Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationships You Want with Alexandra Solomon

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

Starting point is 00:00:38 True intimacy, the kind we really want, is impossible without introspection. Our guest for this episode is going to take us through what that means. Dr. Alexandra Solomon is a clinical psychologist, a beloved professor at Northwestern University, and one of the most respected voices in modern relationships. She's the author of two bestselling books, including Love Every Day and her newest book, Love and Intimacy in the Real World, where she offers practical tools for cultivating healthier, more connected partnerships. She has the wildly popular Reimagining Love podcast

Starting point is 00:01:21 where she brings her grounded wisdom, humor, and deep relational insights to listeners all over the world. And at the end of this episode, Alexandra is going to give us five micro moments or keys that you can use small things to change everything and cultivate deeper intimacy and connection in your relationship. Stay tuned for all of that and so much more on this episode of The Language of Love.

Starting point is 00:01:52 Alexandra Solomon, thank you so much for joining us on The Language of Love. I'm so excited to talk to you. It's great to be with you. I was just telling you before we started what a fan I've been of you and your work for many, many, many, many years. So great to be here. I've been a fan of yours too, so we can mutually admire. And I'm and I'm really excited to have this conversation with you because you have helped so many people, not just on your podcast, with your books and your teachings and your classes and a lot of what you talk about.

Starting point is 00:02:27 and I know this was a lot of what you get into in your book, is this idea of relational self-awareness, which seems like a really good place to start. Like, what does it mean? Why does it matter so much in modern relation, in any relationship, not just modern relationships? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it is particular to our modern relationships because, you know, historically marriage and intimate partnership really were these very role-bound arrangements. You know, he's the provider and she's like the home, the domestic goddess and being a

Starting point is 00:03:04 good husband meant bringing home money and being a good wife meant caring for the home. And we didn't really, you know, I don't know that my grandma or your grandma really was asking the question, like, does my partner get me? Like, do they celebrate me, like me as a unique expression of the divine and our relationships now we are craving that soul to soul. We've gone from role to soul based relationships. We really do like, we do crave intimacy and essentially growing and evolving together. And we want our relationships to grow and evolve with us, which is beautiful.

Starting point is 00:03:39 Like I'm here for it, but we've got to bring an elevated set of skills and perspectives into that if that's what we want to be cultivating. And that's relational self-awareness, which is to know that if I want to grow alongside my partner, it means me taking forever curious and compassionate and humble responsibility for myself, how I show up, how I co-create the very dynamics, which is hard to do in a relationship. I mean, we've been married for more than a minute. It's very easy to itemize all the way to our partner is a real pain in the butt. Absolutely. So, I mean, me too. I think we both of them, I've been married 25 years. You probably put longer than me or about 27. And I

Starting point is 00:04:25 always say like, you're going to marry someone who's going to trigger your shit, guaranteed. And that's part of the purpose, I think, of relationships. That's how you know it's working. That's how you know it's working when you're feeling all stirred up. Yeah. Because to me, even on a meta spiritual perspective, that really is the highest purpose of relationship is to be your partner and growth and in, and your ally and inter evolution, we're going to push each other's buttons. And if we're willing, we can really step into, I mean, cause I don't think you can heal relational wounds outside of relationship. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I think that that is, it's hard to walk that talk, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:11 because in the moment, right, it is so much what our bodies do, the way that we shut down, the way we say that thing. And then five minutes later, we're like, Oh my God, why would I say that thing? So yeah, it is, it is definitely a practice. I mean, 27 years in and I still catch myself like, wait, why didn't I handle that moment in that way? You know? Or my husband would be like, okay, back up a second. What would you say if one of your clients just said to their partner what you just said to me it's the worst when they use I so I've been I've been podcasting now for over four years and my husband you know he's he's read the books that I've you know written and he's seen me teach sometimes but he really started to listen to

Starting point is 00:05:53 the podcast and that way I could see the way he would use things in moments I was like oh no you didn't just use me against me how dare you so yeah that's quite handy he has it on tape but like along those lines I love this term you talk about I mean you've said and I and in your book you talk about how love is is a classroom right and this idea of ghost busting uh exploring how unhealed pain kind of disrupts day-to-day connection and ghost busting in relationship I love that idea Yeah, that we, that we, we do like we, we sometimes will relate to our partners from that very young, very wounded place where we're trying to work something out that has relatively less to do with our partner and relatively more to do with an old familiar feeling or tendency or pattern. And it's not a problem that that happens, that's going to happen. And in fact, when that happens, it gives us a chance then to relate to that young part

Starting point is 00:07:01 of ourselves differently and kind of assure that young part like, oh, okay, baby girl, like you go and rest, you know, you go, you tried this many, many times when you were little with your own parents, but you go rest. Let me handle this now. Yeah. So, so I think what you're, you know, you're talking somewhat about inner child work, but also about this idea of, you know, I call it when you're like inner child takes the wheel, right? Like when we're little, we have, we come up with these strategies to deal with our wounding

Starting point is 00:07:30 or abandonments, our abuse, our big and T little T traumas, all of those things. And in the little child's mind, it often keeps us alive and, and keeps us going. And is it a strategy that may work in the short term, but as grownups in relationship, it doesn't necessarily work. So that's what you're talking about, right? Yeah. And I lately have been talking about it in terms of the roles that we play in our family growing up. As you were talking about that, I was thinking about, okay, what's mine? Well, in my family growing up as the eldest daughter, I really, I mean, I took perfectionism and performance, you know, to be like, that was a way that I felt like I had a modicum of control over a situation dynamics that fell out of my control. And it

Starting point is 00:08:17 was a way to really like kind of please and bring like happiness to my parents who was really pretty deeply unhappy with, I could bring her, it couldn't fix some things, but I could bring her an A and I could, you know, and so that was a, to your point, it was a survival strategy. It was an attempt to do something at a time when it needed to be done. But my gosh, has it wrecked havoc in my marriage then when my husband wants to bring a piece of feedback to me and it's really hard, right? To know that he's displeased with me, to know that I'm not perfect in his eyes. That has been, you know, I've had to really learn the art of apology, you know, and really learn how to like accept that I don't have to be perfect.

Starting point is 00:09:02 And my desire to be perfect is, in fact, what's driving us apart in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. And that comes from that one new place. I was the same way. My mother would say to me when I came home, how many A's did you get today? Like approval and love were really intertwined in my family, right? And so then holding, absolutely holding that feedback without getting defensive or wanting

Starting point is 00:09:27 to talk them out of it or shutting down or deciding they're letting your nervous system become totally dysregulated as you imagine them leaving you, you know, all those fears surfacing. Yeah. So how do you know, because this comes up so often, I know it does for you too, especially working with college students as much as you do, but I think it comes up at all ages and stages of life, I see this all the time, is that we will, I see, it's usually women, but sometimes men, almost accidentally using this from a space of compassion, like my partner has these core wounds that are making them do these things, and yet the relationship isn't necessarily safe, right, emotionally or sometimes literally.

Starting point is 00:10:19 So how do you know when someone's wounds deserve our compassion, our patience, our grace, and when, you know, the signs that that relationship is really unsafe or that person is unlikely to change? Yeah, I think that's a very, very, very hard question. And I think it's one of the risks of doing this relational self-awareness work is that you start, you know, it's like this beautiful side effect is that you develop this ever expanding compassion and grace and ability to contextualize everybody and everything, you know, and you sort of pull the thread and you can see how this is tied to that. And I think that is one of the risks is then we'll use the he, she example that you're bringing up.

Starting point is 00:11:02 Like then she is actively excusing behavior because she can see, she can see the entire map of it. She can see why he responds this way because of his dad and his da-da-da and all of this. And she can see all that history converging in that moment and fueling that behavior. And it is not right. We can't use this as an, it's about a context rather than an excuse. And so I think one of the places where the rubber hits the road is what is the degree to which he is disturbed by it as well, right?

Starting point is 00:11:36 Because if he says, oh shit, I cannot believe that I just responded from that place of my wound rather than pressing pause, stepping away, da, da, da, da. If he is disturbed by it and he says, if he can make a repair and she can track over time that the repair happens more quickly, that the breach isn't quite as profound, that suggest it's a wound in healing. But if she's the only one who is making those connections and he's rolling his eyes and saying, I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't done that. You know, that's where I think is is one of the places where that's a problem. If you're the only one adding context, that's a lonely, a lonely and depleting endeavor. Yeah, I think it really is. And I also think I see

Starting point is 00:12:22 it a lot in, you know, in all genders and forms of relationships, which were like a little bit of information can be a dangerous thing. So the person who isn't necessarily taking responsibility, and what I mean by that is like, they can say, it's kind of like the abuse cycle. They do something really harmful, hurtful from a place of wounding. You get upset, maybe set a boundary, withdraw from, you know, and kind of are moving away. And then they say, you know, I'm so sorry. It's because my mother xyz or my father abc and they're not really doing anything to come to yeah this mess yeah so they can name it but they aren't doing anything about it yeah it's the difference between in like insight on its own yeah can be weaponized just like anything a diagnosis can be weaponized

Starting point is 00:13:12 in a similar way right it's not me it's my adhd yes i've used that before yeah yeah so insight on its own a diagnostic label on its own really can't win the day it is it is using that history and insight that diagnostic label as the platform then for okay so what what's the scaffolding that I need next time around yeah yeah and let's talk about that I mean obviously we could talk for hours about what to do to bring yourself back into regulation or how to notice you've been triggered and what to do in that moment so that you don't react so quickly from your wound. And a lot of it requires, you know, insight and support. But if you were to kind of summarize the steps or some of the strategies for people, what would it be?

Starting point is 00:14:04 Yeah. I mean, I do think that one of the first places to go is to start to look at the dynamics of your relationship as a cycle or a choreography or a dance like that like truly to see that like the more I do this the more my partner does that the more my partner does that the more I do this like starting to really look at those patterns and cycles and I write a lot about that and talk a lot about that because once you can see the cycle then you can start to learn where am I particularly at risk of going from calm, empathic, open-minded, reasonable to constricted, triggered, activated in survival mode. Right. And so, so that's, so you have to learn kind of the inner network of your own kind of like where your tripwires are inside of you. And you

Starting point is 00:15:00 can, and you can do that because when you just like notice what is it that was happening right before I went from chill to panicked. That's a huge, that's a huge thing. Yeah. Recognizing the triggers. Yeah. And they usually, and they're not like, it's not like laundry or sex or money. It's what does those mean? What's the way that I start to feel that I hate to feel like I don't matter. Like everybody else is more important than me. Like I'm not safe here. Like I can't trust my partner like what's like you have to go to like what does the pain what is the pain saying what is the story that the pain is saying right because it's not the laundry it's the fear that I'm invisible and ignored and forgotten and I think that's so important a lot in my work too

Starting point is 00:15:50 we're always talking about this story you're telling yourself right yeah so because we all make up different stories about the same thing and you know laundry right not folding the laundry after you do it or leave it in the dryer, one partner would think nothing of it. Another partner would see it as a total sign of disregard and that I don't matter or that I'm not valued or whatever. So really, yeah, I love that kind of recognizing the story that's causing the pain,

Starting point is 00:16:19 which is where you can find the connection to the wound. And I think another really important step, and I feel like I'm curious how you, I suspect this comes up as well in your work, is I think lots of us feel like we place a high value on like having these big conversations and like working it through. And I'm a fan of having the amount of conversation

Starting point is 00:16:42 that your nervous system can handle. You know, I would much rather have a couple, have a series of seven minute conversations where they can stay connected beginning, middle, end, then have, then go for 30 minutes and something goes off the rails, you know, 20 and they try to persist and all of that. So I think shorter is better,

Starting point is 00:17:02 especially given that like, you know, the research, Gottman's research shows that almost 70% of our problems don't have an answer anyways. So you're not talking to get to a solution. You're talking to be seen and to see, like to really see your partner's perspective on it as well. Yeah, and to understand.

Starting point is 00:17:22 Yeah, understand the interdynamic of both of your stories clashing up against each other. Yeah. And yeah, I agree with you. I think most couples, unless they've really, really, really evolved and done their work and, you know, and even then just in the vein of that, which they are no longer triggered around, doesn't mean there aren't a million other things they are triggered around. And yeah, it's hard to have a really serious, meaningful conversation without either of you going off the rails or both of you going off the rails for a long period of time. And or I think it's important, and I know you do this too, to give couples permission and tools to recognize when they're, I mean, going like, so like, for instance, in the

Starting point is 00:18:04 beginning of my relationship with my husband, I was, I'm a recovering codependent, but I was still in our early years of marriage, an active codependent who was very good at one of my survival strategies was to manipulate anyone. I wasn't conscious of this, but to manipulate anyone mad at me, especially a high stakes relationship to the point where at the end, they would be apologizing to me, you know, because that was so much out of that life. Because in my life, if someone was really disappointed in you, you know, abandonment was very real, you know, so there wasn't really secure attachment there. And so I would notice myself getting really agitated, or I would notice him getting really agitated. And then at that point,

Starting point is 00:18:50 one or the other of us would be like, okay, we need to take a break. Our cue was like, I'm in persona right now, meaning I am not myself. I am in the child. I am in the one who needs to control or manipulate, like whoever that is. Sometimes we even gave them names, but like I would, we would just say, I'm in persona right now. I think we should take a break. And then the key is obviously making sure to go and regulate, shift, do whatever, and always come back to it. What I see a lot of couples do is they say, okay, we're going to table this because we're both, you know, one or the other, or both of us are getting triggered and we're not going to have a helpful conversation now. And then they just are like,

Starting point is 00:19:31 okay, we're not bringing that back up. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think I've, especially if you have a history in your own childhood of watching people storm off or drive away or slam a door, that idea of detaching is the very same feeling of abandonment. So there's something that is so incredibly empowering, but it feels paradoxical to say, I love us too much to keep going. Let's pause. That's an intentional pause. It is done out of love and respect and care for the relationship and love and respect and care for the nervous systems that are in the room. That can take some convincing because that's not the same thing as giving up or abandoning. It is. Yeah. And if that person you're saying that to is in their deep trigger of abandonment,

Starting point is 00:20:16 you know, I would have my husband, I would say, okay, so my only request is even if you're mad at me you say I love you and you hug me and then we kind of celebrate yeah and and he was able to do that and that made a huge difference because then love wasn't being withheld as a punishment and all those old triggers of how it was handled in my family weren't coming up in the same way right so you can come up with those I think those kinds of strategies that allow for rest and recalibration and separation that don't lead to abandonment. But you mentioned this idea of like bearing witness to one another's pain, which I think is so important. And, and I've heard you talk about that and the, you know, obviously the importance of that empathy and of tone,

Starting point is 00:21:05 right. But this whole idea of like honoring your feelings, honoring your partners, you know, I'm wondering if you can speak to that. You know, those are the emotional skills, right. And building connection. You were mentioning tone and I spend a lot of time with couples talking about tone, especially cis hetero couples and her struggling with his tone. And I'll just like say to the men straight up, like, listen, I'm not saying it's fair, but what I will tell you after 30 years of working with couples is that I think hardwired into women as a survival strategy is being, you know, tuned in to shifts in men's tones that signal actual danger, like actual threat. And you don't hear it in your own voice, A, because it's your voice and B, because when

Starting point is 00:21:57 your tone shifts into anger, you don't feel particularly powerful in that moment. You feel kind of helpless, kind of desperate. So you don't feel big, strong, tough, and overpowering. But I'm just telling you that what she's saying is that when your tone shifts in that way, she is coding danger and threat. And that there's a level at which we're just, we're nothing more than fancy mammals. You know, we're like safe danger, safe danger. Like the word is coding for that. And that's a challenge. And I think if I'm struggling with your tone, it's my responsibility to bring it up in such a way that it's like, listen, Laura, I don't know what's going on inside of you, but I will tell you that I'm starting to pick, I'm starting to feel unsafe inside of my own body,

Starting point is 00:22:40 like not making it your problem or your fault, you know, but just feeling really sensitive right now to like where this conversation is going. And I'm feeling myself kind of like either closing in or wanting to kind of puff out and get bigger than you, you know, can I say some version of that without making your tone your fault, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is such an important part of the overall communication, right? Because what you're describing is like, this is how I'm feeling. This is the story I'm telling myself. This is what I'm experiencing in my body. And that's speaking unarguably versus you're making me uncomfortable, right? Then they go on the defensive. Right, right, right.

Starting point is 00:23:25 Yeah. Most of us have no idea how to move through loss. There's no roadmap to follow. when you're trying to navigate grief. And I realized this when I lost my son three years ago. As a therapist who understood grief, a whole new level of pain opened up to me when I lost my 16-year-old son. And since then, I have been building resources that have allowed me to navigate through loss,

Starting point is 00:23:54 not only in a healthy way, but in a way that has transformed me for the better. We can move through the most terrible loss with grace. And that's why I have created the course, Good Grief, Healing from Loss with Love. You can find it on my website, drlauraberman.com, right there on the homepage, as well as free resources letting you know how to support others who are going through loss. None of us has to do this alone. when i can flag that for you that might like hopefully there's enough trust that when i flag

Starting point is 00:24:34 that for you and to you you can check in with yourself and you can figure out how like what you need to kind of settle in your own body open up your throat you know speak to me from a place like a little deeper inside whatever the shift is that you need to make you know yeah that's so it's both calling someone to consciousness in a, in a safe way and them holding it and taking it in and responding. Right. And if they don't, then you go back to, you know what? I love you. I want to have this conversation, but I really need to take a break. Yep. And this happened last, just last week, my husband and I, I was like spiraling out in some place that I go. And it's like I could hear him you know trying to kind of call me forward and in that moment I couldn't

Starting point is 00:25:22 I just I couldn't do it I didn't have it available to me you know in that moment but what's different is that I can step away regulate myself and come back but it's but in that interim time he has to soothe himself like that's it is painful right it's painful when your partner can't hang in there with you in a difficult moment and I know that he would have preferred to be able to kind of keep me near him. And I would have preferred to be able to stay near him. And I just didn't have it in that time. And so that like that reach is painful. So it's it's we can't soothe each other out of those places. Like I had to soothe myself and he had to soothe himself until I was able to come back around. And what are some of your favorite ways to kind of come, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:10 to regulate yourself, to come back to calm? Well, it's all I mean, for me, it's always, always always movement and sound you know like truly like listening not even I mean sometimes music is helpful but even just like even just listening to a podcast like somehow just like feeling like I'm in charge of the input into my ears and my body can move and and just giving it some time you know giving it like a little bit of like because if I say to myself calm down go back in, I end up hearing it in a shaming way, you know, then I feel like, then I get worried about what if it's taking me too long to calm down and what's he doing and I'm ruining everything, you know, whatever. Then it becomes like another story that I start telling myself. So it really

Starting point is 00:26:54 has to just be like trusting that my, my body will reorient if I just give it some movement, some sound and a little bit of time. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have go-tos that you? Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, last week for me, too. I was trying to remember what week. I know. Must be something in this moon or stars. I don't know. But something was going on and he said something or was saying something that I thought was really like unreasonable and slightly insulting. and he wasn't hearing me and we weren't getting anywhere and I could feel myself just like going into my mode and he got up to go get a package or something that had come to the door and so I took that and I said you know what I'm gonna go upstairs and I just say that I'm gonna go upstairs and re-regulate that's like because he knows and I you know I'm not gonna be able to have a rational conversation until I do. And then I go my favorite, you know, if I can't go outside,

Starting point is 00:28:01 it was pouring rain. Normally I would go outside and put my feet on the ground and just take really deep breaths and imagine light coming in the top of my head and flowing through my body and just going out my feet into the earth. I'll move, like walk around a little bit. Sometimes I scream into a pillow or a bowl of ice water. I love to do that. Taking those kind of vagus nerve stimulating breaths where you breathe in for the count of four and out for the count of six as slow down the nervous system or doing the voo breath that where you make that really low sound that's where you can feel it resonate. Yes. Resonates inside of you. So I'll do any or all of those and a little bit of time. And for me, the equivalent of listening to a podcast is I read

Starting point is 00:28:49 historical fiction that to me will just like take me somewhere else. And I've done that since I was a little girl, I would read to soothe myself because I would just go somewhere else and it would shut down the loop for a little bit. So those are some of my, if I'm in the moment and like agitated, those are some of the ways I'll bring myself. Because usually if I'm agitated, for me, it's what's underneath that is anxiety and like fear of losing my power, fear of abandonment, fear I'm being controlled, fear, you know, whatever, like all these old fears from my dear old dad you know coming up with a coming to the fore so it's usually rooted in anxiety so that's so my whole nervous system kind of goes to that yep yep I think somebody like

Starting point is 00:29:37 it's somebody who was trained before we had all of this polyvagal somatic before we had an appreciation of the body like I was trained my whole psychology training I'm sure yours too it's so freaking like top down like yeah yeah your thoughts say it like this that's yes and i feel like i like cling to all of the somatic knowledge that we now have about like until your body has some semblance of safety inside of it your mind your stories have no chance you cannot create a generous story about your partner when your body is sure that it is under threat yeah you're you're not in the building. Plus you can't, your prefrontal, I mean, even if we're going to stay in the minds, your prefrontal cortex is shut down. That's the part that can see possibilities

Starting point is 00:30:25 and the whole picture. Your amygdala is lit up, which is that reptilian reactive part of the brain. Yeah. I'm the same way. You know, my kids, when I, when they were little, used to call me a talking doctor because she wouldn't say, what kind of doctor is your mother? And they'd say a talking doctor because that was the only way they could explain it. So I became a talking doctor. And now I like to say that I'm a talking doctor who spends a lot much, a lot more time with the body than talking. I mean, I think those cognitive tools are so helpful and so crucial for communication, but I 100% agree. I cling to it as well. And it's such a huge part of my work is, and it's so integrated and necessary for that communication to go well. And in order to get your

Starting point is 00:31:10 needs, Matt. And also just all the unconscious, like we take in 40 billion bits of information into our brains every millisecond and only consciously process a thousand of them. But there's all of this unconscious processing of the way we are unconsciously attuning energetically to our partners. So for me, like some of the biggest discoveries in my work that has informed so much of my work was in my last book, Quantum Love, where I learned and then taught others how to move your body into these energetic states where your partner will just match you there. And so if you hold that energetic state, for instance, of peace or grace or empathy or open heartedness, they will match you there. And then the conversation is totally different.

Starting point is 00:32:04 Yeah. That was such a big, well, I realized as you're saying that, that I don't have your last book. I'm going to have to get myself a copy of it after we've finished. I really want to read it. That was a really big aha for me. When our kids were little, it was like, at some point, my husband said to me, Al, your energy, like he's like, for better or for worse, your energy really sets the tone in our house. You know, if you're going down the tubes, we're all going down and that felt like such a burden but it helped me learn how like I would just imagine like wrapping this whole house you know in my energy not that I was responsible for everyone's feelings but I was responsible for creating an energy around me that just invited

Starting point is 00:32:45 the way that I wanted us all to feel the way that we all deserve to feel and it's it was really so humbling but so helpful and I still what a gift he gave you yeah and that's why how I discovered quantum love was through my kids because I was in a really dark place. My mother had just died and it was the first person that my kids are really close to and died. And then I got breast cancer and they were all going off the rails in their own ways. And all my usual strategies, you know, of therapy and neurocognitive, blah, blah, blah. None of that was working. And, and so So I, out of desperation, went, I hadn't been to a medium since I was in college. And this woman said to me, because I was most worried about my eldest son, who was suicidal,

Starting point is 00:33:34 he was in ninth grade. And she said, oh, he's clairsentient, basically an empath. Yeah. But she said, the problem is that he doesn't understand, which is the case with many empaths. He can't tell the difference between what he himself is feeling and other people's feelings. so you have to be really careful about your energy and your affect when you go into the room and i'm like well i am never like when i go into the room especially him because he's in this really tender place i don't show him that i'm upset i don't show him that i've had a hard day and she's

Starting point is 00:34:07 like no no i'm not talking about the smile on your face and she taught me literally was the first person that taught me what i now understand to be nervous system regulation but she didn't call it that. But she taught me how to calm my nervous system and to move into an energetic state of peace and then walk into the room with him. And he started responding totally differently. And then when I explained this to him and started showing him some of what she taught me, it changed everything for him. He started being able to distinguish between what he was feeling, what other people were feeling. And it's still hard for him to this day, but for the most part he can. But that really blew my mind and then I started trying to understand it and that took me to

Starting point is 00:34:49 quantum physics and then I started practicing different things and it's pretty astounding yeah it's a tough sell for us mamas isn't it though because it feels like a guilt trip you know it feel like I know that I mean I still just barely battle guilt but like it doesn't matter what my words are saying it's the end my kids are picking up my energy nonetheless like it feel. It's a, it's a heavy, yeah, to, you know, to carry that awareness. And it is just the nature of our relationship with, you know, with the people who matter, who matter the most to us. We're just energetically entrained. I mean, it's demonstrated in quantum physics. I mean, I have, listen, I could have a guilt toe down with anyone who wants to have one. I have so much I could feel

Starting point is 00:35:34 guilty for and make myself feel guilty for. But what I love about this piece of it is that yes, You can make yourself feel guilty for the ways in which you haven't lived up to that responsibility or may have accidentally unintentionally harmed or created an energetic environment that, you know, made it harder for your children. But it's also, I have found it to be such like an amazing gift to start to work with it because where words and behavioral interventions failed, like my kid that wouldn't sleep and couldn't sleep, I finally discovered that if I moved my body into a state of utter peace and ease and coziness and didn't say one word and just laid down next to him, I wouldn't have to pet his hair and tell him and sing to him and wait until he, all I had to do is move into that state and he would immediately start to drift off to sleep. It's like a Jedi mind trick for good. So I started seeing it as such a beautiful tool that I don't think we access, which is why I wrote the book, but people aren't aware of it. We're not aware we're doing it. Yes, for quote unquote bad, not that it's bad, but it can make

Starting point is 00:36:51 things harder but it also can make things so much easier well and it's and it is um well i imagine you know for you those two paths of like petting his head and talking to him versus just fighting you to quiet him yeah the second path is a simpler path it's such a simple it's so ultimately it is easier for you it's so much easier and it's crazy i mean one of my favorite stories and this just happened. Well, I guess it was, it was when Sammy was still here, my son who passed. So it was almost five years ago now. It feels like yesterday, but it was right before the pandemic. And I really wanted to go skiing with them and they had their friends and they didn't want to go. And I just wanted to go like to the local ski mountain and they were just weren't, you know, they were

Starting point is 00:37:36 teenagers and not into this. And all I had to do was start moving my, like I started envisioning myself with them at the top of the mountain with their rosy cheeks and laughing and up in the lodge and just being in like as if I was there in first person. And when they were sitting there playing video games or watching TV and I was next to them, I was just like holding the energy of that and living it inside myself like it was happening. And then all of a sudden, Sammy, who was probably the most attuned of the three of them, but they all, you know, all kids are attuned. He was like, oh, maybe, you know, like now that I'm thinking about it, and we all went skiing, like they all adopted. I swear it is crazy how well it works. Like they will just match you. Everyone will

Starting point is 00:38:26 match you where you are. If you, most of us don't hold our own, we're kind of matching everyone else or we're matching the story we're telling ourself and our fears or whatever. But when you start to hold your own energy that way, the people closest to you really match you. It's wild. It really works. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I am just thinking about, you know, we're having this conversation before Thanksgiving and I've got kids home and coming home from college. So I'm just playing within my mind, like how I get, you know, how I will get to do that this. Oh, I do it whenever they come home, especially because like the oldest doesn't necessarily always come home in the best mood. So like before they come home, I'm envisioning as if it's happening right here,

Starting point is 00:39:12 right now in first person, how I want it to feel. It all starts with how you want it to feel kind of back to what you were originally, we were originally talking about with this story, you know, that wound and how it makes us feel. It's also the reverse. Like I want us to feel playful and connected and peaceful and engaged with each other. And like, how does that feel in my body when I hold that, right? And then when I'm holding that as they come in the house and we're making dinner or whatever, even if I have to go back to envisioning it for a few minutes in my mind and holding it quietly in the side of the room, I mean, now I've done it enough where I can multitask. But even just doing it a little bit, it'll change the whole experience. It's really

Starting point is 00:39:56 cool. You know, this is something I feel like I end up talking a lot about, which is, I think for people who have a history when they were little of feeling invisible, feeling neglected, feeling like their voice didn't matter. I think it can be especially difficult to help those people understand the power they have in their own intimate relationships and, you know, family life too. But as part of a couple, like I will point out to her, like, did you see what happened to him when you said that, you know, and she's what happened to him? Like she can't even fathom how much her facial expression has the power to inflate or deflate him. How this one word she says, you know, leads him to spiral out in this way because of her own history of having been

Starting point is 00:40:38 truly invisible, walked on, neglected. So it is, it's, I feel like I spend a lot of time helping people notice their power. And there's something in this quantum approach that you're talking us through that is similar about like, it does not matter if your little girl or little boy self felt powerless, guess what? You've always had power and you certainly get to have power now. And that heals you today. It heals that old pain that you carried and it helps you create a different kind of experience now for yourself. Yeah. This is a couples therapy version of the Wizard of Oz. But it feels that way because it's true. And I think you're absolutely right. Like not only helping people understand their unconscious impact for good and for bad on

Starting point is 00:41:24 their partner, but, but the power thing is so huge. I mean, I even remember in our early years when we were doing couples therapy and I was so shocked when the therapist pointed out, I noticed that Sam, my husband, Sam, Sam almost becomes like a turtle hovering it. Like he so needs you to be like, it's so important to him that you're okay with him. And I was like, you know, because in my mind, like, I didn't have that power at all. He's a grown ass man. Yeah. And he has a lot more power than me in my mind. Right. Even though I didn't want him to and fought him for it. He didn't feel that way. And I think it's so powerful. Yes. When you can point that out in in vivo as, as you, you know, where they can see like, oh yeah, look at him, his face.

Starting point is 00:42:14 Yeah. No. Also, I want to talk to you because I love what you've, I saw, I think it was a video or a post or something where you were talking about sort of, I don't think you called it this, but I'm calling it the art of the apology. I'm wondering if you can speak to that. well yeah I had to learn what the heck a heartfelt apology was because I for years of my marriage given my my role as the perfect child in my family my apology was like sorry like I would like roll my eyes like jut up my hip sorry you know and that's not that's not heartfelt you don't get partial credit for that but I it really took me a while to understand okay well I'm sorry you made yourself upset i'm i'm sorry that you made yourself feel that way right or i'm sorry but i

Starting point is 00:43:05 wouldn't have done that thing that i did if you hadn't done that yes so the but yeah but just negates everything before it so i think you know all this stuff that we're talking about in terms of like regulation like it's really important to offer the only way you can offer a heartfelt apology is if you're standing on some amount of platform of compassion for yourself curiosity about the other one's experience because otherwise the sorry is just an attempt to either save yourself from the shame or negate your partner's you know ability to be angry with you you know it is a it's a means to an end so a heartfelt apology is just is yeah just saying like really like witnessing the other person's experience like I'm sorry that what you know I'm

Starting point is 00:43:52 sorry that I hurt you yeah and it's not I'm sorry that you were hurt right that's that sneaky little sneaky exit ramp that sometimes we take and it doesn't matter if you wouldn't be hurt if those shoes were on the other feet it doesn't matter if they also did that thing to you at some point none of that matters what matters is the person in front of you is hurting right now and you have the power to help them get through it and so it is that's that's where it starts from is right just like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I hurt you. Yeah. And that's so healing when you can say it. And you touched on this in your description just now, but I think this is one of the underpinnings of it is not just often we need to kind of regulate ourselves and move into a state of calm and peace

Starting point is 00:44:39 in order to do that apology, but also in order to have compassion for them. And you kind of touched on this in order to have compassion for anyone, it starts with the compassion we give ourselves. Yes. And so I think that's such an important piece of relational well-being or awareness is to recognize that the love you have to give, the compassion you have to give, the grace you have to give, it all starts with what you can give yourself. If my sense of worth is all bound up in the way that I hurt your feelings, then my apology really is designed to help you let me know that I'm still a good person, you know? So it has to be that I can, I can create this, even a wedge of light between myself as a

Starting point is 00:45:27 person and that behavior that I did. You know, if there's even just a wedge of light there, then I can apologize for the behavior, knowing that the sum total of who I am, the sum total of our relationship isn't contingent upon this one behavior. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it reminds me of what I've read. I think this was in your book.

Starting point is 00:45:48 I read it about, I love this idea of, I think it was in relation to, which is relevant around the holidays, but I think it was in relation to in-laws and getting along with in-laws. But this idea, but I think it applies to many things, including what you're taught, what we're talking about with apologies, is this idea of being a relational leader. Yes, that idea. Uh-huh. Yep. Well, it's a quantum idea, right? Because basically being a relational leader is saying, I'm going to make my energy the biggest energy in this room. I'm going to be the most loving person in this room. Yeah. And that's not, I think it can feel like a responsibility, but I think it also is an opportunity.

Starting point is 00:46:26 Because when we do that, we also have the opportunity to see ourselves in that way, to feel the pride of being not like a quote unquote, like bigger, better person or taking the high road, but just the pride of like, of inviting, inviting everybody to just elevate a little bit, you know, to move in a direction that is just an inch more loving and full of grace. Because Lord knows at this moment in time, you know, we need, we need grace. We really do. in our, to ourselves, to each other and to the world, more grace and understanding. Amen to that.

Starting point is 00:47:02 So I have so many things I could keep talking to you forever, but I want to ask you this idea of micro moments. You know, we talk about, I know you talk about, I talk about how it, yes, those big grandiose gestures and romantic gestures are so, that's what we see in the movies. And that's what many of us equate with love, but they're really sustaining love and sustaining relationships come out and come through in those micro moments. So I wanted to ask you if you could give us five micro moments that can strengthen connections, strengthen the bond in a relationship that you could recommend. All right. Number one, give your partner a compliment for absolutely no good reason. Just out of nowhere, you know, let yourself like lean into that vulnerability of

Starting point is 00:47:54 giving them a compliment. Number two is be on the lookout for a time that your partner says something sweet to you and resist the urge to deflect it or minimize it. Like just really like let their words soak up inside of you. That's another really, those are both really micro, but so powerful. I mean, I think a micro moment of connection, this is one that my husband and I use all the time is just walking together. I'm such a huge fan of walks either for no reason, just as a little ritual or walks to have a hard conversation. I think there's something powerful about sharing a perspective. You're looking in the same direction, you know, co-regulated nervous systems tell cue your body that you're safe with this person. And keep your phones away while

Starting point is 00:48:41 you're doing it. Phones down. Yes. Phones down. Yeah. And just letting the conversation, you know, just go wherever it goes. How about a micro moment? The fourth one would be hug, like a hug that lasts longer than it needs to. 30 seconds is my favorite. I give my husband a 30 second hug every morning and say to myself, I choose you. That's my little codependent reminding herself she's in choice but I love that one that's great that's great yeah and then just I mean to circle back on the phones really I mean this is a hard one but really like to make it a practice I'm either talking to you or I'm on my phone you know there's research about they call it a fubbing yeah you know that we it's it's so normalized to have our phones within reach to look at our

Starting point is 00:49:31 phones while talking to people but it's you know intimate relationships are they're fragile and they really do need us to tend to them. So not even if you're staring into those eyes, but just if you're oriented, like in your partner knows I have, I have your attention right now. So it's one or the other on off. I'm either talking to you or I'm on my phone. Yeah. I love that. Great micro moments. Those were beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us and for all the work that you do in the world to help us love and be loved better. And for sharing your time with us today. Great to be with you.

Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - How to Own Your Sexuality and Create the Relationships You Want with Alexandra Solomon

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