The Bobby Bones Show - A Message from Bobby + BONUS: Velvet's Edge with Kelly Henderson: The Relationship of Your Dreams with psychologist, Joli Hamilton.

Episode Date: February 7, 2021

Kelly talks to psychologist, author and Ted X speaker, Joli Hamilton about how to get the relationship you want. She addresses trust, jealousy, triggers and owning your side of the street. They also discuss tips for singles on what to do between relationships to make sure your next one is what you want and need. Website: jolihamilton.comSocials: @phoenixjoli Book: Project Relationship https://bit.ly/JoliBookPodcast: https://bit.ly/JoliPodcast Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I wanted to share an episode of, one of our podcasts from the Nashville Podcast Network. In this episode of The Velvet's Edge, Kelly talks to psychologist, author, and TEDx speaker, Jolie Hamilton, about how to get the relationship that you want. Some psychoanalysis stuff here. I think you'll like it. They talk about trust and jealousy and triggers,

owning your side of the street, not just romantic, but even a friendship. They also discuss tips on what to do between relationships if you are bouncing from one to the next. If you're not married yet or engaged yet, or maybe you're going to try it again. All that's here. Subscribe to this podcast if you like. like it on iHeart radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast, just search out the

Velvet's Edge. Hope you like it. A little dabble here. Here's the show. Okay. Well, it's February, which obviously is easily known as the month of love. So I felt like relationships would be a really good topic to kind of approach in different aspects of relationships this month, is what I'm focusing on in Velvet's Edge.

So I wanted to talk to you a lot about relationships. as we have them now, especially if you are an entrepreneur, which is what you kind of specialize in. And I've never thought of it in these terms of just how would being an entrepreneur affect my home life or my dating relationships, my partnerships, and I was doing a lot of research with the stuff that you've researched. And I thought about it. I'm like, of course it does. Like, that just makes total sense. So a lot of the relationship work that you do is just around the dynamic of a woman who is also an

entrepreneur. So can you tell us what are some of the things that you see people bumping up against in these situations? Oh yeah. Absolutely. So I approach relationship work as being like it's it is it is whole life work right. Your relationships impact everything. But I've also been an entrepreneur my whole life. I've only ever worked for other people a tiny little smidgen and I think that that informed how I approach my relationships. And what I mean is when people have an entrepreneurial attitude, so you don't have to be like in a startup or, you know, a one woman show to be entrepreneurial. Entrepreneur comes from the French to manage, right? Like people who are doing their own thing. And that's a lot of us. I think people who are

out there getting stuff done, making a life, whether they're piecing it together from a bunch of different jobs or a bunch of different ideas that they're just like glomming together into a career, those people, they know that they're in the driver's seat of their life. Right. So people who approach their life that way in their career, well, sadly, they don't always translate that skill into their home life, into their love life. In fact, some of the people I know who have struggled the most when they're dating or trying to settle into a nice long-term relationship that they can really thrive in, they're so

smart and they're so brilliant and so able to like knock things out of the process. park in business. And then they just make these same mistakes over and over again. And so I wanted to approach this problem and say, let's transfer the skills. You know, entrepreneurs are good at tolerating risk and communicating in hard situations and learning how to diversify what they're doing. Those are transferable to our relationships. But we have to think about it that way. So that was where the idea for this came. And I just started walking down. that road. Why doesn't that translate? That's interesting to think about it that way, because if you go to work every day, especially if you own your own business, every day is different. You're approaching

different problems. You are met with different risks, like you said, and there's a lot to navigate. And you kind of have to just roll with the punches. It's a lot about finding solutions, you know, and not focusing on the problem. Why aren't we just naturally doing that in our relationships? Because Freud was wrong about a lot of things, but he wasn't. wrong about everything. Okay, you got one thing right. And that is that our early life impacts how we walk around in the world, right? So I'm not a Freudian. I'm, I kind of loosely follow my young Ian training. But I know that as bright and shiny as I am, when I am in a boardroom, or I am working on a new deal, when I am at home and I'm dealing with a tough situation with

my lover, it is so much more natural to my body. Like, it feels right in my body to act out the patterns that I saw early in life. So my primary caregivers relationships or whoever I was witnessing, like, you know, most of us, it's our parents. But it might be anybody who formed that core idea of what it means to love each other. And then we look to be loved in those same ways. Our bodies do. We look for it with our most unconscious self looks for these patterns that weren't necessarily helpful. How many of us were raised in a household where we could truly say our parents just, they just did love well. They were communicative and gentle with each other and supportive. Like parents make mistakes.

I'm a parent. I have seven kids. I screw up. They're going to have to go out in the world and figure out how to deal with the wounds that I've left them. Each generation has that, right? So this burden that we bear, it shows up in love so much more than it shows up in business. Because in business, we like put on our, let's engage our prefrontal cortex. Let's, I show up and I try to apply myself in this very structured way. But then the body can't stay that way all the time. So we want to come home and we want to come into this secure space where we can make mistakes and we can bump up against each other. and ouch lots of ouches happen and then we get stuck in a pattern and we just repeat it over and over and that's where i feel like we always have the opportunity to interrupt our habits and patterns but first we have to notice that that's what's running the show right so while you may put your

armor on and go to work and operate in one way when you come home you do want to let your guard down and you do sort of want to relax into stuff but that may also look like bringing in the baggage from your past. I never thought about it that way. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we want to, there are a lot of ways to have relationship. And choosing what I call, actually, there's this great scholar has this wonderful word, soterological. A soterological relationship is one that is like salvational. It's an individuating relationship. It's spiritual. It's deeply connecting. It helps you draw yourself forward. I'm like your unique life path. I think most people want that kind of relationship.

Sure, yeah. But it's not what we, it's not what we ask for day to day. Day to day. Instead, we worry about whether the trash got taken out, whether the kids need to get to nursery school. We're worried about whether there's food on the table. And we don't attend to these, like, the soul's call to be in these, like, big, juicy relationships.

Yeah. So it's about as much as anything, we have to make. a decision to invest in our relationships. It's not an easy one necessarily. I'm laughing and smiling so much because I cannot wait to make my boyfriend listen to this podcast. If you knew anything about me, I mean, this is what you just described is how I live my life. And I don't know if it's because of failed relationships past or if it's part of just my personality or maybe the combination of both. But I'm almost, I have to almost focus. on not being so hypervigilant in avoiding the problem.

You know, like I'll overthink it before it even happens. I'm trying to work on something that's not actually even happening. Yes. So in my head, the only way for me to not bring in the stuff from my childhood or stuff from other relationships is to do therapy together. And so that's been a very big thing for me in my adult relationships. And I was reading something that you said, though, where you're like, yeah, But if you have a resistant partner, this doesn't mean you have to just drag them to therapy to have the kind of relationship that we're talking about.

But how else? How else do you do it? I don't know. I think that is a really, okay, first off, I applaud your, like, including therapy because I am pro therapy. I think it's awesome. And I know from my own experience, I mean, I spent six years in joint Jungian analysis with my current primary partner. And that makes all the difference, absolutely. But I have also been in relationships and I have witnessed lots of people in relationships

where that partner is resistant. And the pull to therapy just winds up becoming a point, like a stuck point, where now we can't do anything because all we argue about is whether we're going to go to therapy or not. Or I go and then I resent you. And now I have something to be mad at you about that isn't actually the problem. Right. So if that is part of the relationship, I like to think of it two ways.

If everything is healthy from the perspective of like there's no overt abuse going on, there's no covertive abuse going on. And both parties are committed to the idea of the relationship. Like we want this relationship. If those boxes are all checked, another option is to seek out a coach. A coach doesn't necessarily therapist. Like a coach may actually hold your feet to the fire and say, y'all committed to this kind of relationship. So we're going to set some goals and we're going to actually work through some processes that are designed to get you to where you want to go.

That's a very different space to hold than therapeutic space where we're validating feelings. We're staying with whatever the slowest pace is in the room. We stay at that pace. Right. Just two different ways of approaching the process. So some people who are resistant to therapy. aren't resistant to the idea of like, hey, actually, we're okay. We just need a little coaching to be better. And then if you still have resistance, some people are really cut out for self-managing these

situations. And that's what self-help books were invented for. You know, I mean, I think they got kind of a bad rap in like the 90s, like everybody was turning to self-help books. But sometimes all you need is a few good ideas to really turn the corner in a relationship. Yeah. Again, you think about it in relation to business or an entrepreneurship, we do these things every day. I know for me, I'm constantly doing research about, you know, other ways I can grow my business or trying to create a better business plan. Like, I'm putting in the work at work to grow that. And so why wouldn't I do that within my relationship as well, even doing the research or seeking outside help, counsel, anything like that? Like, I do love the idea that you said. It just takes the same mindset

that we would bring to a business. Absolutely. So I ran a CrossFit gym. I've owned 12 businesses. It's been a journey through all sorts of things. But for a while I owned, I was lead trainer for a CrossFit. And when I was doing that, I knew that I constantly had to adapt to the changing circumstances. Like that was a really volatile business to be in.

And at the same time, I was in a relationship that was struggling. like big time struggling like needed therapy did therapy was failing all over the place it was really really hard and yet we were really in love and it was when I realized that I needed to apply my full the full power of my decision making process and all of those things when I started applying that and said I'm going to study relationships out of that disaster by all accounts we should have ended in a flaming pile and instead we're super happily married. I discussed myself with how happy we are. So like it is possible to just put in the effort to change the habits and focus on a different set of things because we get caught up in focusing on like, you know, two or three

things. And often they're not the real source of the trouble in our relationship. And then something else I'm hearing in that too is I love I just love equating this to business because I think that's a lot easier for people to not get so emotionally volatile when they think about you know like it doesn't feel so personal maybe but um it just in thinking about in my my partner's defense he's very good at trying to find the thing that he can hear me on that is a one tangible thing that he could change that he knows means so much to me even if he thinks it's stupid he can hear it and go, okay, I know that this is super important to Kelly. And so I'm going to try day by day to make this a part of my practice or whatever it is. And that's what we do for our co-workers, right? Or if you're a bond, what you do to all the employees is you listen because that's how business grows. And it's not, it's a dictatorship and that never works out. It never works out. Yeah, absolutely. So that would be one tip to me would be just because everyone wants to just be heard, right? And I think partnerships a lot of times, that is the one place where we just get a little set

in our ways and we're just like, no, I can't hear that. Or do we take it personal or anything? Or we can't hear it the way that it's being presented. And we get caught in, I need it to be presented in a very specific way or I will reject. Right. So if he's going out of his way to, you know, to show up and do something that that you know is important, if you can actually just see that and see that he may not do it the exact way that you were hoping for. But if you can acknowledge first that he showed up and that he's trying and he's doing and then over time ask for tweaks that is you know the arc of a change of a transformation right we we want change so instantaneously these are long story arcs you know we're talking about if you want to be a

lifetime partner you could be talking about anywhere from you know 10 to 50 years together right so allow it to be a process and you're going to have many different relationships. You're going to be married lots of times in that marriage, right, in these evolutions of you. So just letting him grow the pace that he is and show up for you as he can today. That's powerful. It's powerful for you too. So that's so true because you're exactly right when I actually see him taking the steps, even if it's not what I would, or how I would do it is basically the way that my brain works. It means so. much to me to watch and try. Yeah. So if I can focus on that part of it instead of like,

well, he did it, but like I wanted it this way still. Right, right. Why it's so interesting, the thing about change. I do. I just want it right overnight. I said I wanted this. This is how I need it. So do it that way or whatever. But that kind of defeats the purpose and starts a whole other argument. Right. It's when we, it's so easy to get caught in our desire for control, right? We don't control the world. We just don't. So we wake up every day and there's an awareness in us that we don't control the world. And that awareness is terrifying to our inner self, right? So we try, we reach and we look for ways that we can control. And it's not like we're overtly walking around saying, I'm going to control these things. In fact, it doesn't feel like we're trying to control anything. But control

gives us a sense that we have some say in how this thing called reality, how we interact with it. So yeah, it feels good to say, I want it done this way. And yet, in fact, we want variety. We want novelty. We want our partner to be different from us. I don't want to be married to myself. That does not sound good. So I want him to be different, but I also wanted to do it my way. Is that really true? So I use that question. I check myself. Is it true that I want him to do it exactly my way. And if I really let that sink in, then I remember that, in fact, he's actually gentler than I am. He's slower pace, which drives me bonkers, but it also means that there's this, like, calm wave. Like, oh, right, I love those things. So let go of the control a little bit

and allow yourself to be part of this world that, unfortunately, will cause some damage, will cause some ouch. It's not easy to be alive. Right. That's someone last on the podcast. that it's not easy to be human. It's just not. It's not an easy one. I love thinking about control, equating that to safety. I don't think I really put those two together, but I do the same thing. I think if I can get it this way or fit it in this box, get everyone to do what I need them to do, especially at home, then I'm safe. And that's just not, it's a false sense of security for sure. It is. Yeah. We love the idea of permanent, immutable safety. I mean, which feels like, sure, that's natural.

And so maturity is coming to understand that we actually can be flexible, resilient, and have the capacity to allow ourselves to bend and to change and then adapt to that change. And I mean, there are big structural things that are going to hurt us and, you know, big things that need change in this world. So if we are always worried about trying to control the infantasmal little bits of our life, I don't think we can apply that energy to the bigger world change we actually want to see. And that's, you know, huge scale, business scale and like our family. Like sometimes I think if I control everything and get it the way I want, honestly, I couldn't do anything else.

It would be a full-time job. just to make sure that the spoons are lined up right. Well, and also, I mean, when you were just saying that I was thinking, well, how boring would that be? I know I'm bored and probably create some new drama because that's just what I do. Yes. Yeah, because the pull between wanting security and wanting novel is real. Esther Perel talks about that, the paradox, right? We want both.

And that's not just for sex. That's everything. We want this pull. Yeah, subconscious. So, okay, if people are listening and, you know, we're talking about a relationship and making or working on the relationship that you're already in, that you're currently in. And so if people are listening and they're unfulfilled in their relationship and they're doing that back and forth of like, yeah, but, you know, X, Y, and Z and I don't know if this is something that could change over time. And how do you know when it's too much to keep doing the work and to keep trusting that over time the baby steps are going to add up to be. something that works versus it's just time to get out of this relationship and go. This is the hardest question that I get. And I think that it is, I take a breath with it.

When someone asks me personally if they should stay or go, I always feel the immense responsibility that comes with them, even having asked the question, even though I'm going to say, of course I can't make that decision for you. Right. But I take a breath with it because in truth, I don't think it matters. I think that what matters is that you decide for yourself, yes or no, that you stop staying on the fence in that in-between space and that you either commit and you get in. You're both feet in or you're both feet out. That liminal space is of limited use.

Liminal space means we're in the in-between and it can be transformative. but if you stay there too long, all you're doing is hedging your bets. You're not in the relationship. And therefore, you're not going to be showing up with your full self. And whatever your partner is doing, those baby steps or whatever, they may not even really touch you. So I say, it's not so much whether you stay or go, but that you decide one way or the other. And then you decide to work on your side of the street. You decide to get in and do your work. Because if you change, you're part of a system. you change, the system will change. So that doesn't mean you should stay.

If somebody's being abusive, coercive, or you just decide you don't like them anymore, leave. That's fine. I am no fan of staying just for staying sake. In fact, I think that we give far too much weight to the idea of longevity being the measure of a perfect relationship. I know plenty of people who've been married for 50 years, but don't hold hands at their 50th anniversary party. That is not what I'm shooting for. what I'm shooting for is I'm all in, I'm showing up, and I'm here not just for my growth, but my partner's growth and vice versa.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think to me, I noticed such a difference in my life when I'm in a relationship, a dating relationship or a romantic relationship and when I'm not. And my life actually, a lot of times when I'm on my own seems a little less chaotic. You know, it seems, it seems, I don't know, there doesn't seem to be as much that I'm bumping up against. However, what I've learned now is I always pick a partner who's going to mirror the exact

thing that I need to work on in my life. And so, you know, as frustrating as it can be, sometimes I have to remind myself of that because if I'm bumping up against something or my partner's bumping up against something, to me, it's no mistake that we are exactly the people that we are in the relationship that we're in because it only allows healing if you really are willing to do the work. Exactly. You just named it. It's, we pull ourselves into these situations. We get ourselves into these situations where we have the opportunity to grow. Whether we decide to or not, that's another question. You know, we do have to decide to. And if you find yourself having landed in a relationship or landed in like the 10th

relationship in a row where the same kind of dynamic is happening, then that's the time to take yourself to therapy. That's not about the relationship. Get yourself to therapy and start from there because just taking a year off even and doing intense therapy with enough time, like all the time that you right now relate to a person and spend like trying to make it work, if you worked on yourself that way, how much different would your life feel? And I mean, that was an invaluable time for me to like the time when I focused on, oh, I have to change my patterns. I grew up in a terribly dysfunctional household, which meant I was terrible.

dysfunctional in my first marriage. It really didn't matter what he was doing. It mattered that I finally decided to try over, try again with myself. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Try again with yourself. And I also think that it's, it's not one or the other. You know, I think that it, it's like you said, it depends on maybe the time or the place you are in your life. I've done a lot of my own individual work so much so that I used to be like, why am I not fixed yet? You know, like this is just, I'm done with that, right? Like, I've done enough therapy. I've done enough intensive.

I've done enough whatever. And again, it would be bumping up against myself in these relationships. And my therapist actually, you know, I'd say like, why am I still in this place wherever? She's like, this is not the same place. Yes. This is the deeper place. And this is the layer that she would not have been able to get to.

If you hadn't done all that work, but maybe there's still some wounding that needs to be healed. Yeah. Yeah. I love the image of the spot. for that. We always come back to a sticky spot. It's going to be in the same spot in the spiral, but we come back to it at a deeper layer.

We never step in the same river twice. You know, Heraclytus said that like 4,000 years ago, and we really don't. We're not just recapitulating. We may be recapitulating stuff from our childhood, but we're not just doing that. If we're doing that while also bringing ourselves to new layers of awareness,

then these new ways that we're not showing up for ourselves. or we're or we're letting ourselves down like really like out of integrity with ourselves. If you bring awareness to that, that's the opportunity for growth right there. Even just becoming aware like I can't believe I'm doing this for the 10th time. Yeah. So frustrating. I get you that pit in my stomach. You hit a cord with me with that for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't just stop behaviors, right? Like, I mean, you cannot will yourself to stop something. And I have tried. Yeah. But there's certain things that I get triggered. And if I'm not aware of the trigger or where it's coming from, I cannot stop something.

Right, right. It's not going to stop. So people talk about wanting to cure things like jealousy or something like that, something that's like an over and over again problem for them. They want to cure it. So I studied Jungian psychology. And the reason I'm so glad I did is this. So Jung psychology is pretty old.

We're going back to early 20th century for most of his writings. And in there, he talked about complexes. And a complex is a great concept. It's just this idea that there's this like spot, this sticky spot in your soul or your being or your mind, however you want to think of it. It's a sticky spot that collects, it's like really easy for it to collect up more energy. So over a course of a lifetime, it gets more and more. stuff happening to it. So jealousy maybe becomes a sticking point for you or your father, the way you relate to your father, the father complex, or the way you relate to somebody who

always lets you down. So we get these sticky spots and we keep collecting this energy around him. That complex just stays with us, exactly like you said. It just cannot be thought out of. We can't think our way out of it. So instead, Jung talked about you don't get rid of them. because that's actually your life force. If you tried to get rid of it, you would actually be like it's a psychological death. You'd be like taking out your libido, your energy. So instead we want to learn to dance with that complex.

How to how to we want to get to know it better and better so that when we circle back around and we're like, oh, we're here again. We're like, okay, I know how to dance with this. I'm going to move with it. And we're going to let it happen in a new way. Because just because we're triggered, we don't have to respond in the same way we always have.

Right. You can identify what's happening and then do something different. Right. What's being hit. So you mentioned a couple different ways to kind of turn your trajectory around. So maybe there's people listening who aren't even in a relationship at all right now and they're taking the break that you mentioned and they're working on themselves. How do you not make the same mistakes the second you start dating again and you're really wanting

to find another relationship but you want to do it different? differently. Right. Okay. Two things are really, really important. The first is that when you're doing, so when you're taking your time off or you're or you're in between and, you know, we're in the midst of some time that's tough to date, actually take that time off. Don't spend all the time that you're, that you're not dating. Don't spend it looking at dating sites and thinking about that. Really turn the mirror. Like look inside. Take the time. Actually take the time. Do the therapy. Do the homework. Do the homework, read the books, do all the things. Then when you're ready to start again, get an accountability partner. Like, pull in a friend, somebody who has seen you make the same

mistakes over and over again, somebody that you can trust. Because often we do have great friends. And they do see these things, or maybe we have a sister or whatever, ask them to help you see what you can't see. We so often pit our friendships again. our partners. And this is part of why. Because our friends have a little bit of distance from it. They know us a little bit. And they're like, you're doing it again. And if we would just believe ourselves, if we just believe our friends and say, oh, I am. Okay. So we can get an accountability partner on and just like debrief the date, but not from the this went bad, this went good. But from a how did I show up at that date? Was I people pleasing? Was I trying to perform? Was I like laughing at jokes that weren't. funny because I was trying to lean into the relationship or I'm inventing a relationship that hasn't even started yet because those are all really common moves, especially for women. They're really, really common moves. Yeah.

So call yourself out by just having that, you know, a 15 minute chat after a date, like, oh, I did it again. So I'm not actually showing up the way I want to. Cool. I'm going to take a breather. I'm going to, I'm going to do another worksheet. I'm going to like check in with myself, you know, turn to my high. guidance, whatever tools you're using. There's lots and lots of them. And then I'll try again.

So you're just bringing awareness to it. But that accountability, the external accountability, helps you make it real. Because we will just trick ourselves inside. Like we, we form these little diads inside of us and we're like, oh no, you totally got this. It's totally fine. This is going to be different this time. Yeah, don't believe that. Well, also, I think that involves, because I was thinking, oh, that's a great idea to have an accountability partner. And I was thinking of myself in that situation. I think it would involve a lot of letting go of the shame of I'm doing this again. Because to me, I'm a perfectionist.

I want to do, you know, I want to say I learned that lesson. I'm done with it. And instead, sometimes if I'm doing something again, I want to hide for my friends because I don't want to be called out because I'm in. embarrassed that I can't like we were talking about just stop a behavior. Yes. So the reason I I say somebody you trust is because this is shame work. This is the way that we get out of the stories from our childhood is to actually come face to face with our shame and address it. Address it the same way we would a small child. We have to go through a process with ourselves. You know, the whole concept of like inner child work is, you know, it's so, it can feel so gooey, right?

And like, oh, goodness, I'm going to have to go there. Yeah. For parts of it, you really do have to be as tender with yourself as you would with a three-year-old. Right. So if you have, if you have no idea that you feel shame, you probably have so much shame that it's piled to the ceilings, right? We all have our shame spots. So, yeah. allowing that. This is a way to actually, I think this is the best way I've ever deepened my friendships, too. So while we're talking about dating and romance, all of the stuff that I write about in the book and all the stuff that you do to have a conscious relationship, do that with your friends. So if you're not ready to date again, how about a conscious friendship? How about really deciding to have the hard conversations, lean into the awkward moments, expose these parts of ourselves that feel really tender,

and scary and try that first before we worry about whether we can find somebody who's supposed to be our lifelong partner and somebody who's great in bed and they look just the way we want and they're going to co-parent with us perfectly and they're going to do all the things. I have a mentor who says when she she's kind of, she's, you know, I think she's 70s. So she's had a lot of experience with bumping up against herself. And she has a lot of. a funny way of just kind of pulling herself out of the shame when she does something or she'll be triggered and she's starting to do a behavior again. She notices it now. That's the blessing of having life experience. And she says she just says to herself, oh, I'm doing that again.

And she's giggling at herself in a gentle way. And it releases the shame. And it's just like, oh, I don't like how that feels. So I'm not going to do it that way. I know that from experience, you know, but it's not going into the place of judging ourselves for doing certain things again, getting in certain mindsets again, those tapes that play over and again. Yeah, that is a wonderful tip because, I mean, laughter is the only way to deal with the messiest emotions, like really gentle laughter. Like, oh, yeah, you got to have a sense of humor to be flexible and resilient. You really do.

So that's a wonderful way to approach the way that can feel. If anyone thinks that inner child work is not real, take out a picture of yourself as a child. And for me, doing that kind of thing in therapy, and you literally all look at a picture of myself as a seven-year-old or something and start sobbing. So I know something is real, you know? Oh, yeah. You're connecting to something that I just think we all try to push down and not deal with because it can be very painful.

Yeah. And it works with our partners, too. So recently my father passed away. And so I was pulling pictures out of the house. And I found this old picture of myself. I'm little. And I stuck it on the fridge and I noticed that my partner would stop and look at it. And so we put a picture of him up too.

And I thought, oh, yeah, the acknowledgement that inside of us lives this little person. And I actually with all my, I have seven teenagers. So there's a lot of hormone and a lot of stuff going on in this house. I changed all of their like their text faces. I changed them back to their baby faces just to remind myself like, okay, that text was coming from a place where they aren't totally feeling safe and secure. How would I respond when they were five? Chill out and be nice. I love that idea with the partner. I'm actually going to do that. Yeah. It's so helpful. Yeah, when you think of them as that child, I mean, it is so hard to just,

I just want to hug him and love on him, you know, and so I think if we can always remember that part of our partners, that would be such a good way to have more empathy. and grace with each other. That's the word, empathy and grace. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Well, you kind of touched on jealousy earlier. And I was telling you earlier that I watched your TEDx talk about jealousy. And I found it's fascinating because this is definitely something I've struggled with in my life. I was cheated on in a major way in an engagement. And so it's, you know, I've really had to do a lot of work around those insecurities in my relationships that have been after that. And again, it's one of those things. It doesn't just go away.

And I know for me, I've always felt very, that that was just maybe me in a box of a person who was cheated on that deals with jealousy now. But you say that jealousy is a very normal thing and a very normal part of a relationship. So why? What is that about? So I studied jealousy. I have studied jealousy full time for a decade. And jealousy is entirely typical, entirely here.

human, and the person who doesn't experience jealousy is by far the rare case, like by far. So, jealousy is, let's define it first real quick. Jealousy is the real or imagined fear of an interruption of the love bond, right? And it's important that it's real or imaginary. It doesn't matter whether something's literally happening or we just think something's happening. Jealousy can pop up anytime we think that or feel that there could be a separation between us and our object of desire, who we love and we want. And that is rooted right in our primal brain. It's right from our very first interactions with our primary caregiver, right? We are helpless. We're in a state of complete love from the point of, I am entirely dependent on you. And if mom or dad or whoever

is caring for us can't come in that second, there's an interaction. And that is a survival level problem, right? So baby's crying, survival level interruption problem. Baby doesn't know whether they're going to come back, right? That self still exists in us. And so when we imagine or experience that disruption of the love bond, we are right back to survival brain. Jealousy is this complicated mess and it brings anger and fear and sadness and shame and grief. And these are big, gloppy emotions and they're all stuck together. And we have to deal with them. But we often deal with them just like, oh, it's jealousy.

It's just jealousy. Just comes before jealousy all the time. Like just, no, not just jealousy. It's huge. And it is normal. I actually love that idea too because or framing it that way because the just jealousy thing. Or like that person is just a super jealous person. Like it's not as simple as a personality trait or something.

something like that. What I heard a lot, and maybe this is because of the own work I'm doing right now with attachment. What I heard a lot in that is, you know, the fear of abandonment and just kind of those security things that we so strive for, and especially in a love relationship because you're the most vulnerable. I think you can be in that position. And so the panic that comes with that. Is that what causes jealousy? Yeah. So most of us attempt, whether we succeed or not, we try, we attempt. We attempt to transfer our attachment bond to our partner later in life, right? And so that the transfer of that attachment bond over to our partner, depending on how successful it is, you know, whether we actually are able to. So because there are those people who stay completely attached to someone who's

not their partner or stay really in the pockets of their parents. But once that transfer happens, well, now it is a survival instinct that kicks in that says, I have to have, I have to, I have to, I have to hold, I have to close everything around this and keep it safe. We can hold a relationship really gently and be in a trusting state only when our nervous system is calm, when we're able to self-regulate, when we're conscious of the triggers that are going to pop up for us, and when we've established through an incremental building of trust, you know, in order to, we often place all the focus of jealousy on what the other person is doing. But what if we stepped away from that and just said, what do I trust that person to do?

Where am I in this relationship? Because we often rush. It's just like this instant thing. Like we're either dating and it's super casual or boom, we're in a relationship. And now I'm supposed to trust you completely. You're supposed to trust me completely. And we're supposedly we agree on a set of rules. most people never have the conversation to establish what the actual parameters of their

relationship agreement is. And so now you're just essentially walking a tightrope blindfolded and hoping it works out. I don't recommend it. Well, that's such a good point about establishing the rules because I know for me, within a relationship, if we can't, I don't want to call them ground rules, but set the boundaries around certain conversations or certain situations, I never can get that calm in my nervous system that you're talking about. So no matter what's actually happening, my body is telling me, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You're not safe. You're not safe because we've never set up, you know, what the guidelines are. And although they may change over time, and I think that's something I'm learning too is boundaries, you know, change and they're fluid and all of these things. But like setting the ground, the foundational conversation,

of this is what I want, this is my goal, this is the conscious part of our decision of this relationship is so integral for me feeling safe. Yes, absolutely. And there's no shame in saying the word ground rules. Like when you're talking about setting up a relationship, what would be more normal than walking into a new job and saying, okay, so what's expected of me? You want, who wants a job with no job description? That would be horrible. I've had those. They're terrible. I, and as a business owner, I always have to define the parameters for everybody I'm working with, right? And when there aren't clear parameters, there's no repercussion that I can actually put in place. And there's no way for them to know when they're succeeding either.

So it's really an unfair place to start a relationship from. And when people are practicing monogamy, often they just rely on the idea that there's this cultural norm. That, like, I've had a lot of conversations that start off with me saying, so what's your monogamy agreement? and the person says to me, well, you know, he knows the rules. I'm like, well, but what are the rules? Tell me, just tell me more about the rules. And they'll tell me a little bit about the rules. And I say, so when did you talk about these?

I mean, he knows. Like, okay. So let's go back to ground zero and talk our way through this. Because explicit communication isn't just about making rules that make you feel safe. It's actually about being vulnerable and asking for what you want, which is how you can get what you want. cannot ever feel secure and safe if you're just trusting that someone has read your mind and will deliver it to you. Right. And also, what are you actually even trusting? I guess you're saying

to read your mind, but like, to me now that I've gotten older and been through bad relationships or, you know, cheating relationships where the trust was broken, I probably was just thinking, oh, we know, we think the same thing. We have the same boundaries within a relationship. now I'm understanding how important those conversations are just for establishing even just communication between the two of you so that you know, okay, when he leaves this house, we have said this thing. And if that isn't how this goes, that is a boundary violation to our relationship. Right, right. Because that's what cheating is.

People talk about cheating as if we have some definition of it. We don't. Not really. We, you know, like lots of people think cheating. is sex with another person or flirting with another person. Cheating is the breaking of any relationship agreement, right? So I'm, I'm ethically not so for me to lie about a relationship and keep it a secret, that would be the violation, not the connection, right? So if we think about that, then how about if we reframe what relationships are altogether and just say, your relationship

doesn't just depend on the agreements. Your relationship is the agreements. It is them. So start by having a relationship where we establish. And this could go for your friendships, too. Establish what the ground rules are. And with that, you can establish. So how will we re-negotiate? How will we come to a new conclusion? So in my marriage, we re-up every three years. We have a whole month-long conversation that happens every three years where we really get into it. We talk about finances and sex. and religion and politics and all the stuff, just to make sure that we still both want to be in this. And I have a friendship that I'm actually doing something similar with,

like just actually saying, like at the outset, when I was super nervous about this friendship, I'm like, the one thing I need is to know that you won't just withdraw your friendship, that you'll just tell me that you're withdrawing. And if you could please just give me like a half an hour conversation where you just say, why? If you could commit to that now, then I could commit to being more vulnerable with you.

And so we carefully built trust out of having, like, what an awkward thing. Like, I was sitting at dinner with just a friend and I had that conversation. And that's the groundwork. The rules can all be built out of those little awkward conversations. Yeah. So what would you say? Because I feel, and maybe this is a generalization. But I know amongst my relationships with my girlfriend,

we are very open about this kind of stuff or insecurities and vulnerability and all of that stuff. And it seems a little more difficult for men. So I'm imagining that in most relationships, those conversations could be difficult. And especially, you know, we don't even have to put it in a men and women thing. Say one partner's wanting to have those conversations. And then their partners like, we don't need to talk about this and they're uncomfortable. What would you say? How do you approach a situation like that?

Does that mean the relationship can't work? or is that just one of these tough things to navigate between two different mentality? I think a lot has to go into this. Because first off, we need to take the whole context into questions. So if you've been in a relationship for like 20 years and all of a sudden, I want to be super vulnerable and I want to start this process and my partner's like, what? That was we, whoa, where did this even come from? Let's take that into account that we tend to have a lot of inertia in our relationships. We just want them to kind of continue the way they've been.

So springing this on someone and saying, this is how I want our relationship to be, and then being mad if they're not immediately on board, that's a lot. Versus, say, at the get-go, you know, you're in the first 10 dates, say, and you're like, so this is where I'm headed. This is actually what I'm looking for. And if somebody is resistant there, yeah, that's a big red flag for me. I would say they don't actually want the same type of relationship. It would be like having a different orientation.

Like, you could have a relationship with two different orientations, but is it going to satisfy everything that you want? Think carefully about whether it will. You can definitely make a relationship with any person, no matter how much disagree with them. But you do have to think about whether you're actually still going to be in integrity with yourself. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really good. That's why it's so important to do this early on. Yeah. Because that's where I think a lot of resentment problems. comes from too within relationship. Definitely. Definitely. I mean, I built a whole, a whole marriage. I was, you know, with somebody for 17 years and we were married for 13. And when I wanted to renegotiate, there was no process in place for a renegotiation. So it broke us completely. But in the partnership I'm in now, renegotiation is built in. So we, and we both know how

that happens. And we know what happens if it escalates. We know what our next step will be. Like if If talks break down, what will we do next? You know, if we can't resolve it. And having that in place means that I feel the safest I've ever felt. And I didn't even know that that was possible. In fact, at one point, I would speak pretty loudly about the fact that I didn't, I wasn't sure that security was even a thing we should talk about in relationships because I had been so hurt that I thought, screw that.

There's just no such thing as security in relationships. It's an oxymoron. No. it's not I I now know that that's not true but I had to come to know it in myself like deep in my body that it was going to take like a whole rewiring and it's taken 11 years to feel really truly secure in this relationship that is it's a long story arc overnight we said that earlier yeah yeah that's always a good reminder for me because I want everything right now right No.

Fixed. That's it. Exactly. Well, you have a book out. It's called Project Relationship, the Entrepreneur's Action Plan for Passionate, Sustainable Love. Yeah. Tell us about the book. So I wrote the book because, well, for two reasons.

One, a friend of mine was going through, like, just bad relationship after bad relationship, recognized it and was asking me a lot of questions. And I had thoughts and answers. So I started thinking, oh, I should collect these. And then I realized, you have seven. teenagers, they're all going to have relationships stuff. And I'm a little morbid. I was so, I got this middle of the night terror one night that I would die and I wouldn't have like left the many instructions. My feet hit floor at 4.15 that morning. I ran to my keyboard and I started

typing. And all of this just sort of came out in a month. It was just like out because my way isn't the right way, but I learned this stuff the hard way. I made every mistake. I walked down every hard road and dead end. So I wrote it down. And I tried to simplify it. It's not like this long, beefy memoir of like my tales of woe. I'm sure I'll write those at some point. And some of them are just such a hot mess. They're hysterical. But this is like the distillation. Like I wanted a book that even so my kids will probably not want to turn to this book, but theoretically, that they could just pop open and say, like, I can't figure out what boundaries even mean. And it's, you know, 12 pages of big type and three clear action steps to take to make a difference. I wanted

something that you could like actually make a change today in your relationship. And I focused on entrepreneurial attitudes for the reason we said at the beginning because I think that that's actually the wave of the future. We are all entrepreneurial at this point. There's there's sort of no way out of that. Yeah. So I wrote the book in the hopes that we would all just have like a quick guide. And then there are deeper dives you can do. You know, I'm working on a course right now. I work with people one to one. And it's great, but not everybody's ready for that. Not everybody's at that spot where they're like, okay, I'm ready to go all the way in. Sometimes a book is just what you need to like jog you a little further. Just yeah, a little further. Yeah.

Well, you guys can find that book. I'm going to put the link in the description of the bio of this podcast, that people can find the book easily. Where else can people find you? If they have more questions, if they're interested in doing more work, where can they find you? Yeah, so you can find me at jollyhamilton.com. That's J-O-L-I and then Hamilton, like the musical, nice and easy. And you can find my socials there.

I'm on Instagram and Clubhouse as at Dr. Jolie Hamilton. So I'm easy to find. And I'm always happy to hear from people. you know, don't feel bad about reaching out. I like to hear from people. So, yeah, hit my DMs, no problem. Amazing. Well, I so appreciate you being here.

I'm going to go ahead and write down a lot of this stuff because I think I can apply it to my own life. And I know everyone, this is just the common denominator that I think we all struggle with, bump up against, just relationships. So no matter what kind of relationship it is, I think it's one thing we all have in common with. We can constantly be learning and growing. And so I really appreciate you sharing your.

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