she went for a run. She came back. She walks in. I was exercising. I was in the gym. She went for a run and I was in the gym and she walks in, she has this green mask on her face and she walks in with a ponytail and her green mask. And she walks in and she's like, mommy, I'm sorry. And I'm like, that's her part of being responsible. Right? So she did the thing that she knew would sort of set her brain right and she came in and she apologized. So if you were like many mothers at that time,

you would have felt the disrespect. You would have started raising your boys. You would have guilt. Which was not going to be helpful. And it is not a habit of happiness. It's not only not a habit of happiness, It's not only not a habit of happiness. It's not helpful. We all have bad days.

Unless she's called me a B word or she did something. She's having a bad day. Leave her alone. Walk away. You know, so as long as she didn't do something blatantly disrespectful. Her issue. It's not my issue. I didn't take it personally.

So. And she came in. I'm sorry. I love you. So sometimes space can be a habit of happiness, not having to deal with everything. And if you feel like you're a person who's gotten no respect because you were a middle child or you're smaller than everyone else. Are we getting a little personal here? Then when you feel like someone disrespects you, you overreact and that's not helpful.

That's not a habit of happiness. A habit of happiness is taking a breath and go, what's the goal in this relationship? That's a habit of happiness. Because I, and we've talked about this a lot. I always have the same goal with you. Kind, caring, loving, supportive relationship. And so, like you said on your MMPI, brutally honest. See, whenever my patients tell me that, I'm going, well, that's usually not helpful. Because you never want to say everything that goes through your head because there's craziness that happens in everybody's head. Right?

I filter what I say. Does this get me what I want? Kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate relationship. Yeah, but see, I don't want to be that way with everybody. So sometimes it just. Well, but when you, if you want happiness, which means your marriage is good. Oh, relationships. Absolutely. Yeah.

People on the freeway, not so much. Yeah, but they have guns. Yeah, I don't say it to them. I don't say it out loud to them. So also this is going to sound counterintuitive. One of the habits of happiness is being assertive. Oh, absolutely. But in a firm and kind way.

There's a difference between assertive. If you let someone run over you. You feel like a victim. So even though you're very assertive, everybody's listening to the podcast, no. But there's a difference between assertive and aggressive. There's a difference. Right. And sometimes you walk that line.

It depends. If you're on the freeway with me, it might be different. See, this is what I'm trying to tell you. It depends on who you are. Now, if you walk up and you threaten my child. If I took the position of never trying to upset you. Oh, no. Then I would be miserable.

But I also wouldn't respect you. And I would also create a problem in our relationship. And I wouldn't respect you. Because people don't get this. And relationships are two ways. They have feedback. And so letting someone else dominate you because your anxiety causes

you never to speak up for yourself is creating a problem. The reality is for, I don't know about everybody, but for a lot of people, and I know, I mean, I just know this to be true, especially for a lot of women, we might push back. We don't want a doormat. We really don't. Part of what I love about you, I trust that you will protect our family. I trust that you are my partner,

not my doormat. So even when you push back a little bit. That's when things often go wrong in a relationship. It's a habit of unhappiness is giving and never saying what is on your mind. But it's all in how you say it. So it's, I love that

because I've said that for 40 years to my patients. It's their ways to say things and their ways to say things. Right. And so figuring out how to be assertive and effective, firm and kind is a habit of happiness in relationship. Yep. It's all about how you say it. And you're so good about that. Stay with us.

Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.