Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Abby Medcalf on Creating a Happy and Fulfilled Relationship EP 183

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Want to create a happy, connected, and fulfilled relationship?  Dr. Abby Medcalf provides straightforward, actionable strategies and tools that you can use today to make your relationships their best (including your relationship with yourself)!  Dr. Abby Medcalf is a relationship maven, psychologist, author, and TEDx speaker who has helped thousands of people alter their mindset to create connection, comfort, and enjoyment in their relationships! Abby is the host of the top-rated “Relationships Made Easy” Podcast and author of the #1 Amazon best-selling book, “Be Happily Married, Even if Your Partner Won’t Do a Thing.”  -► Purchase Be Happily Married Even If Your Partner Won't Do a Thing: https://amzn.to/3PWPzu8 (Amazon link) -► Get the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/abby-medcalf-creating-fulfilled-relationship/  --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/8CphcB87dxY  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the Passion Struck Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283  Thank you, Dry Farm Wines, For Your Support Dry Farm Wines Have No Chemical Additives for Aroma, Color, Flavor, or Texture Enhancement. Dry Farm Wines - The Only Natural Wine Club That Goes Above and Beyond Industry Standards. For Passion Struck listeners: Dry Farm Wines offers an extra bottle in your first box for a penny (because it’s alcohol, it can’t be free). See all the details and collect your wine at https://www.dryfarmwines.com/passionstruck/. In this episode, Dr. Abby Medcalf and I Discuss How she overcame a heroin addiction and became an addiction counselor for over 30 years How that work inspired her passion to focus on relationships. The number one reason that relationships fail.   Why is it so important not to play the victim or blame card? Why being in a happy relationship is not about time but the mind. The importance of intentionality in relationships. The importance of self-awareness in building a deep connection. Why is any successful relationship built on kindness? The importance of forgiveness in a lasting relationship. Where to Find Dr. Abby Medcalf * Website: https://abbymedcalf.com/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbymedcalfthriving/ * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abbymedcalf * Twitter: https://twitter.com/AbbyThriving  -- John R. Miles is the CEO, and Founder of PASSION STRUCK®, the first of its kind company, focused on impacting real change by teaching people how to live Intentionally. He is on a mission to help people live a no-regrets life that exalts their victories and lets them know they matter in the world. For over two decades, he built his own career applying his research of passion struck leadership, first becoming a Fortune 50 CIO and then a multi-industry CEO. He is the executive producer and host of the top-ranked Passion Struck Podcast, selected as one of the Top 50 most inspirational podcasts in 2022. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  ===== FOLLOW JOHN ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/ * Blog: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast  

coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. Number one, my first commitment in the day is to turn off my alarm. So keep that commitment and turn off your alarm and get up. That's number one, don't hit the snooze, get up. But number two is immediately bring yourself to something positive, to something where you're taking something out of neutral

and into something where you can have a little bit of positive momentum building up. And that, believe it or not, is what I teach people as the beginnings of having a good relationship with the people in your life. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armeils. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality

so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 183, which is ranked as one of the top health and fitness podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. And if you're new to the show or you would like to introduce this for Friend or Family member,

we now have episode starter packs both on Spotify as well as the PassionStruck website. These are collections of our fans favorite episodes that are organized into Top Act to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show, especially now that we have over 180 episodes. Please go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started. And in case you missed my interview from earlier in the week, it featured Dr. Dominic Dagostino, who is a professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida, and one of the foremost experts in the world on metabolic therapies, as well as ketosis in the keto diet. Last week, I interviewed Alan Stein Jr.,

who's a renowned public speaker and performance expert, and we go into his books, Razure Game and Sustain Your Game. I also had on Rare Admiral Den El Barrett, who spent over 30 years in the United States Navy in various roles, and we discussed her new book, Rock the Boat. In case you missed my solo episode from last week, it was on a topic of loneliness. Why loneliness is killing us and how to deal with it? And I wanted to give a shout out to you all our fans. Thank you so much for all your five star ratings and reviews, which go such a long way in helping us expand the passion start community and the popularity of the show.

It means so much to us when you give them. Now, let's talk about today's guest. Abby Medcalf is a relationship maven psychologist, author and TEDx speaker who has helped thousands of people think differently so that they can create connection ease and joy in their relationships, especially the ones with yourself. So, you see the author of the number one Amazon bestselling book, Be Happily Married, even if your partner won't do a thing. And the host of the top-rated

relationships made easy podcast. We discuss her passion for being an addiction counselor for over 30 years and what led her pursue that passion. And through that passion, how she developed another one, which is the focus on relationships. We discuss her TED Talk on the number one reason that relationships fail. Why it's so important not to play the victim or blame card, we go into why being happily married isn't about time or how much of that you devote to someone. But more about mind and mindset, we discuss the importance of intentionality in relationships through the lens of kindness and self-awareness. And we also go into the importance of forgiveness and creating a lasting relationship as well

as so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. [♪ music playing in background, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Abbey Metcalfe, the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Abbey. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I'm ready. Well, I've had a chance to watch your TED Talk. I've listened to a lot of not only interviews you've done, but you have your own podcast. And maybe you can just tell the audience a little bit about that podcast before we jump into the rest of the interview. Sure. It's called the Relationships Made Easy podcast. And we actually just finished the 200th episode, my fourth season. And we're in 171 countries now. And the podcast started as a big give for me.

I want world peace. And that sounds like a very big want. But I'm a firm believer that we all have power in that. And so I believe that if everyone had access to research-based really information with great integrity, my own almost 40 years of experience, all mixed together for how to be happy in your life, how to be happy in your relationships

very specifically all of them. Then hate and bigotry and all those things, I believe would take a back seat. And I think people would be happier, we feel more connected, excited in our lives, and I just know that that would lead to more peace. That's really what it is. It's become this huge thing, but that's not how I, I mean, I'm glad because of my mission. I just started with, I'm sure, eight of my friends listening. And so it's really grown. It's really exciting. Yeah, you know, the funny thing is when I get into this, I was expecting

that it would be my friends who would really be the ones who listened to it, really be promoting it. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. So, same for me. It's an interesting beast. I find this whole podcasting thing that we both do. But I thought we would start today so the audience can get to know you a little bit more. You have been a group leader helping addicts through recovery for well over three decades. Why is that such a passion for you? Well, oh, it's such a passion. I'm a recovering heroin addict and that was all through my teenage years, et cetera.

And so for me, when I was first trying to figure out, I was gonna be a lawyer. And that's why I went to school for. I have a bachelor's in polyps high and I was planning to be a lawyer. I'd moved to Israel about a year after I got clean and I needed to get out of New York. I needed to change my life a little bit. And when I was there, I worked in a camp,

integrating Arab and Israeli children and realized, and everyone said, wow, you're really good at this counseling. I thought, what's that? And so when I came back to the States, ultimately, I thought, I should be a counselor. And of course, my passion at that point was in being in recovery. And so, and I have held that thread all these years. And I morphed that into working in organizations. I decided I wanted to have a bigger, I might not have a master's in counseling site and was doing all that.

And then I thought, I wanna have a bigger impact. I wanna work in businesses. I wanna work with people there. And I ended up working with executives who had drug and alcohol problems in international emergency and acquisitions. And I ended up doing that for many years, but I kept always doing a group at a drug rehab.

Like no matter what, all these years, I still do. I've always done groups with addicts and non addicts now too. And most of my clients these days are not recovering in any way, necessarily. But I always have a good, but some portion that are. I always have a little nut of that. But yeah, I have this huge passion for, and not giving up on ourselves. I think with addiction, people think and not giving up on ourselves. I think with addiction people think, and it's not true that addicts relapse all the time. They never get clean or they've never really get it.

And actually the rates of relapse for a drug and alcohol addiction are the same as any other chronic illness, because it's considered a chronic disease. It's the same. So any other chronic disease from high blood pressure to heart disease, we have the same rates of relapse, even though people think it looks very different. And for us, though, of course, it's a brain disease versus a physical disease, a body one.

So there's a different way it shows up, very behaviorally, what we do when we're using. I didn't give up on myself. I was in many rehabs. I didn't give up and found my way and I want other people to have the same to never give up. Well, from what I understand breaking a heroin addiction is probably one of the most difficult addictions that you have to address. It is. It's interesting. I think in some ways

have to address. It is. It's interesting, I think in some ways, alcohol is really the hardest because, and there's no stats on this, but because I don't ever have to see heroin again, but alcohol is everywhere. So when that's your primary addiction, and I think that that's really hard, or when people are addicted to things that they have to see all the time, I think that's even hard. But yeah, everyone has no pick next. I'll tell you that. Well, especially when so much of our social settings and our relationships all revolve around alcohol as a setting.

Yeah, really, really common. It's interesting because there's been a whole new, it's endating in relationships where people are being so curious and really starting to date without alcohol. It's been very interesting to watch how the stigma is still there. I mean, it'll probably always be there,

but it's been shifting very dramatically over the years. And especially since I started in the field to now, I mean, it's shifted so much. And what we know about it and how we understand it and the research behind it. It's really, it's been amazing. In America, especially, we're such a poly yourself up by your own bootstraps kind of place. That's one of our kind of founding principles. And so this idea that it's not a choice to be addicted is something that even addicts have a very hard time, really truly understanding.

And again, so I love to be part of that conversation. And I, yeah, I don't think that passion will ever go away. Well, I'm glad you brought up that topic of choice. And I'm sure we're going to discuss it a lot more in this interview, but I have found, especially now as I've immersed myself in behavioral science and have interviewed a lot of behavioral scientists that really everything comes down to the daily choices that we make. And the problem is most of us don't make great decisions. We make good ones if we're lucky. And I think that's especially true when it comes to relationships, whether that's with friends, family, and most importantly, your partner. Is that something in your counseling

that you find is true? Is often we give our attention and the choices we make are everything, but to the most important things that they should be in our lives. Yep, because we do know from the research Harvard now has that famous long-term research study we've been following a large graduate school

these years as a huge group. What really makes people happy? And we know it's our relationships. At the end of the day, that's the thing. No matter what else. So why aren't they taking front and center all the time? But we allow other things. We make choices where other things become more important.

You and I were talking in the beginning, just chatting with each other about our morning routines, right? And how we sort of wake up and do a certain thing. This is kind of really the secret to having wonderful relationships in your life is. Starting your day with positive momentum. What what really happens is, and it we don't realize it's a choice. We're not deliberately choosing what we're giving our attention to. We're sort of on autopilot, right? We're kind of moving

through our day on the Sodopad. The alarm goes, here's my favorite. The alarm goes off. What are people's first thoughts? First thoughts. Not enough. I didn't get enough. I didn't get enough sleep. It's not enough. This sort of kind of negative vibe right away. And we know from the research as you do too, a lot of it from University of Tear in Germany, that when we wake up, our bodies are immediately produced cortisol,

which is a stress-inducing hormone, because we're really still hundreds of thousands of years old in our DNA, when you would wake up first thing 200,000 years ago or a million years ago, it was usually because something was about to attack you. So you had to be ready, have adrenaline, have cortisol. Be ready for anything coming at you. Well, we haven't evolved past that. So when we first wake up, there's this negative sort of thing

that's happening in our system. And it's our job to override that first thing. Because if you want to have great relationships later, if I want to have, which means patients number one, which means being thoughtful with what I say, which means having intention and deliberate intent in what I do, making all those choices, we know it's a drag on the willpower.

We want to edge that up first thing in the morning. We want to wake up and have number one, my first commitment of the day is to turn off my alarm. So keep that commitment and turn off your alarm and get up, right? That's number one. Don't hit the snooze, get up. But number two is immediately bring yourself to something positive, to something where you're taking something out of neutral and into something

where you can have a little bit of positive momentum building up. And that, believe it or not, is what I teach people as the beginnings of having a good relationship with the people in your life. Because it's sort of like if you're laying in bed and you start, I don't know, smoking cigarettes and eating donuts, right? And just later, I don't know how you expect to have a good day. What we're internally putting in our system. Well, what I'm internally putting in my mental system is even, I would argue, more important than what I'm physically putting in my system. And so what am I internally putting in right that moment? So I teach people one of the first things I want you to do when the alarm

goes off is number one, turn it off and number two, right away. And that first, and just take a few moments, if you're worried about falling back to sleep, then just sit up in bed, put your feet on the floor, take one relaxing breath. We know that turns on the vagus nerve, right? Just one nice deep exhalation. And bring yourself to something in the room that makes you feel good. That might be your partner's nice warm body, you know, that you're snuggle up against. That might be your, you know, 1500 thread count sheets. That might be a picture of you at your on your wedding day. That might be, you know, the seashells you collected on all your beach vacations sitting in some bowl, and you just take a moment and put your attention there and

bring yourself there. Just that. Just bring yourself there. And now set a little intention for, I'm going to have a mindful shower. I'm going to, I work out first thing, you know, I'm going to have a really great workout where I'm really focused and, you know, very president of my body. And then you keep setting intention as the day goes on, but we'll get there. But that's that first thing I would love everyone to hear. If you want to have a great relationship, start right there. Just start first thing in the morning. Well, I think it's great advice. The first thing I do when I wake up, and you're right, I never go back to bed once I hear the alarm go off.

It's kind of, I immediately get up. My dog's there to greet me. And then I come down, I drink a whole glass of water and take a digestive enzyme. And then four or five minutes later, I'm out the door with the dog, and I spend the first 10 minutes of my walk in complete silence, just trying to be mindful about the day

and my intentions forward, et cetera. And then I'll typically then go into researching guests and listening to podcasts and stuff like that on the walk. And then I go and do my workout afterwards. We're gonna talk a lot more about intentions as you talked about, given that's what this whole podcast is about. I thought maybe a good way to start talking about this relationship work that you do is

you have a very prominent TED Talk that you did. And when I listened to it, I was surprised to find that the reason that you point out that many relationships fail was far different than what I've expected. I would have thought that fighting over expenses or fighting over intimacy or fighting over the kids or other things, but it wasn't. What has your research determined it to be? It kind of is those things, but it's secondary. And the problem is that that's sort of the second floor of the house that people are focused on and the foundation's no good.

So things kind of fall apart. The number one thing people come into my office and say to me is the number and problem in our relationships communication. We're not communicating well. We don't communicate well. So we're not communicating about money or parenting, you know, all the things, right?

But what's under that is this subtle, and not so subtle, competition. That is the real reason relationships fail is that we compete with our partners. We compete for resources, for time, time's a big one, and money, and other kinds of resources. And we keep score, right? That's the competition part. We keep score. So we're always looking

to our partners and thinking, well, what am I doing and what are they doing? We keep this sort of mental tally. And a lot of times someone might say to us, if my husband was come to me and say, you know, hey, I'm feeling neglected lately, right? Our answer should be, wow, tell me more about that. Wow, that feels so sorry. That you feel that way. Let's talk about it. But what our answer normally is, is what do you mean you feel neglected?

I did this, this, this, this, and this. And we start listing all the things we did, which because there is, there's this subtle kind of competition, there's this keeping score. Well, how could you feel that way when I've done all these things? Or we say things like it's your turn to put away the dishes. That's my favorite. It's your turn to do this.

It's your turn to bring Sophie to baseball practice because I brought Jack to piano the other day. We do all this and it's keeping score. That's all it is. And if I'm keeping score with you, it means I want to win. That I want to win. Of course, I do. If I'm competing with you, I want to win, which means I want you to lose. So I have this partner, this person I'm supposed to be in what we are is a shared battery. We are. That is the answer. You're a shared battery. It's a we. So when your partner is drained, you're drained. But we missed that. I'm thinking of, I had a couple

not that long ago who he shared in the couple session that he'd gotten this promotion. He was really excited about. And it was going to mean he was gone a lot in Europe. And he was really excited about it. He couldn't wait to share it. He had just found out. And we had this session and they were in two different places he was traveling for work and we all get on the line and he's like, oh my god, I have this thing. He's so excited and her first reaction was great. I guess you'll be traipsing all over Europe while I'm home taking care of the kids. Right away, what am I going to lose when you gained? It's a common story and I get it, but when we're not happy for our partners' wins, that's why we immediately see it as a loss for ourselves.

That happens quite a bit. And it happens again in so many ways, sometimes someone spends money and we think, oh, now I get to spend that much money or they go out with their friends on Friday and we're like, oh, now I have get out of jail free card also, right? That I can use. We constantly are doing that. We even say a lot, especially as parents, so I remember my kids were little, we would say things like, oh, we're going to divide and conquer. Just even think of that. What are you dividing and what are you

conquering? Like, what are we even talking about? It's a way that we're raised, you know, this idea 50-50, which is all crap. It's 100-100. And you're just responsible for your 100. But we, and what happens is people think, oh, we're not communicating well. But the reason you're not communicating well is because there's this underlying river of discontent, of competition, of keeping score. You come to Abby, she gives you a great tool

to go communicate, and it doesn't work. And or it works for a little while, that's the worst. It works for a little while and then things immediately slide back to the way they were. And it's all connected to what's really happening under the relationship. And that's the thing you have to fix. Yeah, so how do you take for responsibility in your relationship while not playing the blame or victim card? Oh, yeah, it's my favorite. Well, I talk a lot about verb, don't act like a victim, act entitled, read anybody's mind or blame. Don't do any of that, right? No verb.

Even the taking 100%, we often look to our partners and go, well, what about them? How long do I have to do that? That's what I'll hear. How long do I have to do that? And there's this wonderful research by Timothy Wilson, who's really one of my like idols. His books are amazing. Malcolm Gladwell started referring to him. People thank God he's finally getting some good traction because he's such an amazing researcher. But he found that our conscious brains process information at a rate of 40 to 50 bits per second. So what I'm

consciously thinking about you and I talking right now, we're processing at a rate of 40 to 50 bits per second. But while we're talking, our unconscious or our subconscious brains are processing information at a rate of 11 million bits per second. Let that sink in. So people don't hear what you say, they hear what you mean. And this is why we can often talk to somebody who's saying all the right things, but we think they're kind of full of crap. It's something like, I don't trust that guy. And we don't know why, but it's that 11 million bits. It's picking up on this, in this energy on whatever else is not being said. And in a relationship, the same thing happens. So I'm thinking I'm going to do my

100% right? I'm going to put in my 100. But I'm doubting because I'm really waiting for my partner waiting until I'm seeing until. And that's what gets in the way because then our partners are picking up on that 11 million right they're picking up on the doubt on the incongruity that you're saying one thing, but there's something else going on. And they kind of sit back and they're like waiting. So she's acting nice now. Let's see how long this lasts.

And sure enough, I'm doing all my wonderful things for a while and then I'm not seeing what I want in return. So I go back to all the behavior. I'm like, oh, forget it. He's not changing. So I'm not seeing what I want in return. So I go back to all behavior. I'm like, Oh, forget it. He's not changing. So I'm going to stop changing. And then he goes see, I knew it. I knew it was going to go back. I knew this was a temporary thing. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everybody feels correct. And everyone feels blame. You know, it's the other person's fault somehow. And everyone feels like a victim. So when you're aware of this 11 and 50, of what's happening, you are aware to align them,

which means that you do the 100 every single day that you wake up every day in and of itself. You're not looking at yesterday, you're not looking at next week, you're not looking at anything, you're being mindful, you're in the moment, and it feels good to give 100. I just wanna say, it feels great to have that sort of energy and really put it in.

By the way, I'm not talking about 150. That's codependency. I'm not talking about to your detriment. That's more than 100. That's not what we're doing. That's a whole other conversation. I'm just talking about that you, in your moments, that you're self-aware, that you're mindful, and that you're coming from love,

what I say love versus fear, that you're coming from that space all the time, that's your job all day, that's just our jobs. That's it, that's the intention that we set, that's what we're doing. You don't have to worry about whether or not your partner's giving it back. That's how we get out of the victim game,

and the blame game, and all the rest of it. You're not focused on anyone else, but yourself, and what you're doing. Because you'll feel better. You will feel so good doing this. That you'll just want to do it. You're not what I hear people say, well, what if I get taken advantage of? I'm going to do all these things and then I'm going to take an advantage. I really don't even know what that means. I've committed my life to this person and I'm worried that they're going to take advantage. Really? That means I've committed my life to this person and I'm worried that they're gonna take it really.

That's number one, that fear. What would that even mean? If you're just happy every day, what's the advantage? What are they getting? I don't even know what that is. It's this idea of being in this mode feels good. Again, when you're not coat of penit, when you're not people pleasing,

when you're not giving too much, those are all fear-based. That's not what I'm talking about. Just talking about being in this space, minute to minute hour to hour day to day, and it's a wonderful, wonderful place to be. It feels so good. One of my happiest moments ever, this is so crazy, but I'm in line at the post office. This is how many years ago this is. I know, right?

It had been a long line. I've been there a long time. It's because the stamps had gone up a penny. Okay, stamps I got up a penny. It was like, I don't remember what it was then. Maybe it was 10 cents to 11 cents or 20 to 21. Whatever it was, they'd gone up a penny. So we're all waiting online to get one set stamps, right? We're all waiting online for one cent stamps for all of our stamps at home, right? To be able to mail crap because then back in the day, we used to mail things, you didn't pay your bills online. So you would have these stamps. And I'm standing there and I get up to the window, it's hot, it's horrible. It's the post office. And I bought a hundred dollars worth of one

cent stamps. And I gave them away to everybody in line. And I turned around and I said, I have one cent stamps for everybody. How many do you need? And people were like, they didn't even, it was quiet, all the sudden it got really quiet. And I just left them out. I said, please, I didn't stand there and hand them. I said, don't take too many, take what you need. And I laid them all out of the counter.

And the guy was laughing behind the counter. And it felt so good. It was the best $100 I ever spent my whole life because we feel good when we do service. We feel good when we're in service when it's our choice. It feels so yummy. And when you do that all day, I get that feeling that hundred buck feeling all the time when I'm in that service and I'm doing that with my family, with my kids, with my healthy, with whoever my friends at work right now with you. Before we came on, I was thinking,

what can we give, what can we do, right? What can people walk away with today? It's a wonderful way to live. Well, I think that's a great way to maybe introduce your book. And if the audience isn't familiar with it, I love the title happily married, even if your partner won't do a book. And if the audience isn't familiar with it, I love the title. Happily married, even if your partner won't do a thing. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we'll make sure we have a cover of the book so that you can see it. But in the first chapter, you allude to, I think, part of what we were just talking about when you have a quote in there that says, it's not about the time in your day, it's about the mind in your day. And how does that apply to creating a healthier relationship?

Oh, yeah, I love that. So again, what we kind of alluded to earlier is that there is a our willpower, there's a little research that goes against this, but the vast majority of research says that our will powers an exhaustible resource, right? That over the course of the day, we use up with all of our decisions and all the things we think about. And this is why when you get to the end, everyone's had this experience where you think I'm going to go out and work out tonight after dinner. I'm going to rearrange the closet after dinner. I'm going to go out with friends after dinner late tonight, like at eight o'clock. I make this plan on Monday. I'm gonna go out my friends on Thursday night. We work all day and we get home and it's like five o'clock and we're exhausted. And even though we have six hours

maybe that we go to most people go to bed probably at 11 o'clock, right? I've got six hours but I don't go work out. I do not want to go meet my friends. I don't want, right? I don't want to do any of the things that this morning I was so hyped up to do. And everyone can relate to that. That you have all this time left in your day, but here you are on the couch binge watching something on Netflix and playing games on your phone or scrolling through social media, right? And probably eating things you don't want to, or think you shouldn't. And so you have all this time left in your day, but you don't have any mind left in your day. And I don't want anyone ever again to think of their day as having 24 hours, because it's wrong. There's not 24 hours. There are, I guess, but they're not usable to you in that way. You always wanna be thinking about

what your emotional bandwidth, how much you can get things done. Even though again, you at all that time, you didn't have mind left, you didn't have band width left. And this is sadly usually when we're home with our families, with our partners, with our kids, with our, right? When we have nothing left, we're burnt, we're done. We're, and so we're impatient, we don't want to have sex, we're tired, we're, we just want to like do nothing kind of thing, right? We want to do very low commitment, that kind of stuff, right?

And so how do you expect to have a great relationship? This is when I'm spending the majority of my time with my person. And so, or my, again, or my kids or whoever that is. So I always want people to be thinking about how they're setting up their day. And that's part of that waking up and first thing putting fuel in the tank, right? So my first thing, I'm not draining from my tank. I'm so tired, this sucks. I wish I could stay in bed. I'm not, I'm immediately thinking of what can I add. That's going to help me have energy for the day. And obviously what you eat and exercise meditation, all those things will help you wake up with a fuller tank. So you, you know, you don't, it feels horrible. So all those things are really important to be mindful of. We can't just sort of again, go through your day

on autopilot, the momentum overtakes you, the negative momentum. If I have a car on top of the hill and it starts to roll, do I want to run to the bottom to stop it? Or do I want to stop it at the top of the hill? The obvious answer, right, is the top of the hill. If you wait till the bottom, you get flattened, but that's what most people do.

Their brain, they've been letting it go on autopilot all day. It's been cruising down that hill, negative, negative, negative, gaining momentum. And then around four o'clock, they try to stop it, right? And that's when people drink or want something to eat that they think they shouldn't eat, right? That's when all of our willpower goes away. And suddenly we're smoking pot and we're having drinks

and we're eating Oreos and that's me, I like Oreos. Whatever that is, right? And we're snapping at our partners and we're exhausted and we're ordering and take out because we don't want to cook. You know, that's what happens. So you've got to get ahead of that. You just have to, you have to think about what you're feeding your brain all day, just as important as what you're feeding your body. Yeah, it's interesting. I had a good friend

when I used to work at Loes named Steve and he was over all of distribution when I was there eventually became all over supply chain, but I spent a lot of time with them and he was one of these high energy extroverts who knew everyone's name was always 120% energy. But I think so often we don't know what people are like in their home life. And as I got to know him better, you know, he told me he was really struggling because by the time he got home, he was completely burned out.

He wasn't paying attention to his wife and kids. And they developed a ritual where they had an attention block. And it was actually a brick. And if the kids or the wife felt like he wasn't being present, they would put the brick on the table, which was a great reminder for him to zone in. And he said, at first, he found it very annoying. Over a short period of time, which was a great reminder for him to zone in. And he said, at first, he found it very annoying.

Over a short period of time, he found it to be a great connector because he would realize he was dripping off and not involved in the discussion. So, I just bring that up as an example. I love it. Well, when you said intention, that's really what that is, right? We're setting an intention of attention. When you do that, you're lining up that 50 and 11 million bits, that's what's happening, right? You're lining all that up. You've talked before in the podcast about the

particular activating system, RAS, and I'll just say it briefly here. The RAS is another part of your brain that acts like a filter between your conscious and your subconscious mind. So whatever I'm thinking about consciously, the RAS, the particular activating system, sends it as an instruction or order to my unconscious to look for that thing. And the easiest example I always give is if you've ever bought a car and suddenly you see that car everywhere, right? Or thinking about buying a car, I want a gravy on W and there's gravy on whatever model that was is everywhere, right? That's what happens all the time in our relationships. So if I'm thinking in my head, my husband's always nagging me, then my RIS sees that as an

order to look for my husband nagging me. And what's really scary about the RIS, of course, is that it filters out anything that doesn't match. So when my husband's appreciative, when he says thank you, all right, all the good things, I'm like Teflon. It's just I don't even my RIS filters that out is unimportant. When you're putting attention to something, when you sit consciously, oh, I'm going to pay attention in this moment, the RIS helps you do it. It says, oh, that's something important, that's something we want to be doing. And it actually will gather things to help you. It's why mindfulness practices

work because over time, you will be mindful without thinking to be mindful because your brain goes, oh, we're supposed to be being mindful. And it'll kind of tap you on the shoulder. And again, every time you set an intention, it is putting into motion, that RIS, it's putting into motion that 50 versus 11 million bits, you're really using your brain the best way possible. I set intention every day, especially before I walk my home. So, and I park the car down the street,

I don't even park in the driveway because everybody sees you and starts coming out. I don't even put the car in park. I literally have my foot on the break. That I've called it the 18th second shift because I've timed it, because I'm not crazy. And I have the average is 18 seconds of how long it has taken me.

And I just close my eyes. I take one cleansing breath, just nice long exhale. And I picture the day sort of closing on all my clients, you know, I picture a big door closing and I said intention for how I want to be when I walk in the house. I want to be playful, patient is usually big for me. I'm not always patient. That's one of my things I work on. I can be a little controlling. I want to be patient and thoughtful, right? So I'm setting this intention for when I walk in the house and everybody can feel it. I used to walk in the house like, what's going on? Who's got home where I, who's walked the dog, right? And you're like, in this mode of, again, that momentum has just taken me

away where I'm just worried about all the things that home we have this. And this is going on and we got to get dinner on the table because everybody has baseball practice laid it, right? And there's a uniform's clean and did I do all my gosh, I have a list. And I'm not here with my kids like what's the whole reason I'm doing all this stuff it's to be of service to them. So be of loving service, slow it down, walk in the house with that energy and everyone feels it. Everyone starts to react to it because their 11 million bits are picking up on it. You're bringing people to your vibration instead of going to theirs. Yeah, it's not the easiest thing to do. I know, especially when I was in big corporate jobs, I kind of felt like Steve did when I came home and being an introvert, I was

completely wasted. So you really have to find ways that you can give your mind that mental rest before rejoining your family so that you're giving them the proper attention or your partner because I think that was one of the biggest issues I think I experienced in my marriage was when we had kids. Not only do you have the attention drag from what you're bringing from work? You also have the kids there in the mix and trying to get the attention of your partner while the kids are trying to get both your attention. So, yes. Well, and that's why I say, don't let this car roll the way down the hill. So, that's what happens. We go to work. We're giving probably 150% all day, right? We're not saying no to things

necessarily. We're not delegating. We're not doing, right? There's a lot of the things we need to work, we're giving probably 150% all day, right? We're not saying no to things necessarily. We're not delegating. We're not doing, right? A lot of the things we need to do, but more importantly, we're not stopping during the day to also replenish our tanks. We're not taking a real lunch for even 20 minutes and stepping away from the computer,

eating our lunch like a human, not looking at anything, not answering emails at the same time, right? Not having a working lunch. We take just some time. We take a few breaths. We maybe meditate for two minutes, two minutes. You don't have to do one hour, just a couple of minutes, just a little mindfulness.

Maybe every time when I worked corporate, like an office job, I used to always send any of my printing, not to a printer on my desk. I used to send it to a bigger room farther away. Then I would always get me out of my chair, right? I would mindfully walk there. That was something I did. I was like, okay, I'm just going to have a breath.

I'm going to take a moment and I'm going to mindfully walk to get this piece of paper and then walk back. And so you wanna think about how to, very simple things, I think, I know, and I think people, because I hear it all the time, are concerned about all that bond so busy and all the time. And it's like, it's not all this time to take care of yourself.

It's just really not. It's a few minutes a day, literally, literally. That's why I timed that 18 seconds because I wanted to be able to tell people, right? So if you just said intention a few times during the day, one of the things I tell people to do is set an alarm on your phone for a few times a day. Just set an alarm, to go off a few different times a day.

And when it goes off, just bring yourself centered, bring yourself focused. Because again, even when you don't set the alarm on your phone, if you do that enough, because of the way the brain works on frequency and recency, it will think that's important to do to stop and take a moment. Your brain will remind you to do that. You won't have to work so hard at it anymore. I don't have to work hard to be mindful anymore. It becomes a habit, right? It's just something you practice over and over and over. And everything is a skill. I guess I want to say that everything, great listening, mindfulness, it's a skill. So the more you do it, the better you get. That's all it is. And your brain will help you

along the way once you make it a habit. It's just making it a habit that becomes a thing. But I hear you, I think most people think of that. Let me just take a moment before I walk in the house, but you're all ready at the bottom of the hill. I want you to stop before you get to the bottom and keep the car on top of the hill. I have the same energy all day. I mean, eventually I hit a wall because just timing, right,

been up since four. So at some point, I'm just physically tired. I'm ready to go to bed. I don't come home from work and feel exhausted and depleted. I feel energized and excited. And because that will keep lasting. What's an interesting area of discussion. And I was going to ask you a question about chapter three, but we've kind of just been discussing it, which is self awareness. And it's interesting. I had the author Gretchen Rubin on the podcast a few months ago. And I asked her interestingly enough, what is the key to personal happiness? And this is what your chapter three is all about. And her answer was knowing yourself, which is very similar to self-awareness because

our intentions impact our self-awareness. And not only that, they have a huge thing for how we're treating our partner or how we're treating others because your actions follow your intentions. And I think it's one of the most important things that people need to understand. Because as I look at whether it's people delving into mediocrity, people having failed friendships, people having failed relationships, people not achieving the success that they want. A lot of it comes down to you can have all the passion and perseverance you want, but if you're not intentional about where you're aligning yourself and your goals,

you're not going to achieve what you're setting out to achieve. And I think that all comes out of self-awareness that you tied to happiness just as Gretchen Rubin did. Yep, and I'm going to say there's another secret to happiness, which is also tied to this. And I want to be clear, self and mindfulness for two different things. I'm very self aware, for example, that I'm controlling, but I'm not always mindful about it. Right. Sometimes I act controlling, even though I'm self aware about it. So it's really important that you understand these two things sort of go together. The more you practice mindfulness, the better you are at what you're self-aware about. Does that make sense? I hope. Yeah, I'm completely.

And then that other key to happiness is really our ability to resist urges. When you think about anything, I want to be more productive. So I have to resist the urge to scroll through social media maybe right. I want to have a better relationship. I have to resist the urge to snap it my partner or to go isolate instead of being with them. I want to be more fit. I have to resist the urge to land the couch and eat a donut. It's all comes down to that and we that's that willpower muscle again. That's that piece. And again, as you said, intention as as you are more self-aware, as you really get in your moments of being mindful, that all starts to shift. And your happiness level, I guarantee you, will rise that it's going to happen. Yeah, it's interesting. You bring some of this up in the book when you say that you need to have five times as many positive interactions with your partner as negative ones

for your relationship to be stable. Why is that the case? John Gottman is a famous marriage researcher. He's amazing. We know like Barbara Fredrickson's very famous research about the positivity ratio. We in general life, that number is something like three to one. Although Roy Biammeister wrote a book not that long ago

saying that it was actually four to one. So in other words, whenever anything positive happens, right? Let's say three positive things that happen, it just takes one negative thing to kind of cancel it out. And that's because our brains are so wired for negativity. What Gottman found was that in romantic relationships, that number was more like five to one, because he thinks it's because we expect more

from our partners, our expectations are higher, right? We are relying on them more. So we're even more disappointed when things don't go the way we want them to. And I tell my clients a lot, we're often focused on doing the right thing, right? Oh, I'm gonna bring home flowers, or I'm gonna throw away the dishes once, not my turn,

and whatever, but really you wanna to focus on not screwing up. I'm not forgetting to her, his birthday or not forgetting this thing because negative things that happen carry more weight than one positive thing happen. So we remember those more and especially in our romantic relationship, they carry more weight, remember them, than we do something positive. So you really want to focus on being consistent, I would say, is a huge priority in relationships. There are probably many people out there who have had this experience where you think

there are a lot of positives going on, and then all of a sudden something happens and it triggers our memory for the other person that maybe it's been a decade ago and all of a sudden they're fixated on that issue and then it gets really nasty because you know you're getting attacked for something in the past but it just shows how those negative things can linger so far in the future. Yep and I I will say just to that, sorry, I tend to interrupt. When we're getting what we need in the present, those things from the past are often forgotten,

believe it or not, when we're getting consistently in the present. And what I mean by what we're getting is mostly people want to feel loved, cherished, prioritized. Those are the biggies. That's what we want as humans. We want to feel loved, cherished, prioritized. Those are the biggies. That's what we want as humans. We want to feel like this person, especially in a romantic relationship, has our back.

That's the only reason to me to get married, nor to be in a long-term relationship. Like this person has your back no matter what. No matter what, this is your person. And so no matter what, I have someone who's got that. And it's when that, when it doesn't feel that way, that things start to deteriorate. Trust is made up of three things and folks miss this all the time. They think of trust is very black and white. I trust them or I don't, not true. There's three things that make up trust. There's integrity, which is really honesty, that you don't lie to me. If you say

you're going to be there at five o'clock, but you're there or whatever, right? That you tell me the truth, that you have integrity. Competence is the second piece that I believe, if I'm working for you, right, I think you're a good boss. Like I think you're competent for the job. You can do the job of my partner. You can do the job of my friend, that you have competence in, that if you are gonna clean the bathroom,

you're gonna do a good job cleaning the bathroom, right? That you're gonna be able to finish the job. And the third is goodwill. I think you have my best interest at heart. Those three things, and they work in a constellation, are what make up trust. And if you don't have trust in your relationship, you're in big trouble. And that, again, is the competition. That's the division.

So when people say, oh, I trust my partner, they often mean like, I don't think they'll cheat or I don't think they'll take all the money or well, okay, but do you really trust them. And often it is just one leg of that triad that's missing. And that's what starts to really deteriorate the relationship. And that is also how I, why I don't feel truly loved by by you because I don't trust you. I don't trust that you have my best interests at heart. I don't trust that you have my back. And so when that starts to go away, we're really screwed. And a lot of times people just focus again on being honest or showing up on time and

they miss the other pieces. Yeah. So on those lines. And when you're sensing that, you often want to ask your partner questions about it to kind of examine why things are the way they are, but often we ask these questions and it almost seems like we're attacking them. So what is your advice for asking questions and relationships? Yeah, so I have a little thing I say don't sack your relationships, S-A-C. a little thing I say don't sack your relationships, S-A-C. S-A-C don't offer suggestions, give advice, or criticize, ever. Which is, people are like, what's left Abby? And the kinds of questions you

want to ask are what I call collaborative questions. So they are questions that aren't answered, they're non-interrogation questions. They can't be answered with yes, no good or fine, or a shoulder shrug. These are meant to elicit more conversation. I always tell people like you're wrong. Listen in a way where you're trying to learn something, not prove something. And when you do that, everything shifts. So if my partner says, I feel neglected,

and I don't go into the whole list, I'm gonna say say collaborative question. Oh, tell me more tell me more about that. I'm going to lean in. I'm going to be curious. I'm going to listen like I'm wrong. Right. This is what they're saying. So no matter what my perception is, this is this person's perception. So I'm going to listen like I'm wrong to see where it is that this isn't matching up because I think I'm doing everything fabulously. So what's going on here? What am I missing? So when you ask questions like that, can you tell me more about would you, can you say that to me another way? Is there, can you tell me how, give me some examples of where this shows up, how I said that? When we start like that, it opens everything up.

And that is when people start to lean in, be vulnerable, and really start to connect. Well, on this topic of questions, I saw a recent podcast episode that you did and started listening to it. And I thought the advice that you gave would be good for the listeners as well. And that is, what question should you ask your partner before moving in together or getting married?

There are so many. Was there a question, by the way, that you thought was really interesting or great or stood out? Not necessarily. I thought the collective was what made sense to me. I think the biggie is, I've said this before, people spend a lot of time sort of planning their wedding day, but not planning what's going to happen after the wedding. Like this finish line is the wedding. There's no real stuff after. So I've been amazed over the years that people didn't talk about money, for example.

Money is huge. So we have that your debt, my debt thing going in. And there's these assumptions about what's going to happen with money. And of course, in my head, I'm thinking, you're going to marry this person, and you don't trust happen with money. And of course, in my head, I'm thinking, you're going to marry this person and you don't trust them with money. Like, you're not going to take on the debt or you're not going to.

And we get into that language like, well, he's a saver and I'm a spender. That kind of thing, as if one is right and one is wrong. And I say all the time, these are preferences. This is a preference you have. This isn't a right or a wrong. And if you can get through that and start asking questions about, what does it mean for you to save money? How do you feel about that? So to even ask questions on the questions I say to ask before is really important. But also things like

there's some assumptions often, I think I gave this example in the podcast about work. Sometimes you have kids and you haven't talked about, are we going right back to work? Is that the plan? Is the plan to be home for a few months? Is the plan to be home for a long time? I'm always shocked at how much people assume that I've had so many couples who it was assumed that the wife would stay home and take care of the kids, like just assume, well you're not going back to work full-time after that. And she's like, we never discussed it. What are you talking about? Or sometimes people do want to go back to work.

And then I've had a lot of women say, I can't leave this baby with anybody. So how are we going to talk about that now? So talking with your person before you get married about this, and it's some of that you can't predict. So who knows, you can make it choice and then know it's going to change. But part of that comes down to, I always say, look at how do you fight? How do you debate something? How do you argue? We all come from crazy families. Everybody does. But what kind of crazy family did you come from? I come from a crazy family where we didn't talk about it. No, be fought.

I didn't think there was fighting in the world. I didn't know that happened. The first time I get in a relationship with someone and he's arguing with me and I was like, oh my God, he's a jerk. I don't want to be with this guy. This is terrible. It's terrible to talk about things. So I'm running the other way.

And so you want to really talk about how you talk about things. What are the ground rules? How are we going to come together around this? How are we gonna decide on something? Who has the last say? Does anybody have the last say? How does that happen? There's so many things that people don't,

they just, again, they plan this day, that's what they're thinking about, and they're not really planning what's gonna happen later. They're not really thinking about all the challenges that are gonna come, all the things ahead, buying a house or not buying a house. I've had people do that.

They haven't decided. Someone's assuming like, wow, if you get married, you look for a house, it's like you do. I love renting, I don't wanna look for a house. And I don't want the thing of a house and we might be moving soon. And I don't want just how do we wanna spend it? How much do we wanna save?

Do we wanna save? What does it look like? How do we spend our money on cars or watches or what are our values around it? And there's a lot of assumptions. And I think really at the heart of it is people don't want to ask because they don't want the answer because they're afraid it means they're not going to be with this person. They're afraid somehow that means we're not going to end up together and they don't want to make that choice. So they're just like, nope, I'm just not going to ask, la la la la la, and it's all going to work out later. And that's obviously not what happens. But there's a, and question is about sex and porn is porn. Okay, I talked about there's so many things to really check out before you check in in a permanent way.

Yeah, a ton of truth to that. And that's probably why I think you cited 70% of marriages today are actually ending in failure. That's when you include failure is not just being divorced, right? Because what's even more of a failure to me is being in a miserable marriage and thinking you have to stay for whatever reason out of fear, right? No love relationship was ever made better by fear, that's for sure. But we often stay in relationships because of things we're afraid of. We're afraid of being alone. One of my favorites that my partner will go find somebody else and then I'll be alone and they'll be happy.

I don't even know how to talk about that. I'm afraid that I've already spent all this time and put in all this energy I can't leave now. There's so many fears that come up and people end up staying in relationships that aren't happy. And so it's the research that it's about 70% when you include unhappy marriages or unhappy partnerships.

Yeah, it's shocking because would you go into a business if there was a 70% chance of failure? That's what I'm saying, right? It's like, who would do that? And yet, the business of marriage is boomin'. And although people are getting married later, the median age right now in the United States is 27, where you stood not that long ago, it was 24.

So it's really bumped quite a bit, and it's continuing to rise. So we're looking at all kinds of other different issues. And again, all the more reasons to be asking a lot of questions before you get married. You've talked about some of the opposite sides of this, such as fear, etc. But in chapter five, I loved how you went into the intention of kindness. Yeah. And it's something that I think we don't talk enough about, especially when it comes to an order to be kind to the partner in your relationship, it starts with self-kindness.

Why is it so important to set this intention of kindness to have a healthy relationship? It's so hard to say what's the most important, right? But it's really way up there. Being kind, first of all, just feels good, yeah. And self-kindness to ourselves, otherwise known as self-compassion, is Christineff, a lot of, just feels good. Yeah. And self kindness to ourselves. Otherwise known as self compassion is Christineff, a lot of famous research on this. There we know that this is really it aids our self esteem,

which we know has us in a healthier relationship. It helps us not be people pleasers and do too much and be codependent and learn how to say no. I mean, have our boundaries. It is like couples glue kindness. It just, it is unbelievable how far it will go. And again, that trust triad, that goodwill, it so takes care of that one when we're kind, when we put that first and have that intention. It mostly sets our own brains up for success because if that's what I'm thinking

of, I'm thinking of the wanted, what I do want. I'm not thinking what I don't want. And how much of our days are spent with our partners or at work or wherever, thinking about what we don't want. It's like all day for people. And it is so destructive. It is like eating bacon all day long. So a little bacon's fine, but not all day. It is so destructive to sit at work and think about how much you don't like it. And oh, I don't like this job and I don't like that job. I hate doing this. It is so hard to be with your partner. He chooses with his mouth open and he does this.

And I don't like how he smells. And I don't like that thing. And he left his whiskers on the saying, when we have these lists, when that's where your focus is. And we already talked about all the brain chemistry that goes along with that, right? And how much you're just gonna see that only. But beyond that, you feel bad. You don't feel good.

And if there's one definition of success in life, it's joy and growth, right? I don't know what else it is, it's joy and growth. So I'm not growing in those instances, and I'm certainly not joyful. So what am I doing? And I'm not on track for either thing. It's one thing to kind of go through some, I don't always like working out, but I know what it's going to give me. So, right? So joy and growth are on the other side. So I'm like, okay, I can do this thing, you know, for the short amount of time.

But otherwise, what are we doing? So if I'm spending all day, and this is again, why setting intention comes in and the whole positive momentum thing and keeping the car on top of the hill all day, all of that, when we're kind, becomes really easy. I said it in one of my, I have a weekly love letter that goes out, which is meant to be kind of an inspirational weekly letter. And I said last week in a letter, I had a client who said, what would love do here? That's her question all the time. What would love do here? And I love it. What kindness do here? If I was kind, what would I be saying right now? If I was to be kind,

what would I be doing right now? If I, right, it is such a beautiful filter to think of life. And kindness doesn't mean I let people walk all over me or I don't say it's kind, it's kind to be clear, it's kind to say what you really feel. That's kind. It's not nice to skirt around something and lie to people and tell them you're fine when you're not. That's not nice. That's lying. What's, and then they don't know what's going on. And there are 11 million bits are picking up on the lie and they don't know why, right? Everyone's confused like she says she's fine but I can tell she's not. So, right? That is a recipe for disaster but when you use kindness as your true North as your compass all the time, it's your whole world changes and you will, I'm telling you, feel happier, more content, more satisfied. I hate that word,

kind of happy sometimes, but all the things that that means you will feel more joy, you will feel growth when we use a filter of kindness. So when you can just set, if you're not sure what to set intention for, just always do kindness. How can I be kind? How can I be kind to my, I'm not in kidding. How can I be kind to myself driving to work today? Well, I could take my time. I could be aware of other drivers. I could be mindful so I don't get distracted and get into some road rage, right? I could allow people to go first when I'm driving and not, it's not a competition to get to my office. Even driving to work, you

could be kind. It's an incredible thing. And when you start with that kindness with yourself, because that's always where it starts, that's, again, means you're not being codependent. You're not doing the things that trash your boundaries. And that's where the magic happens. Well, I remember that podcast episode that you did with two ladies where this whole topic of whiskers and the sync came up. And I can't remember whose issue it was, given there were three of you, but I remember the husband and the situation.

It is best to start improving it, but there were still whiskers. And the funny ancillary to that is, my girlfriend was getting really upset at the way I was doing dishes. And she wasn't necessarily telling me, but she was having to come back and rewatch them. And after a while, she finally came to the realization that the reason I'm not cleaning

him as effectively as I can is because I can't see it. Because of, and so she was getting all this inner resentment, I was doing my best, thinking I'd clean them perfectly fine. And yet I couldn't see. With that, my glass is on that aspect. So it's funny how we do things like that. Which leads me to kind of the last chapter in your book, which I think is a great topic to close on. And that is forgiveness. And what I wanted to ask is,

what are the top reasons we don't forgive and how can you flip that scenario? Yep. Oh, there's so many. The top reasons though are that we think things like if we forgive it means we're going to forget, right? Then I don't want to forget. Or we might think it means that we're condoning the behavior if I forgive it, right? That I say that that was okay, what you did. We might think if I forgive it, that it'll just keep happening, right, that'll go on and on. And so I think those are really the top ones, I'm sure there's some more, but those are the biggies that I see. It has changed my life. I've talked about forgiveness a lot on the podcast too, and I had Robert Anne right on, who's who's one of the master trailblazers,

I think Time Magazine calls it, the forgiveness trailblazer, the front lesskin, like when we forgive, first of all it is a choice. It's a choice that we make at some point or not. And when we do that, it really does let us off the hook.

It again, and it sounds so corny, but it's so true, it is not for the other person, it's for us, because the resentment swirling around, it's not kind, the way that we end up thinking while we're not forgiving is so it's poisonous. It really is. I think Mandela said that's like drinking poison, expecting the other person to die, right? We are I think Mandela said that's like drinking poison, expecting the other person to die, right? We are usually a mess while the other person, often who has hurt us, they're not thinking about it at all. They either don't even realize it or they don't think it's as big a deal as we do or whatever or they're annoyed like they feel like they've apologized 50 times and they've changed

their behavior, but you're still not forgiving. So that's on you now, right? So all the things, either way, you're the one who can't let this go. And we say things like that, well, I can't let this go. I can never forgive. And I will say, end rights research, they worked with incest survivors who changed, turned it around.

I can't think of too much more horrible than that as something to forgive. They worked with men whose partners had had abortions against their wishes, talk about something that would be very hard to forget. I mean, they're working with the hardest people to forgive and have found that you can do it, right? It is getting through the anger, it is acknowledging it,

it is making a commitment to forgive. You have to decide it at some point. Like I'm going to do everything I can because this is eating me up alive to forgive this person. I did it with my mom. My mom and I had a lot of issues for many years and she's a narcissist and there was a lot of stuff, won't stuff many, many years. And I just made a decision one day. I was like, I can't have this. And some of it was selfish. I, I knew my kids were watching me how I treated my mother. And I'm like, they're gonna treat me this way. I don't, I want that.

But I will say, and I did the work, and I really did the work. And at the end, when my mom died, we were good. Like, I didn't suddenly love her more than anything. I didn't suddenly think, oh, she's the best ever. It didn't change my mind about my mother. It changed my mind about myself. And how I could connect with her, what I could create with her, that wasn't all the expectations I had about how a mother should be, right, what she should be doing. And when I made that shift, the piece I had when she died, that my siblings did not, because

they did not do the work, was is still a wonderful, wonderful thing. So even the one I'm talking about her now, I can have loving feelings about her. I never, ever thought would have been possible. So forgiveness, man. It is why it's the last chapter of my book. I do want to say it's not something you try to do first. I mean, it's not. It's something that you do the other pieces. You get good at kindness. You get good at the other pieces, setting intention, getting your own battery full, going about the mind and your day versus the time and your day, right? You really practice this for a while before you take that on because then you're

in a place. It's like you've climbed halfway up the mountain. And so now I'm here, I can get the rest of the way up. I got all the tools. I got everything to get to the rest of the mountain. But when you're at the bottom with no tools and you try to forgive, it's a really hard thing. So I do want to suggest that first. Okay. Well, thank you for that answer. And Abby was a joy to have you on the podcast. If someone would like to get in touch with you, what are some ways that they can do so? The easiest thing is my website, which I'm sure you'll link to, but it's Abby Medcalf, ABBY, MED, C-A-L-F, dot com. That's where everything lives. The podcast, the blogs, you know, all my appearances, all my social media, all the things, and they can also ask questions for my podcast,

which I answer on different segments of the podcast by connecting with me there. So there's a Let's Connect page and they can send me questions, which I love to answer on the podcast. As do I. I love listener questions. Yep. Well, Abby, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your great wisdom and for the listener who's out there, I would highly encourage

you to pick up a copy of her book. And like she said, I'll have links to it in the show notes and hope you digest it and get as much out of it as I did. Oh, thank you so, so much for having me. It was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Abby Medcalfe and wanted to thank Abby for the honor of having her on the show. Links to all things Abby will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you buy any of the books from our authors, all those proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at John R. Miles where we now have over 370 of them, as well as

exclusive content that we only put on that channel. Please join our already 14,000 subscribers. Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one community place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm at John Armiles, both on Instagram, as well as Twitter, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. And if you'd like to know how I book amazing guests like EbimeadCalf, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruct podcast interview. I did with Dr. Casey Holmes who's a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Dr. Holmes is an award-winning teacher and researcher on time and happiness, an author of the new book which will release next Tuesday, happier hour.

We were examining that exact question. What's the relationship between the amount of discretionary time individuals have and their satisfaction? We conducted a bunch of studies, including one where we analyze data from the American Time Use Survey, which captures for tens of thousands of working and non-working Americans how they spent a day. And it also has a question of their life satisfaction. And what we did was we looked at the relationship. So we calculated for each individual how much time they spend on discretionary activities that day and their life satisfaction.

And the results showed an interesting pattern. It showed... The fee for this show is that you share it with friends or family members when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who's dealing with a relationship issue or an addiction problem, please share the show with them. A great is compliment that you can give us is when you share the show with others that you care about.

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