The Squeeze - Dr. Tracy Dalgleish: We Are Both Okay

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

Dr. Tracy Dalgleish is a clinical psychologist who has been working with individuals and couples for 17 years. She joins the Lautners for a relationship deep-dive, covering everything from codependency to long-distance. She shares the strategies that are essential to building healthy romantic relationships, citing the “5 C’s” found in her book: curiosity, compassion, collaboration, and connection. She discusses the goal of interdependence (acknowledging you are two separate people) and the impact the state of your relationship can have on your mental health. Lastly, she offers tips to reignite the spark and maintain connection.   Be sure to listen to Dr. Tracy’s podcast, I’m Not Your Shrink and get her book I Didn’t Sign Up For This: A couples therapist shares real-life stories of breaking patterns and finding joy in relationships…including her own. You can follow her on social media @drtracyd.  Thanks to our awesome sponsors for supporting this episode:  Alo Moves — Get a free 30-day Alo Moves subscription by going to alomoves.com and use code THESQUEEZE (all caps)  Squeezed.com — Get same day local delivery or Free Fast delivery nationwide with code THESQUEEZE at Squeezed.com  Blissy — Get better sleep now with Blissy and use SQUEEZE to get an additional 30% off at blissy.com/SQUEEZE  To email us your questions or share your story, you can reach out to [e-mail]. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the podcast so you don't miss an episode! Plus, follow us on Instagram, @thesqueeze and personally @taylautner and @taylorlautner + on TikTok @thesqueezepodcast   To learn more from The Lemons Foundation, follow @lemonsbytay on Instagram and visit lemonsbytay.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Auto-hure with Sunny Cars feels as if the children not be made. Kiselsrandle, Zandvo. Actisvercare, verdwine, vacancy can chaotic

be chaotic. But who zorgloos an auto-hurt says, Uno dos, no stress. No, no-vervached costs,

always fullled forzeverted. So, would auto-hue without your re-sadviseur or sunnycars. We actually know

from the research that it's a six-second kiss or a 30-second hug that releases oxytocin and oxytocin is the bonding hormone those are those moments that help us feel connected and close six second kiss and 30 second hug i'm excited to hug you and kiss you after this oh wow okay when life gives you lemons what do you do with them over here at the squeeze we talk about it hello hello welcome to the squeeze happy wednesday um or whatever day it is You're listening to this.

Hopefully it's Wednesday. Hopefully it's Wednesday. That means you enjoy your show and you tune in when they come out. Yeah. If not, you've got to step it up. Come on. Step it up. Speaking of stepping it up, if you're not subscribed.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hit it, babe. I don't know. That's all I know. If you're listening to us, click the follow button. That means you're listening on a streaming platform. So that you don't miss our episodes.

There we go. Got a little notification. Much appreciated. Yeah. You have two tailors. You have a Lily, as you can see right here next to me. We had a Remington, but she just left. Well, I put her ball up.

She's looking for her ball. Yeah, she was playing in here, and this is a no ball. No ball zone. Yeah, no ball zone. So she was mad at me that I put it up. So she's sitting over there. It's okay, Ram. Come on.

Come back. Come hang. There she is. Come say hi. Say hello to everyone. Come see hello. See hello. Come me all.

Josh, speaking of balls. Oh, Lord of Bob. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Mommy and Daddy have to talk. Oh, we have an exciting episode. Yeah.

We learned a lot. We really did, honestly. We had Dr. Tracy on the squeeze today. She is a relationship expert. She's been working with individuals and couples for 17 years. She's a clinical psychologist. She also has a podcast. any new book that we're going to leave link for you guys down below.

If you liked today's episode, go ahead and check her out. But we kind of just dove into like everything and anything relationships. Yeah, which was very fascinating. Yeah, like everything from difference from a healthy relationship to codependent one, how to foster trust in relationships and relationships that, you know, have lost trust or even just the further gain trust. talked about long distance, how to keep the spark alive for long-term relationships. How, you know, arguments and bumps in the road and your relationship, you know, affect your own

mental health and how you protect that. She also, she's a couple's therapist, correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that's what she also does. Just very insightful. And I felt like, like, during it, we were like, oh, that's a good nugget to take. I took a few. I think my favorite thing that you guys listen are dive deeper into, but talking about keeping, you know, the spark alive, keeping it still taking the law a lot of it was she was like, think of things that you used to do when like the first year you started dating.

What did you guys love doing together? Yeah, yeah. What brought you together? Yeah. Yeah. So since then I feel like we've been implementing that something we always used to do was write each other little notes. We'd always leave a little note pad out. When I'd go to bed, I wake up

because I go to bed first. I'll wake up in the morning and see the note. And then I would write Taylor a note for when he wakes up. I've written you a couple notes in the last couple days. Yeah. Ditto. Keeping that spark alive.

We're keeping that spark. She gave a lot of other examples too. The fun games. The meals one. In the door. Beat the dogs to the door. Beat the dog. Wow.

There's good ones. You're going to like this. Oh, you're going to like me. It's honestly, it's like a free couples therapy session. You're about ready to get. Yeah, but she also dove into stuff like for planning, like if you are single, too. You don't need to be in a relationship or there's even insightful things for friendships, family relationships, other types of all relationships. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think we should jump into it. Diving. All right. Enjoy this. Thank you, Dr. Tracy. We love you and we'll see you on the other side. Dr. Tracy, thank you so much for joining us today on the squeeze. We are honored to have you and can't wait to dive into this fun conversation. Thank you so much, Taylor. And Taylor, for having me here. I'm thrilled to jump into this conversation with you and also to be part of this community. Oh, thank you.

Hopefully we still like each other by the end of it. I think we're going to be okay. Before we dive in, I don't know if we've ever done a virtual citrus got real segment before, but in front of me, I have this jar of lemons with very random questions, and I'm going to pull one. If there is any. I know. What do we? We got a restock coming. Ooh, we really do. Listeners, we need more suggestions of citrus questions. Okay. Let's see what we got here. I've hurt my back recent.

Yeah, I literally just, I don't know why I didn't reach for it. It was on my side too. I was like, okay. I don't know what, is this what getting older, you know, looks like? Because I got like a nerve problem in my lower back for the last like almost month. And it is. He got worked on yesterday, too. So he. He's like... It's like worse today. Yeah. Yeah.

Just like sitting in this chair is uncomfortable. Our bodies get noisy as we age. It's fun. Okay, here we go. Well, this is going to be easy for me. If you could speak to any animal, which one would it be and why? I'm feeling it's the dog sitting next to me in this chair. Yeah.

Yeah. Our dogs are often my answer to citrus questions. Yeah, I really are. But it absolutely is for this one. If I could speak to any animal, it would, you know, probably be, it would be Remy or a Lily to just, you know, see, I just want to hear how much they love me. Oh. You're so funny. Do you have one?

I would probably speak to my dog as well. Yeah. His name is Lachlan. He's a 10-year-old West Highland Terrier. Oh, wow. And he is bossy and spunky and he hugs the bed. And he would probably say something like. why don't you let me run more?

Stop building these snow walls for me. I just want to run across the street to the park. You come chase me. Oh my gosh. He sounds like a great personality. Yeah, maybe you do Remy and I'll do Lily. Okay. Since there's two of us in two of them.

What would you say to Lily? I would ask her why she feels the need to pee on our rugs. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to know that. Lily is our seven-year-old dog who fully potty trained, but she, I think, is like secretly sassy. They're tantrums. Yeah. And it only happens like at night when they're not in bed with us.

She'll pee on a rug. But she, like, before we go to bed, we take them on a long stroll and they get, she loves to mark her territory everywhere. Yeah. And then there'll be some pee on the rug. And we have like, it's always on our two white rugs that we have downstairs. Yeah. So that would probably be my question. of Will, why do you feel the need to?

What are you upset about? Let's talk about this so you can stop pissing on our rugs. Yeah, because then I got to clean in and it's just, just tell me your needs. Yeah. We can work together on this. We can meet in the middle. Oh my gosh.

That's great. Okay, well, enough of about my dog peeing on our rugs. We are so excited to have you here, Dr. Tracy, to talk about relationships, how they coincide with mental health. Obviously, we have a working relationship. We have a lot of relationships. We're a married couple that works together. But I would just love for you to kind of explain, you know, who you are, what you do to our listeners.

Absolutely. I'm a psychologist and couples therapist up here in Ottawa, Canada. And mostly you'll find me in my office seeing people providing individual and couples therapy assessments, going into workplaces and providing sessions for people in corporations in terms of how do we do this thing called communication? How do we do relationships? and boundary setting. Boundary is such a hot word, but we often don't know what it actually means

and how to actually put that into place. But the other identities I play include being a mother and a wife, a business owner here with my clinic called Integrated Wellness. And I like to tell the story that I thought doing my PhD would be the hardest thing

that I would ever have to do. And yet for me, it was actually when I became a mother, and then when I became a mother to two children. Because for as long as I had been treating people and supporting them through their relationship struggles, their mental health struggles, nobody could have prepared me for just how hard motherhood was not just on my own identity, but on my relationship. And I like to say, I actually said this in the first section of my book, which is, I've been a human a lot longer than I've been a therapist. And so I am not immune to the struggles that we know that show up in our relationships like resentment, struggling with the mental load, with our own attachment-related struggles. So after the birth of my second child, it was in the depths of the Canadian winter as we record again here.

And I felt really dissatisfied with the discourse around relationships in the popular media, on social media. the time as well. There were very few therapists on social media at that time. And I started to take the teachings, my clinical experience, and the research that I've done. And I started to take that online so that people all over the world could start to learn along with me. And now it's been so cool to see people all over learning alongside with me. Oh my gosh. I love it. That's so cool. Do you work with your husband? Did I hear that? Yes. Yes, we do. What is your husband do? twins. Yes, right?

We could have lots of conversations around what it means to the boundaries of, you know, it'll be 9.30 at night and I'm shutting myself down and it's bedtime mode and my husband will say, oh, we need to talk about this piece of the business. It's like, is the business on fire right now? And if not, let's park it. He co-owns the mental health clinic here with me and he's also the co-owner of our digital media company called Be Connected. He is the numbers guy, the guy behind the scenes, and he really is what is making us move forward, which is fantastic. And also brings a new set

of challenges in any relationship when you work together. Yeah, we're hanging in there, huh? Oh, we are. I mean, luckily, luckily we enjoy each other. Like, that helps. We, like, we are friends, too. So, like, we, we enjoy. doing these. Obviously, we definitely butt heads up my, but with things. But for the most part, I think we're pretty good. And the budding heads part is not a negative piece to a relationship. Oftentimes people will come to me and say, we're fighting. Is this bad? Are we doomed? And my response to that is, I would be concerned if you aren't fighting. Because if you, and fighting, I use that word loosely. And to clarify, let's contextualize it. Budding heads, having disagreements,

viewing the world differently. That's not a bad thing. instead it's if either one of you are shoving down your needs, not talking about your wants and desires, and then creating more distance and disconnection. That's when I'm more concerned about a relationship. But being able to have those discussions and budding heads only helps you at times to learn more about each other. And then to also practice one of the most important things that we need in a relationship, which is repairing and coming back together. Yeah, I love that. Okay, I'm so excited to be talking to you guys. about Blyssie's silk pillowcases.

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But juice cleanses truly have so many benefits. I'm going to list you some. Obviously, we have the physical benefits of weight loss, less bloat, clear skin, which is amazing. But there's also other benefits that aren't necessarily visible to the. the eye, like increased energy, better sleep, breaking bad eating habits, but it also helps build discipline, which I think is really cool. Kind of setting yourself for a goal when watching yourself complete a juice cleanse is really cool. I have love squeeze.com. You guys and check

them out also at the squeeze. The squeeze. What a good duo. You can go to their website, squeeze.com, and use code to squeeze for same day local delivery or free fast delivery nationwide. head to Squeez.com and use code to squeeze. Enjoy. We all strive for healthy relationships in our life, whether that, you know, romantic relationships, friendships, family, you know, relationships. But, I mean, specifically with romantic relationships, what are, and I know this is probably a pretty big question, so we can figure out where we want to start. But what are some of the most important strategies you believe are essential to building a healthy, romantic relationship? Yeah, gosh. Okay, that's a big question. Let me even break it down

to the four Cs that I've outlined in my book, which I think are so important in our relationship. So the first one being curiosity, that we always have this sense of curiosity for the other person. what we're really good at doing in our relationship is learning to predict what the other person is going to do or say, oh, I knew you're going to say that, right? That's just this familiarity that we develop. But by developing this, we also develop a cognitive bias or a negative bias towards our partner. You always leave your socks on the floor. You never pick it up, right?

So that's you getting stuck in one of those negative communication patterns, which we could talk about is the criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and content. And when we lose curiosity, we lose the ability to have understanding for the other person, to give the other person permission, and to really get to know who they are. We must remember in a relationship that you are two separate beings. And that autonomy and independence is really important. You have your own thoughts, feelings, desires, wishes, and values. And then what's really neat about relationships is we need to find a way to nurture the intimacy

and the connection. And that's about how we go about communicating it, communicating, compromising how we come together. So curiosity would be my first piece. Okay. The second piece is compassion. Do we have this sense of kindness, respect, humility with the other person? That is so important. Yeah.

And sometimes it's so easy to turn to our partners and lose that sense of empathy and to say, why can't you just do better? Why would you say that? Why were you late? We just lose that. Where if a friend or colleague shows up late or makes a mistake, you say, oh, yeah, I understand. I'm so sorry, right? So that's the compassion piece.

And then the last two are collaboration and connection. And collaboration really is building this sense of weiness, that it's us together, and we approach the world together. So that Taylor, you don't go to your parents and say, hey, you know, Tay said this and, you know, that's the splitting. Instead, it's we. We want this to move forward. That's collaboration. We go towards things and approach problems together.

And connection is, how do we find each other each day? How do we turn to each other and respond to the other person's bids for connection? How do we turn to them and say, I see you, I'm here with you, you're important to me, you may. matter to me. And then we can sort of talk about those other pieces of how we build security and our attachment styles, how we nurture our independence and the connection piece and all within that. I think that's kind of like the broad scope of how I would answer that question. Yeah, the connection one is fascinating to me because, you know, for those of us that have been in a relationship, you know, for a while, it's easy to get complacent. And

you know, that connection can, you know, feel like the flame is, you know, low some days. And keeping that connection, um, tight and, you know, fiery is important, but, you know, becomes more difficult as time goes by. So it's definitely, what are the easiest ways to make sure that connection, you know, is, is still there and like you are seeking it on a daily basis, you know, you know, well into a relationship. Yeah, let me first normalize this piece here is that your relationship will not always feel deeply connected, and that is also okay.

So many people long to find the limerent stage, the honeymoon stage that we felt, you know, when you first think of your partner coming to pick you up and you get the butterflies in your stomach, and they send you a text, and you can't wait to text them back. I can't wait to see you, right? There is this sense of newness and excitement that comes with the honeymoon stage, and that's supposed to fade. And as it fades, there's also a really special deepening that can happen in a relationship.

But it's with that deepening that we also want to make sure we are nurturing that connection. So first, let's acknowledge that relationships do go through seasons and they ebb and flow. And that's going to be dependent on the context that you're in. But how do we build that connection? I like to ask people, what rituals did you first? have when you started dating. Was it in the morning? So if you first started to live together, was it in the morning that you turned to each other first and you hugged and you kiss before you pick up your phone and jump out of bed? What happened when someone came to the door? And I give

this little exercise or homework exercise to my couples and always the first one after the first session. I say, I want you to play top the dog. Top the dog is that whoever is at home has to get to the door for whoever's coming in before the dogs and how relevant because you you both have you have remi and lily right so i bet remi and lily get to the door before sure do right but that that's that special moment of of greeting after being apart that we can take advantage of and that can be through it's like saying i see you you're important enough for me to stop everything that i'm doing to run to the door and say i'm so glad you're home yeah so there are these small things that you're like that. But then there's also the

intentionality behind sharing something that you appreciate about each other, something that you're grateful for about the other person. And then having those regular check-ins and prioritizing time together. Sometimes that might be, okay, listen, we're in this season

where things are chaotic and it's so much right now. So let's, we're going to scroll on our phones, but we're going to lay together on the couch. But maybe it's about intentionally putting the phone away and making sure you're talking and remembering that there's so much

to discover about your partner still even after years of being together. I love that. I love all of those examples. It's so funny that we're talking about the connection part because I didn't even tell you this because we haven't looked over my little vision board, but one of my personal goals for this year,

because I feel like this past year we were just like running around like chickens with their heads cut off. This year I really want to be intentional about like our time together, especially because we do work together and like making sure there's just that separate time. But I actually put that, like, more, more just, like, connected one-on-one time

between us. So it's funny that we're, that we're talking about that. It's easy to get, yeah, lost in life and, you know, miss out on those moments. And I mean, like, you know, I know, I know how I feel about you and you know how you feel about me all the time. But, you know, sometimes when life becomes busy and hectic, and sometimes you just need to hear it in whatever way that is, you know, like she said, whether it's,

you know, greeting you at the door or, you know, when you wake up in the morning, you know, giving somebody a kiss before you start your day. Like the whatever little way it is to just remind the person that, you know,

you still do feel that fiery love. Yeah, it's important. Yeah. It's the message of saying, I am so glad I get to do this with you instead of a, oh, I'm just coexisting beside you. Yeah. Yeah. And tapping back into that every single day.

And for many couples, what ends up happening is the relationship gets put on the back burner. Work gets prioritized. Maybe there's something going on in family or friends. And I can even remember at one point for myself, I had these long text chains with my best friend. And they were great because we're both in the same page. We're both psychologists and we just got it. And that took away a little bit of that emotional intimacy, though, that I could have been giving to my husband at the time. And so sometimes we have to look at how am I showing up in all of these different areas in my life?

And what would it be like then to put a little bit more of that energy or focus into the relationship? Yeah. Because if we don't put it in there, it's like a plant. It will wilt over time if we don't water it. Yeah, that's a good analogy. We are all about health and wellness here, as you guys know. We have a mental health podcast. But something that we, I have really loved incorporating into my routine is aloe moves.

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I want to talk about the word codependency in relationships because that's definitely worth it. It's thrown around a lot that may not necessarily. be the case for some relationships that say it is. But can you kind of break down like the key differences between what a healthy relationship is compared to like a codependent one? Yeah, absolutely. And the flip side to codependency that I'm noticing with people right now is that we're shifting into this hyper independence. And neither one of them is necessarily going to work long term. So codependency, so for people who are listening then, I'm going to use my hands. So I look at

us as individuals and inside of our circles. So I put my finger and my thumb together and it's a circle. And inside of you, you're your own thoughts, feelings, opinions, desires, wishes, and values, and then your partner is the other circle with my other hand. Co-dependency looks like one hand going on top of the other and you lose those separate circles. You lose the sense of self or you lose the eye. You become fused and merged with the other person. And it's almost the simple example as I want pizza tonight, my husband wants tacos, and I say, oh, yeah, sure, like, what do you want? Tacos? Yeah, okay, yeah, that's fine.

That's good. And I don't say what I really want to need out of fear of rejection, fear of upsetting the other person, something to do with those feelings between us, me not wanting to say no, that I'm monitoring their mood, their feeling. I have lost my own sense of self within the relationship. That's what codependency looks like. So I'm losing my autonomous eye. I'm focused only on the other person.

I'm monitoring them. Then what I've noticed is that because this word codependency has been used quite popularly, people come to my office and say, oh no, Dr. Tracy, I think I'm codependent. I'm so afraid. And we have to break this down in what it actually is. But then we swing into this hyper-independence. And also let me normalize this. It's, you know, when we are trying on something and we're learning something about ourselves,

it's so natural to swing further past that more balanced space. Hyper-independence sounds like, I'm not going to tell you what I think and feel. I don't need you. Those are your thoughts and feelings. You go deal with them. I'm not responsible. It's almost like creating this wall, right? The other image I like to use is it's like two people, you're in your sandbox. You're building a castle in a sandbox and your partner comes over and you're like, hey, no, no cars. This is castles only. You cannot bring your cars into my sandbox, only castles. And that's not a relationship, right? That is you being hyper-independent. That's not a relationship. So what we aim for then is, again, going to my hands and linking them together in the chain link almost image here. What we aim for then is interdependence.

And interdependence is about acknowledging that we are two separate people. And I sum it up in this sentence, which is, I am me and you are you and we are both okay. I'm not going to lose my individual autonomy. I love pizza. You love tacos? Okay. Is tonight one of those nights where we can't compromise and we're each going to order our own thing? Or tonight tacos are like, it's got to be tacos tonight.

So you're going to do tacos. And then next week we're going to do pizza. Right? So it's this negotiation, but it's the ability to see ourselves, to see our impact on the other person, and then to also see how we are reacting to the other person. Yeah. I'm just learning. You're just learning? You love learning. Our expert interviews are truly like some of my favorites and I had to hold myself back from like taking notes. When she was like, these are the Cs. I was like, okay, what do I need? I'm like, no, I just need to listen to the spec. I don't need to be typing them right now. I have a question because I know you talk about it and it's just it's so true in many relationships that, you know, I know of including our own. Even though we can be aware of what a healthy relationship looks like, couples often identify those little, the little recurring issues, the things that you just, you know, the arguments you have over and over again.

that keep coming up, those little, you know, annoying things that you just can't break away from. What do you think the root cause of those little repeating arguments is and how can we break, you know, that cycle? Yeah, I commonly say it's not about the dishes, right? The couple that comes in and fights about the dishes every single time. And I always like to say this. as a way of saying how interesting we are as humans and relationships, as I have heard some really great fights over my career so far.

There's apparently a right way to chop a vegetable and boil water. There is a certain way to fold towels and everything in between, right? So the piece here is that, yes, we need to problem solve some of these very real things, like how are we dividing tasks in the home and doing dishes. But often what is underneath these arguments and repetitive issues, these recurring issues, are our core longings and attachment needs. And when couples feel disconnected and further apart, they stop sharing their needs,

needs being, I need attention, I need to feel close, I need to know that I matter to you, I need to know that I belong, I need to know that I'm enough for you and I'm worthy. And we start to get filled with negative emotions like frustration and anger and resentment. And then we get stuck in these negative communication cycles that sound like, I blame you because you're so defensive. And if you just put this glass in the dishwasher instead of beside the sink. And the other one says, I get defensive because you're always blaming me. So, you know, it's,

while we do need to problem solve some of these recurring issues, I think we also need to pause and slow down and go inside ourselves and say, what is this really about for me? Am I feeling like I matter to my partner right now? Do I feel important to them? And if not, then how can I go and get that need met? How can I say, hey, tonight, let's put our phones away and be close together.

Or even asking, hey, got this nagging thought in my mind, feeling like I'm not really important. I don't matter. Can you just reassure me that, like, we're good and we're solid? Or maybe it's the not enoughness. And interestingly, in heterosexual couples, what I often hear underneath this is for women, they tend to come more into, so not all couples, but more than not, is that. women come into this need for connection and belong. Well, it's all about belonging, but for connection and to know that they matter, I'm important to you. And for men, what I often find underneath their

frustrations and the upstairs stuff is this sense of, am I adequate for you? Am I enough for you? And so it's really interesting if we could step back from that glass left on the table or the socks right beside the hamper or the thing that's not done. and ask ourselves, what is this really about for me? Yeah, it seems like it's, yeah, it takes the digging deeper within yourself to realize, you know, there's something bigger going on here and then being able to identify that and be honest about it and, you know, attack it together. And once you do that, then those little things will start to, you know, lessen.

That feels big of an impact on it. Right. For sure. And it also speaks to us in relationships where, again, when we're co-creating our world, if, I'll take the dishwasher as an example, this is not one of my things, but I hear from other people that there's a right and wrong way to load the dishwasher. And so you have to ask yourself, I'm living with another human being. We have two different upbringings where our parents, our caregivers, approach the world in different ways. And so we learn to approach the world in different ways. How important is this one? How impactful is this on our whole relationship, on my sense, on my belonging right now. Yeah, let's rank it. Let's rank where, what importance this has, you know, out of everything in life.

And oftentimes, you know, I can even speak of my own experience. I know when I get into this like nattering critical mode with my husband, I know what's actually underneath that is we haven't connected. We haven't had time together to feel close. to feel like we're important. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, but you just said, made me think of this.

We've been traveling a lot, like, this past month. And it's so funny because I almost feel like more, like, I feel like we've gotten more time together, even though we've been so busy. Like, we've gotten a lot of like one-on-one time together. Oh, yeah. That has been cool. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. When we travel, it's, we're typically, you know, we're typically working a little less. And we're not, you know, attached to our laptops and doing whatever we do when we're here at home. Yeah. So it makes sense. That's very true. I'm curious, too, what's the other piece that comes with traveling for many people?

One is the removal of the everyday stressors. Yeah. How are we keeping house, basically? But then the other piece in there is the side-by-side experiences of whatever it is that you're doing and seeing. Yeah. And you look over at your partner and you're sharing this experience. You're like, isn't this so cool? Yeah.

And that is connection in there as well, which reminds us if we don't need to travel the world to feel close and connected with our partner. Yeah. But instead, could we learn a new game? Could we try a new project? I remember the early days of COVID, my husband and I painted the first floor of our house. And that was our way of having this experiential intimacy, of feeling close, feeling like we're in this together in a way. Yeah. Just, yeah, yeah, you're exactly right.

Just experiencing life together. And, yeah, I mean, I said it to you on our trip. I said, wow, we get to, you know, some pretty cool things in life. And I wouldn't want to do it with anybody else, you know, other than you. Like, it just, and yeah, it doesn't, it, and like you said, it doesn't have to be, you know, traveling the world or going to the national championship game or whatever. We've been doing a lot of football. We've been playing this new board game, like, at dinner sometimes, and it's been a fun, like, way for us to, because normally we'll just bring, like, our, we'll bring our plates to the couch and, like, watch a show or something, but we've been eating at the table and playing our board game, just the two of us. And it's been really fun because that's like, you know, that's like a fun activity for us to do a new thing for us to connect on, even though I beat you all the time. Yeah, I don't like that game.

What game? Which one are you playing? I don't even know what it's called. You build cities. Carcazone. Our family taught us over the holiday. They brought it and left it. And you build cities and fields and roads. And I don't know. It's fun.

It's fun. It is slightly addicting. You keep playing. There's something about it that's addicting. It's the only reason I keep playing it with you. Yeah. But it's definitely not my favorite game. Yeah.

I know it. you great joy to build your cities and roads. Thank you. Thank you for making that sacrifice for me. I always remind couples to eat one meal together. No distractions. No phones. No ringers on.

No TV, no screens. And just to be able to sit across from each other and to talk. And for people with kids, not to talk about the kids, but to be able to talk about other parts of yourself. And there are all kinds of great tools that you can, get as well to help you with that. I have 100 questions that people can download on my website. And they're really fun questions where you can, you know, I asked my husband in one of them, which was if you could sit at the table with any three people, who would it be past, future,

or present? And that conversation alone is something too deep in our understanding of each other. But when we have screens with us, it distracts us. And again, that's not the all or nothing. We don't have to do all of it, but it's the, how do I find this way of shaking it up? And a board game or a card game is a fantastic way to create that connection. I do, I love the one meal a day thing. I think that's like, you know, because it's so easy. Like, take and get up before me and, you know, have breakfast before I do. And so then we missed out on that one.

And then lunch, like, you know, you can be working and I, like, go to the gym and, you know, we eat separately for lunch. And then dinner, you know, we do it in front of the TV. And then, whoop, we just missed a whole day of having one single meal together, you know, just focused on each other. Yeah. I really like that one. Let's do that. Okay. It means more board games.

No, more cities. Kind of just circling back on like the not so healthy cycles in relationships. I want to know, like, what impact, like relationship conflict can have on our mental health. Yeah, absolutely. And that's a significant one. And we think of our biological need for connection, safety, and security. That's what helps us go out into the world and to do hard things. So if we feel safe and soothed and seen, if we feel securely attached with our partner,

then we can go to work. We can go see the front. We can go and do the hard things even, right? But then when we are feeling shaky at home, we are having frequent arguments and we're not feeling satisfied and connected, then there is a higher risk of developing depression and anxiety. And it becomes a little bit of a chicken and egg for some people. Is it the relationship distress that comes first that then impacts mental health or is it the mental health struggles that then impact relationships? So in research we do find that it's what we call a bidirectional relationship. which just means we can't isolate a person in treatment and in functioning in the world and only look at their mental health, but we need to look at their relationships at large, and also recognize the significant stressors that you being in a distressed relationship

is going to have on your ability to function. That's a lot. Yeah. We'll have a major impact for sure. Yeah. On the other side of the spectrum of couples like always being, together, which Tay and I definitely are on that side of the spectrum. The other thing, which I feel like is more common today than ever are long-distance

relationships, which we have had to deal with a couple times in our past because of my job and whatnot. But how can couples manage the challenges that come. with that physical separation and what advice do you have for maintaining a strong connection for couples that do have to do a long-distance relationship sometimes. Yeah, absolutely.

I know many people do, and I know many people have successful relationships. And when we do long-distance, we do want to make sure that we're not getting fed into a natural draw into avoidance, the avoidance of the emotional

or physical closeness, And so it does speak to things that we can do every day to build that connection versus the separation. So if you're in a relationship and you're not having any time together because of the long distance, where it could be, are we writing each other emails or texting, FaceTime? It's so much easier today with FaceTime as well. The accessibility is there all over. We don't want to have this great separation of that chance to emotionally connect in some way. So what couples can be doing to ensure a healthy relationship is scheduling time together, just like you would if you were living together.

And having that time be intentional and focused together. So if we're on a FaceTime together, but you're folding laundry or whatever it is, that distraction, that's not that connection. If we're on FaceTime making our dinners together and then eating together, that could work. If we're playing a game together, that would work. But again, it's scheduling that intentionality. And then I think the other piece, too, is exploring different ways of bringing in sexual intimacy, whether that looks like self-stimulation, telling each other's stories, whatever kind of way feels good for you as you are in that distance, so that you're nurturing the different parts of your relationship.

up is something we were, I feel like we were really good at. We did long distance pretty much at the beginning of our relationship, which was nice because we had only really been dating for like two weeks, two, three weeks. Yeah, long distance was the start of our relationship. Yeah. And I feel like we, we did really good at because he was in London, so we had a really big. Oh yeah, also the time difference. Yeah, LA to London time difference. So, and I had to start nursing school and he was filming every day. But we did, we did a really good job at like when you would wake up, I feel like you'd wake up like 10 minutes earlier, like just to like say hi and have your coffee. And then it would be, I was just getting done with school. So we like had that time like every day. And then

sometimes I get it like me before school depending on the day. But we were really good at like having that little chunk of time together. And it's honestly a time that I like cherish because we got to learn so much about each other because all we could do was talk. And by the time, like, two and a half, three months later when Taylor came home, I was like, oh, like, I feel like I've known you like for so much longer. And I know all these, you know, things about you, the good, the bad, the ugly. And it was, I don't think I could ever do that again. That was too long. Now, now sitting all this time together. We're like, we could never do that. But it was really cool to like have that time just to get to know each other, like truly on a deeper level because like the actual like physical. like wasn't there literally because we weren't there. It forces you to communicate. You have to talk on the phone.

Otherwise, your two bodies sitting on a FaceTime, right? You have to talk and share and open up about things and not get pulled into life's distractions, which is easily something that can happen. My own story, my husband and I were actually a long distance for five years up until a month after we got married.

So we had lived across the country with a time change, and then he had lived a two-hour drive away, which was actually even harder for us than an airplane ride, which I don't know how that ended up happening. But it forced us to be good communicators of not just settling into how was your day. Good, good. It was more of a what's actually happening for you. Where are we at? What's the state of our relationship? What do you need more of?

What do you need less of? how can we make sure we prioritize each other? Yeah, for sure. I love that. Something that's like very important in relationships that are long distance, together, whatever it may be is trust. That's definitely one of like, I feel like the most fundamental things. I mean, I got the expert here, but I would think that's pretty near the top.

But what are tips you have to cultivate trust in a relationship, especially maybe ones that have past wounds of trust issues, maybe from a prior relationship or even the one that they're in. Yeah, when I think about that previous wounding that shows up in the current relationship, this is often where sometimes we get stuck in and when we fight, we fight from that place. We put on our armor because that armor was developed from our history of people who have heard us.

And it makes sense in a way. Our body in those moments is saying, danger, danger, danger. this person could hurt you, but your armor up, don't trust them, don't let them in because of whoever is from your past. Or I even like to view it, it's like they're standing, the people have hurt you in the past are standing behind your partner in front of you. And what we have to do is learn to sue their bodies, learn to sue their nervous systems in those moments, and then come back to, this is this person. Here is what I know about this person. They said they would call me at seven. They called me at seven. I have this list of all of the ways that they have shown me

that they are trustworthy. And truly, people can show that. And it's so interesting, we don't talk enough about trust because we work up to this moment in a relationship where it's like, I'm going to say, I love you. Will I say it first? Will you say it first? Who's going to say? And everybody has that moment in a relationship where they can remember when they first said it, who said it first. But nobody ever has that moment where we say, hey, I trust you. Because trust for so many people is inherently given, which is why when it's broken, it also feels really difficult to get it back. So for people who have those past wounds, it's so important to look at the behavior when you are in more of that aligned and connected state, you're calm, to be able to see, how is this person different from

my past? How are they not those people? What is it that they do? and can I keep calling on to that? Yeah, I'll leave that there. And then for somewhere in a relationship where your trust has been broken, then it is about having to rebuild that trust where if you say you're going to call me at seven and you call me at seven,

or you say you'll be home at five for dinner and you show up at five for dinner and we look for those moments and we also both have to be involved in that building of the trust. Renee Brown uses the analogy of the marble jar where these small actions in your relationship are the marble in the jar and when trust is broken, it's the jar being knocked over and the marbles going all over the place and so you have to work to build those back up.

Yeah, it's definitely something that can take time sometimes often. Yeah. Okay, so on your website, browsing for your book, I didn't sign up for this. There's like a little pop-up that says what happens when your relationship no longer feels like the one you said yes to. And it's obviously like no secret that long-term relationships can definitely base burnout or people within the relationship change. What strategies would you recommend for couples experiencing maybe a lull in their relationship or how could they like reignite the spark that initially brought them together? Yeah, it's such a good question. There's this tendency for us to go in with our logic, with our brains of wanting to ask,

why are you like this? Why can't you change? And so we get really stuck in the wanting to be the logical parts of our brain. And so we try to talk. And the more we talk, the more we spin. And so I often recommend to people that what could be helpful in a safe relationship is being able to build in more of those experiential moments, but also more of those chances of physical connection, go for the walk and grab your partner's hand and really focus on feeling what their

hand is like. Go in and hug them. Not this kind of short pat on the back. Go in and squeeze and see even who's going to release first and talk about that even. Oh, you know, you stepped back. What was that about? It's that kind of, well, there's, it's an exercise. called the hug exercise from Schneier's who talks about intimacy and relationships, but this idea of understanding who we are with our need for physical connection, but going into that hug and staying there, we actually know from the research that it's a six-second kiss or a 30-second hug that releases oxytocin, and oxytocin is the bonding hormone that's released through physical touch, through orgasms, through a parent feeding a child.

those are those moments that help us feel connected and close. And so if we feel like we've lost the spark, then ask yourself, where is our physical connection? How can we start doing more of that together? And then as we've talked about that intentionality of could we prioritize asking each other one question night sitting on the couch, the chairs across from each other, could one person put their head in the other person's lap and you just play with their hair or give a back massage or something to create touch? I often see that we get so stuck in this, you need to change cycle. Well, if you did this, then I would be different.

And yes, we need to work through that. But if we're not building this foundation of connection, it's really hard to be able to problem solve when we feel so distant and disconnected. Yeah. about six second kiss and 30 second hug. Taylor's like, I know what we're doing. All right. Let me get my stop watch out.

Oh, well. And as you do it then, even notice just what changes a little bit in your body as you continue to do it. Because you likely did it. Most couples, if kissing is something that is safe and feels good for people, that is something that sparked things. And where we lose our excitement and our desire and our relationship is by doing the same thing over and over again. So when I see people for sexual difficulties, I'll say, tell me how this goes for you. And it's this same pattern. Well, we might kiss for a moment here.

And then I do this and he does that. And then we have intercourse for two to seven minutes and then we're done. And so then I ask, and is this a six? exciting? Does it feel good? Does it bring pleasure? Like, are you excited to go into that? And many people will say, no, it's so routine and it's mundane. And we lose that sense of exploration and curiosity within ourselves and each other. Yeah. So, yeah, it's about breaking the routine. Go in for that kiss a little bit longer. Okay. Noted. Noted. I want to lastly end on something that we can't relate to, You are a parent, and we have a lot of friends that are parents, but...

It could be in our future. It will be in our future. Okay. My parents would actually kill me if you said that it will be. You let me. My parents are ready to be grandparents. I'm an only child, and they are like, we got engaged in the card my parents gave us. My dad just wrote, grandchildren, heart dad.

That's literally all he wrote. Yeah, that was with engagement. He was ready to go. Yeah. They have been anxiously waiting. Mom, Dad, it's coming. I know you're going to listen to this. But what impact on, you know, a married couple's relationship does having kids have? And what advice do you have to just maintaining that connection with one another? Because when all of your focus just shifts to the child, it's very easy, you know, to forget about your partner.

Yeah. I would love for more people to show up with, to me, before having a child. That is my mission, is that I have an online program. I teach you how to communicate. There are all these skills and tools in there. Go do something like that before you have a child. And the reason is because we know from the research, 69% of couples will experience a significant dip in their relationship satisfaction after the birth of their child.

Many of those couples will improve over a year by doing nothing. Many will improve over three years. But also I tend to see that there's this marker around seven years. because your children are dependent on you and they need you and you have shifted all of this focus from each other out into the baby. And that makes sense, right? Biologically, you're supposed to do that. But when we're not prepared for it, how will you signal to me when you are struggling

emotionally, how do you need me to respond to that? What things can we keep in place in our relationship every single day, no matter how tired, and exhausted we are, which could just be that morning turning to each other or pouring the coffee or just the idea of giving each other permission to make mistakes, not get it right, to be messy in that stage. And so the challenge is that, especially in our society, we are so focused on having the detailed labor plan, having the perfectly laid out nursery, who's going to be the one to visit first in the hospital now that things have changed for the regular.

regulations and rules, and then who's coming to our house, right? Yeah. And we don't prepare our relationship. And you can do that work ahead of time. A lot of people will say, I don't know, Dr. Tracy, like, we're not near the point of separation. We don't need to do that work. Yes, you do. You can prepare your relationship.

You can build a foundation with a therapist who's going to help you find those blind spots that maybe you haven't found before, help you learn to enhance your communication so that when you hit those rocky spots, as we all do, then you're going to be prepared to navigate that. So I can remember really clearly, this is across several clients that I've worked with, the question of, in response to them saying, the mental load is all on me. I'm doing this. He doesn't do anything. It's all on me. And I ask, okay, let's first step back. What role did you see your parents play? And what role do you think he saw his parents play? And then what roles are you? you both playing. And they never actually talked about it. But she had fallen into the role just

like her mother. And she said, I didn't want to beat this one. And he had fallen into the role just like his father and in that hetero relationship. But it was that acknowledgement of we've never even talked about who was going to wake up in the middle of the night. What was the kind of white flag signaling? I can't do, I can't do another night right now. I need you to step in all night. I need to like put on the sleep mask, the earplugs and have a night just to sleep because I'm not doing well. But we've got to learn how to have those skills and tools in place before we hit the rocky moments. I love that. That's so important.

I mean, yeah, we say that about just like therapy in general. Yeah, therapy in general that it's so important to like have your toolbox ready for when something breaks. You have the correct tools to fix it. And I mean, the same applies to that. Yeah. Relationships. Yeah, don't wait until you've hit rock bottom and the house is on fire to start figuring things out. Do the homework beforehand.

So you can avoid getting that low. Like, you can, you know, we're all going to have the bumps. Like, but it's how you react to those. And yeah, why not have the tools to be able to deal with it? Yeah. And I think the other piece, too, for parents is that they often spiral in shame that we are more open to talking about mental health difficulties. We're getting there. We're more open to talking about the difficulties in motherhood and parenthood. It's coming. And yet, rarely are people

really talking about the struggles in their relationships. There's a lot of shame behind it. And that really was the reason behind writing my book, because I remember being at the park, resenting my husband for another mental load task landing all on me and I'm with the baby and whatever it was. And we're all talking about whether our kids are sleeping through the night, not the real stuff. And even as a therapist, I remember questioning, am I the only one deeply resenting my husband in this season? And slowly as I started to open up about it. And of course, I knew my clients were experiencing it too. It's so different when it's you and you're stuck inside of it.

Yeah. And other people were experiencing it too, but it wasn't until well after that. And that's challenging because we feel that sense of shame, isolation, and aloneness, which makes the struggle even harder. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll definitely leave a link to your book because I would love to read it. Your book and your podcast. Yes. I'll leave links below. Wow. I'm excited to hug you and kiss you after this. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm going to get my stopwatch ready. Tracy, thank you so much for all of this. I feel like I learned a lot. And I know our lemon drop listeners definitely did too. But thanks for taking the time to chat with us today.

Thank you so much. I'm grateful that I got to be here with both of you and talk about something that I'm so passionate about. Of course. Yes. And we'll leave a link to Tracy's book and her podcast. I'm not your shrink. And I highly recommend you check them out. Yeah.

All right. Tracy, thank you. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much, Dr. Tracy, for coming on The Squeeze. I hope you guys love that episode as much as we did. And we're able to take away some little nuggets from her to help yourself, your relationship, your romantic ones, your friendships, your family relationships. All the relationships encompassed into one. Again, if you guys are not following us, be sure to put the follow button or the subscribe button.

However, you are watching or listening to The Squeeze today. you can email Lautner. Dot the Squeeze Podcasts at gmail.com. What? For any tips, questions, all the things. You guys know what to do. Yeah. We leave all of our social channels down below.

And I hope you guys just have a great rest of your day. Try to implement something that you learned today. Yeah. I think that's a good goal. Yeah. All right. We love you. We'll see you next week.

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