Let’s Talk Love Podcast Season 4 Episode #3 with Lair Torrent | Transcript

08.06.23

This transcript is from the Let’s Talk Love Podcast, available in our Podcast Feed.

Robin Ducharme | Hello and welcome to Let's Talk love. Today I had so much fun speaking with our guest Lair Torrent layer is a clinically trained and licensed marriage and family therapist. Mindfulness is at the foundation of layers work as a therapist and a coach. Today we discuss his awesome book, the practice of love, and dive into his five practices of love. Designed to help us break old patterns, rebuild trust, and create lasting connection. This book is for everyone whether you're in a relationship or not. Lair's practices are practical, doable, and so effective in helping all of us love ourselves and each other better. I hope you enjoy our conversation and learn something new you can apply in your own life. Enjoy.

Welcome to Let's Talk love the podcast that brings you real talk, fresh ideas, and expert insights every week. Our guests are the most trusted voices in love and relationships. And they're here for you with tools, information, and friendly advice to help you expand the ways you love, relate and communicate. We tackle the big questions not shying away from the complex, the messy, the awkward and the joyful parts of relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme. Now, let's talk love.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Let's Talk Love. I am excited to have this conversation with somebody who I've been following. I've read Lair's book, and been listening to his podcast. I said when I first met him just today, I was like, I feel like I know you, buddy. But we're just waiting for the first time on Riverside. But I really am so happy to have Lair Torrent join us for this hour. Thank you Lair.

Lair Torrent | Thanks so much for having me. I've been waiting for this one. This one's I'm excited. I'm excited to be here.

Robin Ducharme | Well, I'm excited too. I read your book, The Practice of Love, I'm gonna hold it up for those of you that are watching this on YouTube. Look at this beautiful, I love the cover on it.

Lair Torrent | I have product placement, there it is in the background.

Robin Ducharme | There you go, Oh, there it is in the back. There, we really kind of briefly talked about this at the beginning, when we are introducing each other, you're introducing ourselves. And I do read a book a week and I interview a new expert every week. And I have to say like your book definitely stands out as one that I'm going to turn back to. And I've been implementing the practices the five practices of love, because love is a practice. That's what you teach. That's that's the therapy that you provide. And one, one of the biggest insights, if we're going to dive into all of it was for me, which I'm still Oh, boy, I'm feeling like I got a lot of work ahead of me. But you're you say that couples develop a deeper understanding of the wounds that brought them together. That's what you do, and how they show up in their relationships. That's what you help people do. So I was like, Whoa, like, this is not just like this is about the wounds that you're carrying. And I get it like I'm you know, we're learning this as a community, your community, my community aren't like, together we are consciousness is raising about relationships, and how so much more about ourselves. So that we can be better in relationship. But when you you really dive into it in a way that's easy to understand, it's not easy to implement. But I understand it. But I think that's where I want to go with this. I just want to learn more about it. And also, but first let's just talk about yourself talk about you. And I just want to know how you got into becoming therapist, a marriage and family therapist. And then you also have a very unique skill set where you took four years of training with the helix Institute. Yeah, so I'd love to hear more about that too. Because that's very different than a lot of marriage and family therapists out there.

Lair Torrent | Yeah, yeah. So I was an actor in New York City. And yeah, I've been doing I've been doing you know, doing pretty well. And I remember I was sitting on the set of Law and Order. And I, I was in my trailer, and I was just coming from hair and makeup and I was feeling really important. I had just done a, a pilot with Kyra Sedgwick and Beverly D'Angelo, and I was getting ready to do an Off Broadway play and so you know, I was feeling my oats and then almost audibly in my ear now audibly it's a little bit of an exaggeration otherwise we'd have other issues. I this sense came over me this understanding that was essentially like you can continue doing this and beat your head against the wall. But this is not what you're here to do. You're here to do something different and you know what it is? And I had been reading Barbara Shares book Witchcraft, so that will book but I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it and She said in that book, she said, if you want to know what you really into what you're really passionate about, take one look at your take one look at your bookshelf. And on my bookshelf, there were about five or six books on acting, and about 50 or 60 books on the brain on self help on therapy. So, you know, it was pretty clear to me if the voice wasn't enough that I needed to head in another direction. And my then girlfriend, now wife at the time, she'd found this pamphlet for the Helix Training Program. And so we both went and looked at it made sure it wasn't a cult, which it wasn't. But it was a four year very rigorous training program founded by five amazing women 1970. And they were really looking to turn psychotherapy on its head and off, like there are different modalities out there in the world that are really effective beyond the Western clinical modes. And so I dove in face first into that. And, you know, I say that the Helix Training Program kind of turned out jet eyes. And really strong therapists that can come from, you know, they meet the client where they are in their cosmology and their belief systems. And Helix was not a licensure program was a certification was it was an ordination, really. And I really wanted to get my, my license, because I knew that in our, in our country, it was going to be a real game changer for me, it would get a few letters after your name, and you're probably going to be able to do a little bit more. And that's turned out to be the case. So I went to Mercy College, where I studied under Dr. Evan, Ember, Black, who if anybody knows who she is, she's a preeminent Marriage and Family Therapist, perhaps in the world. She won the Pen Award. She's an amazing, amazing clinician, and I got to study under her, which is pretty great.

Robin | Wow. Well, you know, funny I, I did like, I know you were an actor, I forgot about that. But you know what, it's really, really relevant to listening to your book as well, because I listened. I listened to it, as well as read it. And you are so great at personating your clients. Like the voicings and the intonation, and like, back and forth in the office, I don't know if

Lair | I'm not going to lie to you, I got the acting chops back out. I did. Yeah. I had to audition for the part.

Robin | See, you know, I know that but you know, the thing about this is like, I really truly believe and I'm sure you have the same belief is like, you know, all of our, we think you're in the wrong, oh, I'm in the wrong place. I have to, you know, your soul, your hearts telling you, okay, I need to transition here. And it's like, and that voice is just going to get louder and louder until you listen, or like you said, you're gonna beat your head against the wall, but your acting skills, and all of that time you spent honing that those gifts, are you you're transitioning that into your work you're doing now so it's all one, it's all on purpose.

Lair | It's all coming together. Yeah, yeah.

Robin | So in your practice, you've worked with hundreds of couples. And you say that couples therapy, there's like these gaps that you noticed, right? Which is why you you implemented your practices that you helped clients with. And you wrote your book. So tell us about that. Like what led you to write your book and develop these five practices?

Lair | Yeah. So you know, they, they run you through grad school and throw you into a internship, I happen to get a pretty good one. And so I was using all of the tools that I learned, you know, and so I was using the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I was using the nonviolent communication techniques, the I statements were flying around, and my couples were really excited. I did I told the, my intern coordinator, I said, I want to work with couples. And she said, we ain't working with couples. So we're gonna give you all of them are like, great, yeah, I need to get my hours. And so I was doing great. I was killing it with my couples. People were leaving my office, shaking my hand, somewhere hugging me. And I like to say before they got to the elevator banks in my building, it was all going off the rails. Right, and they were coming back in dejected, they were coming back and frustrated, I was frustrated for them. I felt like I was really failing my clients. And so I went to my colleagues, I went to my peers, I went to my teachers, supervisors and said, You know, I'm having this issue. And to a person, they all said the same thing, some version of Welcome to couples therapy, the idea being that, you know, that your success rate is probably going to fall somewhere in line with the success rate of couples therapy with, you know, and in general, which is my guess, you know, somewhere near the divorce rate. And so I didn't like that answer. And so I went to the venerable Dr. Evan, Ember black, right and had this this woman in my back pocket, she was my supervisor, my mentor, and I went to her office, and I told her about my experience, and she said, welcome to couples therapy. And I said, I said, Evan, I said, there that that can't be your answer. You've been on Oprah for God's sakes. And she's I've been on Oprah twice. And I said, exactly. So you can't give me that answer. And then she sort of offhandedly said, Well, if you don't like it, then go create something of your own. And I was like, you can do that. And she said, yeah, not to this day, I don't think she thought I would do it. But she had done it. And I thought, well, maybe I can, too. And so I went out and started thumbing through all of the things that I really enjoyed, I thought really did work. And found aspects that I thought would kind of like fill in the pieces that were missing in our western modes. And so I ended up with a real eclectic blend of Eastern philosophy and Western clinical modalities. And that's what we find in the book. And that's what I use every day in my practice, and quite frankly, it's what I use in my relationship with 22 years.

Robin | Yes. And one thing that I did want to point out is that this book is for everyone. This is not mean, this is not just for couples, because the practices are for all of our relationships, doesn't mean romantic, or I was you know, you a podcast that you were you talk about the episode you talk about where you can, you can use these, of course, these skills with your children of like, mindfulness. This is this is every day getting into the present. I was doing this. This morning, I was preparing No, just thinking about the day and then you about meeting you. And I'm doing my makeup. And I'm like, my mind is racing a million directions, the stories that it's telling and like we do, right, it's like, we're on this hamster wheel of thoughts that you think you're controlling them, but you're really not. And I was like, okay, Robin, you're guided practice your mindfulness. So I did. For the next 10 minutes, I was mindful of every stroke into the, you know, into the eyeshadow and like realistically being very mindful. And I'm, and it's like, this piece comes over you. So can we talk about? Can you just go through the five principles? And then we can we can go a little bit more detail.

Lair | Yeah, sure. So I'll tell you what they are. And I'll give you a brief synopsis of each. If that works. Yes, please, that'd be great. So the the five practices are mindfulness, parts of self, the narrative, choosing, and then personal responsibility. And so the reason I chose mindfulness is for free for a few reasons. One, the de escalation aspect that you experienced, as you sort of found yourself kind of calming down. What mindfulness really does for us is, it gets us out of our knee jerk responses, and gets us out of looking across the table at our partners and everybody else, and what they're doing gets us focusing on ourselves, what am I thinking, what am I feeling, that puts us in a real place of power, right, because you can't necessarily choose the feelings that come up. But you can choose how you react to them, the things you do and the things you say, if you're practicing mindfully. Now, it was also not lost on me that in order to unboard, any new practice any new habit, we have to recognize the habit we want to get rid of. And we have to recognize that we have to be able to mindfully use the skill we want to add now mindfulness turns off autopilot, makes us makes us really, really healthy. And all kinds of great ways. Now, it does not require us to sit on a meditation cushion cushion for an inordinate amount of time.

Robin | And you you do talk about that, right there. You do that? Can we talk more about that? Because you there's an example that you give a gentleman in your office that comes in and he's like, Oh, I'm totally mindful. Like it's part of my daily practice. I meditate morning I meditate at night. And turns out the guy's like, in anger management for like, the road like road rage or something, right?

Lair | Yeah for road rage. Yeah.

Robin | So there's a difference for you, between being mindful and meditation. Because mindfulness can be practiced at anytime. It's not like like you said, it doesn't have to doesn't require it's stillness of the mind. But does it require you to be still?

Lair | No, no Ellen Langer at a park Langer out of I always mispronounce her last name. She has written anywhere from 22 papers and 11 books to date. She was studying mindfulness all the way back in the 70s when everyone thought she was nuts, you know, and she said, all you have to do is pay attention. She made it really, really simple. She's like with your partner, go home. And notice four or five new things about your partner. I thought that was revelatory. Can you imagine if we all did that? Right. The different things that would Yeah, yeah. So she made

Robin | that makes me think like you like what was I just makes me think right now like i the detail, but I could think I was like, What is my husband wearing this morning? I'm like, Well, I know it was a t shirt, but I don't know which ones so that's like something that I could use pick up on and be right that's a detail that I was not mindful of this morning

Lair | with familiarity in a relationship over the course of long term that's a that's a problem for us. I've seen you I know what you look like Yes, but what would happen if you stopped and you notice your wife's eyes for a moment? If you notice your partner's amazing smile? If you know if you're if you were ever if you were able to reinvigorate those things that made you want to win that person's heart. Can you imagine that's the power of mindfulness when you stop and you take them in. I also offer attunement, right which is mindfulness. says little known cousin which has stopped push pause not only notice what's going on for you, but attune energetically with what's happening with your partner, watch what they're going through and say, Hey, are you okay? What's going on with you? And suddenly they feel seen, they can feel perhaps understood a little bit way in a way that perhaps they haven't before. Suddenly, you're present. And it's an amazingly powerful practice. The problem with mindfulness is, it's really easy for kids to do it. Secondly, it's getting so much AirPlay these days that people feel like they know what it is. And it's sort of like, oh, yeah, mindfulness now. But when you really do what you're doing, diving into that practice, and seeing what it can bring to you, man, there's a ton of stuff there for you.

Robin | Yes, and I did want to ask that question of you. Because you have been practicing this for so long, like you say, in the morning, you wake up and you, you go into the woods, and you'd actually go different directions, and you go on your walks, right. And it's your mindful practice. Yes. So like any skill, like you said, our brains have to we have to form a habit. So it takes six weeks, scientifically proven that to form a new habit. So you've been practicing for years and years. So let me ask you, because because you are so practiced, it becomes easier, right? Like right now I'm not I'm not practiced. Yeah. So I think you're creating new pathways in the brain. And your amygdala is like those things. Yeah.

Lair | Yeah. But I think I think you know, it's your human being. And so you're still subject to all the the nicks and dings that you've that you've occurred throughout your life that wounds what mindfulness for me, does it just, I noticed when I'm feeling bad, quicker, and I'm less likely to be reactive through it. And does it makes me a better partner? Sure. But it makes me a better parent, it makes me a certainly a better therapist. Because I mean, I'm lucky I get to sit for six to eight hours on a given day, and I have to be mindful, I have to be present, I have to be aware of what's coming up in me, because it's not about me. And it's about the client. And so that's really helpful in that regard, too.

Robin | Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so practice number two, this one was like, mind blowing hearts. Actually, it's so it's so actually makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, I know, I didn't even think about it this way.

Lair | It was crazy when I found it, right. So but there's, you know, because it came up on my exam, as sort of an honorable mention, because Dick Schwartz had created IFS internal family systems theory, and I read it, and I was like, that's pretty cool. And so I started researching it, it's like, Come to find out, there's some version of parts work or parts theory, in almost all versions of therapy. Now, you know, really turning it towards couples, it's like, people say, to me, and the boilerplate reason for a couple to come in to therapy is we're having communication problems. And this is where I say, No, you don't, and they get a little frustrated. Right? I'm like, you don't know I got Blair. I've been there. I know, I've been to the house. I know, we can't communicate, we can't, I said, No, you communicated that to me just fine. You have full articulation of the English language, what you have is a parts problem. And they're like, you know, they, they suddenly look like a dog who sort of funny noise. And, and I say, ya know, the part of you that showing up is incapable of doing the thing that you're trying to do, which is have a loving and connective, compassionate, empathetic conversation with your partner. Now, we have to find the part that can there's a reason why you're coming in here. It's probably because you and your partner have had these protective aspects of self trying to have these conversations now. You know, this is what happened me I would I would give my my clients in the beginning, I would give them the I statements. You know, what I think I heard you say and what I got from that was, and it'd be great in session. When I'm there refereeing and they're all on their good behavior. They would go home, triggered into their baser parts, their wounding, and their protective aspects. And they would try it. Let's talk to let's talk to each other, like the therapist taught taught us to write. So what I think I heard you say, turns into, what the hell did you just say to me very, very quickly, and they were weaponizing. The, the technique. And so it dawned on me that Oh, you're in the wrong compartment. So I looked started looking at the work of Robert Kurzban. He's an evolutionary psychologist who talks a lot about compartmentalization of the mind. And we throw that word compartmentalization around kind of willy nilly, it's a real deal. It's a big deal. If you are in a particular part of you in a particular compartment of your brain, you will see the world through that and everyone in it through that part. And if it's a protector part, you will see every one as a reason to have to protect yourself. And so the the example I give is, you know, imagine your cell phone and all of the apps on there, those are like your parts, you can choose those those apps depending on the job you want to do. And so if you're in your Instagram, the question I ask is, can you send an email? And of course the answer is I can't because Instagram does not, doesn't give us that skill that tool in there. Neither do your protector part. give you the tool of connection, they are designed to create distance. That's what they do. And so the first thing we need to do if we're going to have good solid communication, is find out who's showing up to the conversation, right? And switch that out. Otherwise, we're putting the cart before the horse. And we've been doing that for years and psychotherapy, asking clients to use these various techniques with the wrong part in place. It doesn't work.

Robin | Yes. So you know, this is you say that we have different, like, we have different sides of our personality, right? We all do. So you get the example of this high powered finance guy, who is like, you know, he's a bulldog in the boardroom. And then he comes home, like, that's, that's who he's playing, he's playing any, and that's probably the right place for him to be if he's in a cutthroat business like that, for example. And culture comes home and he's like Mr. Softee pants, and with his kids and with his wife. And he's like, I never thought of it that way. But that's true. And if I acted like that, with the way I get nerdy with my kids, and in my job, I wouldn't be where I'm at.

Lair | Well, look, I have it, I had had a ton of people in my Men's anger management program that did exactly that. They brought the board guy home to the brother, the guy in the boardroom, home to their partner, and that didn't go well.

Robin | So yeah. Okay, so there's the there's the different parts that we all have. Right? So you explain it, we don't have a lot of time to go through every single one. But this makes sense, right? We've got our wounded child, which is like the youngest part of us, that we all

Lair | we may have several of them. Right? We may have several of them. Yeah, yeah, there can be set depending on do you know, complex trauma, there's going to be a number of them and you're probably going to get through this work begin to discover many wounding wounded parts, even know where they're of all ages. I tried to make it really simple because as I said, in the book, I don't want to give you a graduate school degree and parts work. I want to give you a user friendly understanding of them, so you can work with it. And so the parts to remember are the Wounded Child, and who shows up to protect the Wounded Child. The protective order, how do you fight? Are you a fighter? Are you a fleer? Are you a freezer? Or do you use your inner critic, right? Because we all have that inner critic within us. And so just remembering these parts gives us a really good working knowledge now, IFS gives us firemen, managers, all that's really interesting and can be helpful. Often it can get pretty confusing, especially in the beginning. And so this is what I offer in my book, a very quick user friendly understanding of like, your protector parts, the Wounded Child aspects that show up. Yeah.

Robin | And ideally, what we want to get into is our wise self. That's our adult self. Yeah, right. But maybe, maybe not adult self maybe. Terry Real says adult but it maybe it's the wise adult.

Lair | Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and then, you know, we started my wife and asked questions, was it serious? Is this your soul? Or is this your Why sell what? You know, that's a whole nother conversation, right? Oh, yeah. But when when you do this work, and those in you, you become mindful and aware of the parts of you that are showing up and you start doing it in a roll call, what ends up happening through that very old Buddhist practice of naming, when you name something, you cease to be over coupled with that thing, these parts start arraying around you. And the wise self automatically takes the seat of consciousness, which is kind of interesting, right? There's the that y self is our most Zen part. And it's sort of like, Hey, you can have whatever experience you want. If you want to go through this through the Wounded Child, find we're going to learn something, you want to do it through your protective part of soap, great, we're going to learn something there to bring it all on. But if you want me to come forward, this is something you'd have to meditatively stop, push, pause, take that inner roll call and watch as that why self comes forward. It's pretty amazing.

Robin | I just I love this Lair. I swear I've been implementing these practices. Like yesterday, my husband, I had couples therapy. And before the session, I was getting kind of nervous. I'm like, okay, Robin, you are gonna put your like actions where you're, you know, I've got the skills, I've got the knowledge, I'm gonna do this right. So I was like, seriously all day butterflies and I'm like Robin, your, your wise self, okay, like if the defender comes out, or the route itself when a child comes out, like you're gonna be here you're gonna be and that's where the, that's where the mindful practice comes in. Because I was being I was trying to be the most mindful possible, and be the observer. Of my experience, right? So babies are all overlapping. They're all that's why it's important to integrate the five.

Lair | It is but notice what you didn't do in that moment. You didn't point any fingers at him. I didn't. Really well. That was that was the unforeseen boon that I got when I started going. Oh, look at this. All of this is pointing back at the cell phone back at you. The only thing we have can have control over and all the other practices do exactly the same thing?

Robin | Yes, they do. Okay, so those people that are listening that are dating, because we have a lot of people, of course, there are listeners that aren't they're not with a couple, and they're not at a partnership, but they want to be in their dating. How can they practice this? For instance, mindfulness, dating apps and like, in your conversations and with? Yeah, and the laws of attraction, and like you talk a little bit about that in your book, too. So I just wanted to kind of like, talk to that group of people that are looking for love and want to do this.

Lair | Yeah. So they're there. For in my experience, it's all very applicable if you're dating and trying to date trying to find that part because, or that partner, because what you're what I'm doing with my couples is, is I'm not working on, you know, the old diagram of of couples therapy is like, your you are not my client, you're partners on my client, your relationship is my client. And really, what I say is no, you are my client, and so are you. I'm trying to get you guys showing up in the best versions of yourselves, right, by being more mindful, looking at your part, looking at your narrative, looking at how you're loving and able to love and then taking responsibility for all of that. Now, with respect to the dating apps, it's like same things like, are you mindful and aware of how you're showing up? What part of you is showing up to dating, that's part. So when you when you talk about law of attraction, it's about being the thing, being the thing that you want to create, right, your, your training, you being the person that would have that. And so rather than chase, the thing that will ultimately run away from you, when you when you begin to be the version of yourself, that would be in a loving, connected relationship, you begin to attract that thing. Rather than chase it anything we chase tends to run. And so we plant our feet. Who am I and the singularly the most? The most powerful question we can ask in any area of our lives, is Who am I, in reflection of this thing? And who do I want to be? Two hours, two days, two months, two years from now? How do we want to be able to talk about this experience. And so we can throw dating into that pool too. And I'm convinced that the apps are energy and respond to how you show up. And it also responds to the story that you tell, if you tell a story that apps are a pain in the ass, and they don't work and percentages, this that, you know what, that's what you're going to get. And so I think it's really important when you're looking at the apps and you're looking at dating, that you begin to look at the party that shows up and also look at the story that you're telling about dating and also about you as a person. Because you know, the people I'm working with who are single, we have to start remembering and telling a story about how you have this amazing life that you're that you're built that you've built, or our building, and you have a ton to share, and that we begin coming from an abundance perspective and not a deficit perspective.

Robin | I love that. That's something that I when I got, I met my husband online. And that was my profile was not about him. It wasn't about anybody else. It was about me. And this is what I have to offer. This is what I want and love that. What hopefully if you don't fit don't don't contact me because this is

Lair | That's it. That's it. Exactly.

Robin | Yeah. Don't because I have a lot to offer. Yeah. Yep. Right that. And that's what you're saying. You're talking the story you're telling. And that's your third practice is the narrative,

Lair | the narrative, the story that we tell? It's so important, right? Oh, boy. Our thoughts? Feelings become thoughts.

Robin | Yep. So I have a quote of yours that I wanted to share, you say, part of getting to know yourself is to annoy yourself, to let go of the limiting stories, you've told yourself about who you are. So you aren't trapped by them. So you can live your life and not the story you've been telling about your life. So that would be like a personal narrative that we have about ourselves that, you know, are so many of our beliefs aren't true. Right? As much as we can stick to our beliefs and be like, That's what I believe? Well, it's like I have, I'm like, I'm a different person belief wise than it was, you know, 10 years ago, let's just say, right, because you just experienced, but my values and my values. Maybe they've changed too. But when you're talking about a narrative when it comes to couples, do you share a lot of good stories in your book layer about how narratives can really damage the relationship, and especially long standing narratives that get tear apart? So can you give us just more about that?

Lair | Sure. So you'll notice, you know, in the I knew in my book, I didn't I get annoyed when I would read therapy books on couples, especially in school and it would be like and then I did this amazing thing and everyone was saved and look at me. I'm an awesome therapist. I hated that because that's not how it works. Right. There's a lot of Tina a lot of falter a lot of a lot of missteps. A lot of times it doesn't work out and So I needed to include a cautionary tale. The likely candidate for the cautionary tale in my book was the narrative because so many people fall prey to it. You know, they, they, they, they come way too late, the narratives concretize, those thoughts that you've, you know, were just sort of lingering in the back of your head, you've practiced those over and over again on a daily basis. Those thoughts became feelings, those feelings become thoughts, it's Eckhart Tolle said, the brain tells a story the body believes. And pretty soon, those narratives concretize into belief systems, this is just who you are, this is just how I see you now, it becomes really, really difficult to untangle those narratives and those stories, because we're having on average, anywhere from 30 to 40,000. Thoughts on any given day. It's like trying to catch wind in your hand. Right? And so the narrative looms is a very, very important aspect in couples work, but affects us on every level, including physically. And so it's, it's certainly one that I really dig into with couples to help them to, you know, deconstruct narratives that they've created, and reform more accurate, healthy loving narratives.

Robin | And sharing your narratives with your partner. That's hard. Yeah.

Lair | Careful with that one.

Robin | No, but this is what you challenge some of your clients to do, right? It's like, where did this all start? Where did this narrative begin? And you do, I don't mean that literally, like, I'm not gonna sit around be like this is because my thought about you, because that's, that's very damaging to your partner. But you do share that story about how you're working with Jeff and Tanya. Right? And how ever since their son was born, the relationship changed, which does happen when babies are born. And so it's so incredibly taxing on relationships, but she created a story about him. And he created a story about her and you know, just really that, like you said that narrative concretized. And if they if they once they shared those stories, they were able to see each other's perspective. But yours had gone past. Yeah. And so it was like that belief, those beliefs were so entrenched, that they couldn't change their minds about each other. Even if they understood it intellectually, like, okay, yeah, it was, how it played out for you. And this is how it played out for me.

Lair | Yeah, and it's, it's it really it's a, it's a tragedy, too, because there was a lot, there's a lot of good in that couple that could have been salvaged. Had they come earlier? Yes, but they just, you know, the thing I like to say to people is, look, narrative work is really just mental rehearsal, right. And so, people will use mental rehearsal in all areas of life that they want to do better. And think about athletes think about performers, they will think about their routine on stage, they'll think about the game they're playing on the field or on the ice. And that will help them do better because the brain doesn't know the difference between the body and the brain, by and large, don't know the difference between an internal experience and an external experience. Well, it made sense to me that if that's true to the positive when you're using mental rehearsal, and essentially narrative work around these performance based things, that if couples are doubling down on the daily a negative narratives, what they're doing is they're mentally rehearsing to fall out of love. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, that landed right in my face. I was like, oh, boy, that's a big one. Right? That we have to watch that because we are mentally rehearsing to fall out of love, even though and I, you know, I had to catch myself doing I had done it in relationships in the past before I had met my wife. And I recognize I didn't want to do that to her. And so when every time I saw or heard of a narrative coming up, and we think no big deal, I have a lot of thoughts. No one can hear about me. I would stop myself mindfully of go nope, no, that's not fair. That's not loving. If there's something to talk about, talk about it. But don't sit here and build a narrative behind closed doors and a story about her. That's only maybe partially true and then suddenly have this belief system about her that doesn't turn you on anymore. Doesn't feel connective doesn't feel loving. And that's where the narrative can go. And that's where it went with Jeff and Tanya.

Robin | Wow. So in your you teach different ways to change the narrative, like you said, stopping that thought, right. I love how you share in your book about how you have a family culture like thank yous, the littlest even with your wife, right? And I do this I've been doing this too, for for a while. It's like Terry Cole talks about like, our appreciation rituals, and it's like, the littlest thing it's like, and it's not little because little things matter. Like thank you for making the bed. You didn't like I didn't make the bed you made it. Thank you. Thank you for my husband puts my coffee cup under the machine because I drink my coffee after him and it's like ready to go? How can does that thank you very much.

Lair | What does it say? So that cup that what does that do to you? Yeah, right. Like it means it's a little thing but I was thinking about you and you weren't here. Right. I was thinking about you. Robin, when you weren't here that matters. That place.

Robin | It sure does. Yeah. And it's just saying thank you for every little thing because you're not doing right. Oh, it's funny because Terry Cole says that she's like, I don't have an assistant. He's not my system. So it's not like, like, I'm not paying him to take that with the garbage. So when he does it, and I didn't have to do it, I think and, she's like, it's a very simple, but it's true. How hard is that? Right? No, it's not hard. And of course, gratitude rituals. Right? You have gratitude, you rituals that you have yourself that are, yeah, so it's just being thankful. You're being thankful out loud, as well as grateful.

Lair | Changes the story. Yes. Yep.

Robin | Okay, so practice for us is choosing this was really this was great, because you actually talk about there's a difference between choosing and law of attraction. Sorry, love languages. Yep. It goes deeper than love languages does. So, let's talk about choosing.

Lair | Yeah. So when I talk about choosing, and I wrote an article years ago for Elephant Journal, and I think it was called, you gotta want to do the dishes. And it really was just about the little things like, you know, a cup of coffee made just the way she likes it or a cup of coffee under the neath the machine, I left that for you. It's a bed made. Not because you like making the bed because you know that he or she, they like the bed made. It's those little things that make you feel picked, loved and chosen. And so people immediately will say, Oh, you mean love languages? Yeah. Okay, sure. And I feel like, you know, there's something to that it was it? Let's face it, who wouldn't want to have written that book, right, and sold a lot of copies. And it certainly spoke. It's something for people who read that, but to a person. In my practice, a lot of people have read that book. And so when they come in, I'll say, Okay, well, which ones are yours? I think I'm a one, four, I think we should get them back out. Right? Right. Right. For me, that really scratched the surface. And Sue Johnson and her book hold me tight. And that's really what choosing is based on his Emotionally Focused Therapy by and large, and a lot of her work. She said, look, the therapists and the clients that they serve are often only willing to go to the waterline on what's actually going on. And I thought that was like, that's true. And so I made it a point. And for me, in my practice, I'm not going to referee who said what to who had dinner last night. What time someone knows, things are marginally important. And when we dive below that waterline, Sue Johnson was talking about as a what's under there. And for me, it was like, Okay, well, what are we? What are we really fighting? Not about, but what are we fighting for? That seemed like an important question to me, what are we fighting for in this? And so I also studied Carl Rogers, and you know, he's one of the first maybe the first humanist therapists that came along turned a lot of what Jung and Freud were doing on its head and said that the client really does matter. And they come through your door looking for something that come through through your door looking for unconditional positive regard. Not I love that term. And as it what is that? And so I started parsing that out doing a lot of research. And what I came to understand for me and my work is that it what we're fighting for, and what unconditional we're looking for unconditional positive regard. That's what we're fighting for. But what is it? It's, am I loved? Am I safe? Am I enough? And do I matter? Most of our experiences fall under those, those those four wounds, those four pieces. And if you could find a fifth, I'm happy to entertain it, but I've looked and I've asked and I don't think there is one. Most things fall and most experiences fall into that that makes you feel like you are not loved. Like you're not safe. Like you weren't like you weren't enough, or you don't matter. This is what our love languages are attached to. So our love languages are important. And they're fun. And they and they're a salve, right, it makes us feel better. But it doesn't actually speak to the wound. And that's what we've come here to really fight for and fight about. That's we're fighting about on the surface, we come to fight for underneath the surface. And so if you're fighting over where to eat dinner tonight, or what to do with the money, or how to parent, the kids, we are fighting for one or some of those. And when couples can figure out which ones they're they're fighting for. Now we're cooking with gas, because we don't want to stand on the surface and go over the nonsense anymore. Because what I see you I see a little kid, I see you see my wife who didn't feel safe in her own home. And that's something that I have to take into consideration all of the time. Right that when I when I figured that out about her and I tell that story in the book of reading Steven Johnson's book on character styles, it's a thick one, you can get through it great. I'll blow your hair back. But I was like I got the teachers in addition to my relationship and I figured out her character style was she never felt safe in the world. And so part of my job was to hold the container of safety right Wow, that was revelatory.

Robin | It really, really is.

Lair | The compassion that is engendered within us. When we see it, we don't see our partner fighting with us anyway, through anymore through their, through their protector parts, we sort of look behind the protective part. And I see this, this little wounded girl, right, and our kids, it just never felt safe. And when I see her that way, man,

Robin | You're able that just that is beautiful, you're able to help with her healing. You're loving her the way that she needs to be loved. That's so beautiful. So what's the big? The big question is like, that is a big question. Are you going to and are you able to love me the way that I need to be loved? That to me was like, what if somebody? What if somebody is just, okay, you're doing all the work? You are, you know, but you're with somebody that's just not there does not? Maybe not able or willing to go there? That's really, you don't want your practice? Or they don't have to? Yeah, yeah,

Lair | We need someone who's willing. They're not there to fix us. And this is important, because some people will say, well, doesn't this dovetail into codependence? And they'll say, Nope, no, it doesn't go anywhere near there. Because you're not, you're not there to fix it. You're there to hold space for it. And you're there to recognize it, you're there to validate it and to make them feel seen and understood in a way that they've never been felt seen or understood before in their lives. And that in and of itself, just that gaze, just that validation is healing in its way.

Robin | Yeah. So number five, which is that so you came up with the last one, because you're like, Okay, we're definitely missing something here. There has to be one more piece, which is so important. Like, thinking about this man, like this one isn't given it has to be there. Otherwise, it's a disaster.

Lair | Well, it's not. Right. Yeah. And I don't put it on the front of the website, because no one would come. Right? No, one wants to do this.

Robin | It's not my fault.

Lair | Nope, I want to blame you.

Robin | And quite simply, it's owning your own shit.

Lair | That's exactly right. And you should own it. And to fits, that's twofold. One, take responsibility for your mindfulness, for your parts for your narrative for your choosing of your partner, and you will be cooking with gas now. It also dovetails into owning your shit means everything you say, and everything you do. Right? Yeah. And so this is where people get a little like, Hey, man, you're asking me to be permissive. You're asking me to apologize for things that I don't want to. That's not actually what I'm doing. I'm asking you to take not not give up crown in your relationship, but take the higher ground the ground of emotional intelligence, and to be able to see that like, you know, my partner has said that I've done something. Let's say they said, I said something last night that embarrassed him and hurt their feelings. My intention was no, of course not to do that. But it happened anyway. Right? This is where people fight. This is where they spin the wheels is where the love embargo comes in. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. It's like a Wimbledon match in your office.

Robin | It wasn't my intention.

Lair | I mean, you hear that? We fight for our and yeah, we fight for the intention. Instead of saying, I hear that I hurt you. We talked about my intention. And I just want to say that I'm really sorry for anything that I said, embarrassed you, or made you feel that way I have to let you know that. And you can follow it up with certainly was never my intention. But if we dig into our intent, and I'm not a person who would do that to you, we're never going to find resolve and they're never going to feel validated. They're never going to feel seen. And so not asking you to admit to something that you think you did not do. But know the difference between your intention and the fact that you are capable of hurting people's feelings, even when you didn't mean to. That's right. And we can all be shit sometimes. Yes, yeah. Sometimes, like we all make mistakes,

Robin | and you're just like, oh, you said the wrong thing. I was it shouldn't mean that. Right? Yeah, we

Lair | We were walking on the beach the other day. And she was like, you know, you're being kind of shit right now. And I was and I was like, I stopped. I push pause. I looked at the part of you that was present. And I was like, she's right. And I turned to her. I said, You're right. I shouldn't I should not have said that to you. That was that was out of line. And I was wrong. And it was done. And she's like, thank you so much. And she she added, of course for practicing the thing you wrote a book about but okay, yeah, yeah.

Robin | Yeah. You say when we argue for our intentions, we make the other person feel like they have no right to feel the way they do. Which is like, that's just the opposite of what you want. You want to be able to value and that's how validation is so important, right? validating their experience.

Lair | Well, look, they're already having the feeling you're trying to argue or your argue them out of the feeling that they're already having tell me how pissed off they're going to be about that. They're going to double down. They're going to double down on no one having this experience and you can't take it from me. And by the way, you're now falling into the category of people who just don't Understand me? Do you really want to go down that path?

Robin | Right? Oh my gosh, well, I just, I just so love the work you're doing and you're just such a, like, easy guy to talk to and listen to and learn from. And I want everybody to read your book i There's full of skills and exercises that people can practice and just ways to say things. And I just, I have, so I, you have, I'm going to quote you, and then I'm going to close our episode with a blessing. Okay, so you say love requires curiosit. It sure does. It requires curiosity but another's pain. But what they did not get in their upbringing about their core question, loving in this way, invite selflessness, grace and benevolence. Think that's so beautiful. May we be curious about those we're in relationship with me. We take personal responsibility for our own stuff, and be mindful in all areas of life. And may we be conduits of love, grace and benevolence for each other?

Robin | I love that. Thank you. Thank you so much Lair.

Lair | Yeah, it was fun.

Robin | Everybody read this book. It's so good to practice. I loved it. And I loved our discussion.

Lair | Me too. Thanks for having me.

Robin | Please visit realloveready.com To become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At real love ready podcast@gmail.com. We read everything you sent. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready, acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, and stewards of the land on which we work in play, and encourage everyone listening. Take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.

Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Maia Anstey