Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Bring Your Dreams to Life & Fixing Loneliness in Your Relationship

Episode Date: November 16, 2019

You develop driving habits over time and some of those habits may not be so great for your car or the engine. Listen to some advice from Popular Mechanics about how to change some of your driving habits to prolong the life of your vehicle. http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/g2846/10-bad-habits-car/ Do you have unfulfilled dreams? Many of us do. While a lot of gurus tell you that you should pursue your passion, follow your dreams and go for the gusto, they are often a bit short on the details of how to do it. That’s why I am anxious for you to hear Jeremy Cage. His dream was to sail around the world. He did it. And that experience was the basis for his book, All Dreams on Deck (http://amzn.to/2jtk6nM). I am hoping – and I am confident – his words will inspire you to go after your dreams. The home field advantage. It is a proven thing in the sports world – and it turns out you can use it too. Listen and find out how. https://www.influenceatwork.com/inside-influence-report/will-having-the-home-field-advantage-help-you-hit-an-influence-home-run/ Odd as it sounds, there are a lot of people who feel lonely even though they are in a relationship. Maybe even you. Dr. Holly Parker, clinical psychologist and teacher of psychology at Harvard has a new book out called, If We’re Together, Why Do I Feel So Alone? (https://amzn.to/2CNOxNU). She is here to discuss this very common problem and what to do about it – even if your partner is unwilling. This Week’s Sponsors –Airbnb. To learn more about being an Airbnb host visit www.Airbnb.com/host Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, some of your driving habits may not be so good for your car. I'll tell you which ones. And achieving your dreams. There's always a risk to going after a dream. However, if it's really something that's very important, I would say the risk of not pursuing it is significantly higher than the risk of

pursuing it. And the home field advantage. It not only works in sports, it works in business and in life. I'll tell you how to use it to your advantage. And the problem of loneliness in a relationship. A lot of people in intimate, committed relationships still feel very lonely. Intimacy is scary. Even people who want to be connected in relationships and who feel relatively comfortable, the research shows that even those folks feel some anxiety about getting close. All this today on Something You Should Know.

People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson,

discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know, our weekend edition of the podcast this week. Glad you tuned in. And I don't know about you, but I like driving. I've always liked driving.

I'm not necessarily into cars that much. I just like to get behind the wheel and drive. And like everybody else, I develop certain driving habits. I'm sure you do too. But according to popular mechanics, there are a lot of driving habits that we develop and we stick with that are not particularly good for the car. For example, not using the parking brake. Not engaging the parking brake puts the entire weight of your vehicle

on a little piece of metal in the transmission called the parking pawl, P-A-W-L. Using the parking brake evens out the load and that helps the delicate transmission components last longer and this is true even if you're parked on a level surface it's still good to use the parking brake another one is letting your gas tank get below a quarter tank a lot of fuel pumps stay cool by staying submerged in the fuel in the tank. So if you're regularly running at a quarter full or less, you risk speeding up the need for a fuel pump replacement. Reving a cold engine. Cold engine revving causes abrupt temperature changes and that can create stress between the engine's tight-fitting components, and riding the brakes down a hill.

This causes heat to build up in the brake pads and the rotors, causing wear and increasing the risk that they'll overheat and warp. As a solution, the best idea is to try shifting into a lower gear and ease off the brakes as you go down the hill. And that is something you should know. So let's talk about your dreams for a moment. Not the dreams you have at night, but the dreams, the desires, the goals that you have. There are a zillion books and experts you could listen to who will tell you how you should achieve your dreams and follow your passion and find fulfillment. In fact, that category of expert is the one I've been pitched to be on the program most often. So I'm a bit particular about who gets on. And today, I think I have someone who has not only some good advice about pursuing your dreams,

but more importantly, he has some practical steps on exactly how to go about doing it. His name is Jeremy Cage, and his dream was to sail around the world. And so he did. And that experience was the basis for his book, All Dreams on Deck. Welcome, Jeremy. Thanks very much. So what is it in kind of a big picture way, what is it that you want people to understand about going after their dreams? I think what I'm trying to get people to understand is that dreams are the most important, important and strongest force on the planet, and that we should be much more intentional about bringing those to life. So you think we're not particularly intentional about it?

No, no, no. I think that if you think about this country started as a dream, if you think about every business, every relationship, every product, every brand, every service, all started as a dream, and yet we don't take them that seriously. We don't plan, we don't think about them as much as we probably should to unleash the full potential of our lives. But sometimes it seems that maybe dreams are better left as dreams. You know, it's fun to fantasize and think, and that if you really dove in and really planned and did all the work, you know, it may fail, and then you don't have anything to fantasize about. Well, then you maybe move on to a different dream, or if it fails, maybe that's the opportunity to

start again more intelligently. It just depends on how important that dream is to you. If it's really something that's very important, I would say the risk of not pursuing it is significantly higher than the risk of pursuing it. Do you think if we walk down the street and ask, you know, 20 people, do you have a big dream, what would most of them say, yes or no? I'm going to guess most of them would say yes, but I'm not sure that folks really think about them very often. So they might have a hard time articulating exactly what that dream is. And I think we should each have – my personal point of view is that I think that there are multiple components to our lives. And I think you should have a dream or multiple reflect about each of those dreams and how important they are to, and which ones are we going to choose to really go for,

and how are we going to make those happen? Which I would imagine often ends at the end of later on in life as nothing but a big regret of, gee, I wish I had. Well, that's it. I took a break mid-career. We took our children out of school and we sailed around the world. And if I'd had just a vague dream that one day I want to sail around the world with my kids, then it would never have happened, right? Because all of the fears and the dreads and the obstacles would have got in the way. So instead of dreaming vaguely and therefore dreading specifically, I'd urge you to flip it on its head and dream specifically and dread vaguely. So how do you do that?

Well, I think, again, if you look at the sailing example, we could have said, well, one day we want to sail around the world with our kids, but nothing would have happened. What we said is we want to go when our, we want to do this sailing voyage, but we want to do it when our kids are old enough to help, to remember it, to help shape them, but still okay, still young enough where it's okay for them to, uh, to be with mom and dad and also not to mess up high school and girlfriends and boyfriends. So, so he said, okay, well with that, we need to go when Bradley is 12 and Elena is 10, which means that we have to go in 2007. Okay, so what are we going to do to make this happen in 2007? And then all of a sudden, by being that specific about it, we knew all of the things that we have to do in order to make that dream come to life. And no doubt you're glad you did.

Oh, absolutely. You know, it was an amazing adventure for, you know, for all of us. And I think we grew in ways that you could never, never anticipated going in. But that's a big, big dream, sailing around the world. I mean, I don't have, I don't think I have dreams that big. Well, that's fine. I don't think you need to have, you know, like it could be a dream to have a better relationship with your son or your daughter. Well, what does that look like? Does that mean having didn't, you know, like, so as opposed to just keeping it vague, oh, I wish I had a better relationship with my husband or with my wife, you know, what does that actually, you know, can you put some specifics around that? And again, I've just challenged it or I, you know, I want to get fitter. I want to get, I want

to get fitter. Well, you know, put some specifics around that. And if you haven't been going to the gym, don't all of a sudden say you're going to go seven days a week. What is the, what is the dream? Why do you want to get fit? What does it look like? You know, when is it important? Maybe it's for a big event that's coming up or a high school reunion or a wedding, or you just, you know, that you need to be in better shape. But the more specifics you put around it, I think then the more you're going to be able to focus on that and not all the things that get in the way of you getting there.

So one of the things that I get concerned about, because I think there are a lot of people who are out there with books and seminars and whatnot telling people to go for their dreams, be your authentic self, do what you were meant to do. And a lot of people can't. I mean, a lot of people might have the dream to sail around the world, but have nowhere close to the amount of money and time to do that. I mean, to go for your dreams is a great idea, but in practical terms, it's impossible for many. I think impossible for less than we think. It's easy for me to say, because I've been successful in business, and that's enabled me to do a lot of, you know, a lot of really exciting

and adventurous things around my life. But again, you know, you said earlier, not everything has to be a sail-around-the-world dream. Our lives are multidimensional. And what I challenge folks in the book is to look at all of the different components of your life. And I call those the grab bags in your lifeboat. And what are the dreams for each of those? And a lot of them are just day-to-day dreams. A lot of them are just day-to-day dreams. A lot of them are having dinner. You can have a dream to have dinner with your family three days a week as opposed to everybody doing their own thing so that you can build a stronger relationship financial resources, because it's not all about that, that they can have dreams. And the more specific they are about them, the more they can understand what needs to happen for them to have the chance to do it.

And again, I come back to this thing where I think the risk of not trying is probably higher than the risk of trying, because you don't want at the end of the day to say, you know, like, I didn't even try. Well, and I think that that's a driving force for a lot of people. It is for me, anyway, that I have this fear of, you know, lying on my deathbed looking back and regretting things I didn't do. And that list is a lot longer than the list of things I regret doing. Well, precisely. You know, I had a, my father-in-law was a wonderfully, wonderful man, very successful, great, you know, great wife, obviously, you know, great kids.

And he was an engineer, designer, maybe like he did drawings, engineering drawings. And before he died, shortly like he did drawings, engineering drawings. And before he died, shortly before he died, he pulled out a notebook and he showed me in that notebook, all of the things that he'd quote unquote invented in the juice through the course of his lifetime, but hadn't done anything with. So there was like a picture of a, of a windsurfer. And there was a picture of a snowboard, you know, all these things that he'd had these ideas, but he hadn't done anything with. And, and in, it was, it was kind of cool to have the conversation. But at the same time, if you

reflected on it, it was sort of a book of unrealized potential. Like he could have done all of these things, invented and launched and all these things, but he had stopped at just scribbling them down. And so I don't want people to be sitting, you know, reviewing their book of unrealized potential at the end of their lives. So where do people start this process? I mean, if they've never really dared allow themselves to start making their dreams a reality, where do you begin? I'll tell you how I began. I just wrote down, somebody challenged me to write down a list of every possible dream that I had, both big and small. And actually that list was, the focus there is on quantity, not on quality. So it's like, what are all of the, you know, like the dreams to,

you know, I had a dream to, you know, to buy a car. I had a dream to restore a car. I had a dream to play guitar, whatever. I mean, so it was a list, really long list. And then the challenging part is to say, okay, so now of all this list, which are the, you know, like the five that really, I don't want to let go, that really are important to me, one was living internationally. And at what point do you think, or does it take on sort of a life of itself, or does it require constant, you know, redirection and effort? Well, I think once you've got to your specific dream, again, I'm a big believer in making the dream as specific as possible, then I think you have to move to what is your level of intentionality

to make that happen. And I introduced this concept called the ladder of intentionality. So the lowest rung on the ladder is just to think about something. So I introduced this concept called the ladder of intentionality. So the lowest rung on the ladder is just to think about something. So you have the thought and it rattles around in your brain for a little bit and then it leaves and no one's the wiser. And, you know, and so that's, there's not a whole lot of intentionality there. You climb up the ladder when you start writing it down because then somebody could hold you accountable to it and that somebody could be yourself. That's why we like to-do lists. We like to write it down and then cross it off because it makes us feel like we've achieved something. Then the next rung up would be declaring it out

loud. So actually declaring it to people you love or to your friends or whoever is important and declaring your dream. And I don't think you're on the highest rung of the ladder of intentionality until you've declared it in such a way that you actually have everybody talking about it. And because the reason why that is so critical is because all of a sudden, you've gone from being solitary in your pursuit of that dream to actually having a network of people who are so excited about your dream that they're actually going to help you make it happen. Yeah, I think that's a magic point right there. Because when you, I can think of times when I've done things that I've always wanted to do, but when I finally decided to do it and started telling people,

like my wife and I took a trip to England a few years ago, and I've been meaning to do that for years and years and years, and I've always wanted to do it, and I never did it. And then we started talking to other people about it, and guess what? We went to England. That's right. It ramped up your intentionality, and you actually made it happen. And so the next thing that I would challenge folks to do, because you're asking me how do they go through it, so you've got your specific dream, now you're highly intentional about it, but if I have a dream of being a NASCAR driver, and I tell everybody about it, and everyone's getting excited about it, but I don't do the next thing, which is planning and

preparing well, then it's all going to end in disaster. So the challenge, the next challenge after you've done that is, how do you go about planning and preparing well? I talk about readying yourself, your ship and your crew to make it happen. So what does that look like? In the case of our sailing trip, it meant that I took marine diesel mechanics. My wife took abandoned ship training. So we did as much planning and preparation as we could to enable the dream to come to life. And I think that's critical for whatever the dream is that your listeners have, that they don't skimp on the planning and the preparation piece of it. That's the hard work, but it's critical if you're

going to actually make it happen. Yeah, it's hard work, but I think it's also the fuel for the momentum to make it happen. If you're going to do all that hard work, you're going to make sure you follow through on that dream. Jeremy Cage has been my guest. He is a consultant and his book is called All Dreams on Deck. You'll find a link to his book in the show notes. Thanks, Jeremy. Okay. Bye-bye. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than

most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker.

Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows. In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from but am I wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with fisting Friday,

where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to don't blame me but am I wrong on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It is not an uncommon lament to hear people say they feel lonely even when they're in a relationship. Just because you're married or have a significant other doesn't necessarily mean that you're so connected that you don't feel lonely. Yet, at first glance, the idea of being in a relationship and feeling lonely seems a little odd. Being in a relationship should prevent that. But it doesn't necessarily, and that's the problem my next guest is here to address. Dr. Holly Parker is a clinical psychologist. She teaches psychology at Harvard, and she is author of the book,

If We're Together, Why Do I Feel So Alone? Welcome, Holly. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I've had a chance to, you know, listen to your podcast, and you do a fantastic job, really. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you. So, wonderful to be on. So, this idea of being lonely in a relationship, how big a problem do you think this is? You know, it actually is a pretty significant problem because emotional unavailability can take many different forms. can have a disconnection that takes the form of each person retreating into or one person

retreating into their own corner, people being on the attack, people being critical, people feeling like there's just a huge divide between them that they can't, you know, that they can't bridge. And, you know, really, let's face it, I mean, when we think about intimacy, intimacy is scary. You know, even people who want to be connected in relationships and who feel relatively comfortable, the research shows that even those folks feel some anxiety about getting close. So it's really part of the human story. And where the challenge really comes in is when those fears

and the path of a relationship and connecting with someone, where the pattern is really avoiding and finding different ways to avoid rather than tackling that anxiety and moving closer. So do you think it's a case of people get close and then drift apart or they never get that close in the first place? You know, I love that question because the answer is both can happen. You know, so if we, you know, take the first example, you know, emotional unavailability can strike people for a host of reasons. So, for example, let's say that you have a couple. They've been very connected.

They're close to each other. And then let's say somebody experiences a traumatic event,, maybe they're deployed to combat or maybe they're in a car accident or they're assaulted. And then they find themselves struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder with, you know, managing their emotions or maybe they wrestle with depression or maybe the couple finds themselves at a pivotal point in their relationship. You know, maybe there was a betrayal of some kind and they're really having a hard time getting past it. So that can happen.

It can also work the other way where somebody can find themselves in a relationship with someone who's unavailable because, I mean, we humans are so good at disregarding warning signs. You know, we might say that, well, someone seems very calm and collected, and, you know, so we might think that that's interesting and that's cool, and the problem is then we realize later, oh, wait a second, this is actually a pattern, and they're never going to be willing to get close. And then sometimes people can hide their unavailability. And it's something that might not be more clear until after a couple get serious, like when they're living together, for example. But how can that be not clear? How

can you not notice that the person you're with isn't really there? You know, it depends on how extreme the signs are. You know, in the beginning, so let's say, you know, two people are dating and, you know, so they go out to dinner, they spend time here and there for a few hours at a time. Maybe, okay, things get a little bit more serious and they have some sleepovers, maybe they have a vacation together. Somebody could actually wear a mask. And, in fact, you know, that's actually a big part of unavailability is wearing a mask of different varieties and really not show the person that ultimately they're not willing to get close, right? So maybe it's that they don't want to reveal how they truly feel, right? Or

they don't want to reveal issues in the relationship. Or, you know, in the beginning, somebody who seems to be very casual and not taking the relationship too seriously, you know, in the beginning, that could seem as, you know, potentially appropriate for a dating relationship. But then later on, when that never changes, somebody may realize, you know, once they're really in the relationship that this is a larger issue. For other people, it can come up when conflict arises, right? So they may be the type that they're not willing to acknowledge that they're sorry, right?

Or they respond to concerns by attacking or withdrawing into stony silence. These kinds of issues, if you combine the fact that it can take time in a relationship for people to, you know, if they're spending more time with each other, these things may not be apparent at first. And the fact that, you know, people can hide some of the struggles with intimacy that they're having, along with the fact that, you know, again, quite frankly, people can be really good at minimizing some of the warning signs that they see, especially if they like somebody. You know, we don't always want to admit to ourselves that there may be a problem. I am speaking with Dr. Holly Parker. She's a clinical psychologist and teacher of psychology at Harvard.

And she's author of a book called If We're Together, Why Do I Feel So Alone? Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're

looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. People often look at me with confusion when I ask them what their only one in the room story is. They think it has to be like mine, where I went to a 600 person event and discovered that I was the only black person there. I know. Horrifying, right? Hi, I'm Laura Cathcart-Robbins, and I am the host and creator of the podcast Only One in the Room. Every week, my co-host Scott Slaughter and I invite you to join us for an hour and lose yourself in someone's only one story. This podcast is for anyone who has ever felt alone in a room full of people, which is to say that this podcast is for everyone.

So, Holly, if somebody's in a relationship like this, and I imagine people know when they're in this kind of relationship, so where do you start to fix it? How? You know, there are two main ways that people can begin to try to build connection. And these two ways, by the way, they apply to emotionally unavailable relationships as well as to relationships with an available partner. And those really are how we treat our partners, so things that we do in a relationship. But the other thing that often doesn't get enough attention are the things that we can do what I call in-house,

different ways that we can begin to think differently, because the science shows that when we think about our partner in different ways, when we think about ourselves in different ways, that actually leaks out and affects the relationship. So I'll give a few ways that cross over in terms of what we can do internally and how we can treat our partner. So internally, one big one is gratitude. The science on gratitude is growing. And what we know is that when people reflect on what they appreciate about their partner, when they think about that, when they catch their partner doing something right, you know, when they reflect on

the good things their partner does for them or, you know, what they, just their partner's qualities that they appreciate, that tends to increase their own happiness in the relationship and it increases their partner's happiness too. And so then people are more likely to move closer. Another one would be catching our assumptions about our partner. The mind is masterful at convincing us that what we think is true. In fact, science even shows that when we think about something, just by thinking about it, we believe it's more likely to happen. And so we can spin stories about what we believe our partner is thinking and feeling. It's very

common for couples to mind read, right? So if somebody, for example, doesn't call their partner to let them know they're going to be home late from work, a person could think, oh my God, you know, there he or she goes again and being totally insensitive and not caring how I feel. If we go with that and we don't question it and we don't check it out and ask our partner what happened or we don't maybe think about giving our partner the benefit of the doubt, then what happens is that affects, you know, that affects how we feel and how we behave. We're more likely to feel resentful, more likely to be less than warm and positive. But then there are ways that we can relate to our partner too. I really believe that one of the most under-recognized strategies is really what we do with our face, what we do with our tone.

You know, it's very common for people, for example, to come home and say, oh, hi, right, hi, hi, and kind of, you know, walk off to their own corners. And it can be very different if we use our tone, we use our facial expression in a very mindful way. So instead of, you know, instead of saying, oh, hi, it's oh, hi, right? Kind of really greeting the person, it sets a much warmer tone. It can also help people from getting defensive, right? So when couples are angry, for example, you know, there are all kinds of little signs that people do to reflect their annoyance, right? So they might roll their eyes, they might cross their arms and look away. And this actually has the impact of creating distance. So if we can keep our body posture more open, if we can try to, you know, try to regulate our body.

So, for example, one strategy is if people are upset, if they can try to practice thinking of something positive, whether it's a positive moment with their partner, to remind themselves about why they love their partner, which can be hard for people in a moment when they're really upset, or to think about some other positive memory, that actually has the effect of toning down the body's distress signals. And when the body is calmer, as individuals, we're much more able to respond in a positive, connected way.

Another big one is self-disclosure. The science on self-disclosure is fascinating. And there's ample research showing that when we share what it is that we're thinking, when we open up about what it is that we're feeling, our partner is more likely to do the same. And in distressed couples, what can happen is people wind up, they wind up talking about things that are upsetting in the relationship, but they stop talking about other personal aspects of their lives. They don't touch on those as much. So why do you think that in relationships that this doesn't happen naturally?

Where does this resentment and this change and this, hey, how are you? How's it going? Bye. Where does it come from? You know, it can come from resentment. It can also come from people taking each other for granted. And, you know, people can do that if they're resentful. Let's face it, it can be easier to point the finger at a partner. And I've talked with people who've definitely had that experience. I think with most humans this is the case.

It can be much easier and feel safer to point the finger at someone else and think about what they're not doing than to think about our role and how we may affect our partner. And, you know, that there can be things that we do, not always, you know, it's, you know, it oftentimes it takes two people and two people can pull a relationship down, but one person can do it on their own. What happens typically, either in your experience or what the research says or whatever, that when people are in a relationship like this where there's a lot of resentment and not a whole lot of communication and not a whole lot of fun,

what happens when one person makes the effort, even though the other one isn't or reluctant to or may just be completely out of the loop on this, but one person really makes the effort. Is that enough? You know, I believe it's what's necessary. You know, I've seen people each say, you know what, why should I, you know, start to appreciate my partner? You know, I've already put in all this effort, right? You know, I don't want to keep trying. And guess what the other person's also saying, right? They're saying the exact same thing. And so when both people plant their feet in the sand and call a stalemate,

then that's exactly what happens, right? Nothing moves. So people want movement, but the challenge is, you know, it can be frustrating and difficult to be the first one to do it. And sometimes people believe that this means that, you know, somehow it's their fault, that it's not fair. And what I do is invite people to think not about fairness, but about what's effective. And when we are aware of our role in a relationship, I mean, we're only 50% of the relationship, but that 50% is important. And so that means that when we make strides toward our partner, when we start to change how we treat our partner, is it a guarantee that our partner. Is it a guarantee that our partner is going to change? No, but it certainly increases the odds that our partner will change. And there is a wealth of relationship research showing

that when one person behaves differently in terms of their nonverbal behavior, their facial expression, their body language, how they respond to their partner, how they think about their partner, there is a cascade of change that is likely to happen in the other person too. So it's not a guarantee, but certainly if change is going to start anywhere, it has to start with us. Yeah. Well, and so you have to have the motivation and the desire, but if one person does, good things can happen. Absolutely. Well, and so you have to have the motivation and the desire, but if one person does, good things can happen. Absolutely. Great things can happen. That's Holly Parker. She's a clinical

psychologist. She teaches psychology at Harvard, and she's author of the new book, If We're Together, Why Do I Feel So Alone? There's a link to her book on Amazon on the show notes page for this episode of the podcast, which you will find at our website, somethingyoushouldknow.net. Thanks, Holly. It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on your show. And finally today on Something You Should Know, the home field advantage. In nearly every sport, there is a home field advantage. Research has proven that. But does the home field advantage extend beyond the sports world? And the answer is a big yes in a big way. Two researchers conducted experiments with people in negotiating situations,

and they found that the home field advantage applies here too. They found that buyers were able to get a lower price when the negotiation happened on their turf, and sellers were able to get a higher price when the negotiation happened on their turf. And it applies to negotiating almost anything. It even applies to asking for a raise. If you can get your boss to come into your office to discuss your raise, you could get up to 160% more than if you have to go into his or her office. And that is something you should know. That brings us to the end of this episode. If you enjoyed it and found it helpful, useful, and interesting,

hit the share button and send it over to a friend. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced.

She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions,

and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook. Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Pantwine. To be continued... God and we are not its favoured children. The Heresies of Rudolf Bantwine, wherever podcasts are available.