Hello everyone and welcome to the Awaken Together podcast.
I'm Jen and I'm Kat.
And today we are going to talk about the power of words and communication.
We have our therapy notebooks out and we are ready to go deep into talking about all of
this.
And yeah, I think we have some really awesome takeaways that we've learned through our own
personal experience, through going through the work of both individual therapy, couple
therapy and yeah, words are so freaking important.
And I think the way we learn how to say things certain ways can change so much in our life.
So Kat was going to give us a few things that we've talked about in previous episodes that
are definitely applied to what we're going to go over today.
So just to review Kat, you want to give it to us?
Yeah, yeah, I feel like this is really fitting coming from two air signs.
Words, communication, we love it.
We do.
Just wind us up and watch us go.
Yes.
Yeah.
So to take it back from our episode about the healing power of sound, we wanted to start
off by just linking this with the spiritual aspects of communication.
And that is about how your energy, your frequency, your vibration that you put into the air as
you speak words into reality actually has a tangible effect.
So there has been a study done with Dr. Masaru Emoto where he really was able to track that
water responds to emotions.
For example, if you're speaking into a glass of water and you are speaking words of love,
of gratitude, of peace, of saying thank you, just extreme positivity, you'll actually end
up with beautiful snowflake looking crystals that just like look how those emotions feel,
which blows my freaking mind.
And on the flip side, if you are speaking harsh words and feelings into the water, those
molecules are actually going to end up looking more like plankton from SpongeBob, like crazy,
like just mutants really.
So if you Google this, if you look it up, Dr. Masaru Emoto, you will see these photos.
I'm looking at them right now and evil.
You disgust me.
They look like oil splatters.
It's crazy.
And so I think that's really important to kind of start off with because our words do
have a tangible effect, right?
Communication matters and we have learned this so much with our relationships, but we
can all take it back to childhood to really trace back how we learned to communicate in
the first place.
So we'll start with sharing our takes on that.
Jen, do you want to share how you learned to communicate with your family nucleus?
Yes, absolutely.
And yeah, even to comment on that study, like briefly too, is, you know, it's not that we're
not going to have every single array of emotions, but it's so obvious when instead of addressing
the need that's below the pain, we communicate to try to hurt people because the pain can
be so overwhelming to feel for ourselves and it can be so isolating and lonely.
And instead of asking for the help that we need and coming from a place of really what's
going on layers deep, it can be so much easier to be like spiteful and want to, you know,
make someone feel every bit of pain that you can to try to take it off of yourself when
in reality that never really feels good for very long.
So this isn't to say that, you know, you can't have really heavy emotions because I think
we're all going to have every experience of a emotional terrain.
But the difference is the energy that's behind it.
And I think when we learn how to actually recognize why we're trying to say what we're
saying and what's beneath that, which takes a lot of freaking work, we also can then be
putting out the energy that actually matches what we are experiencing.
And I think there is a way to always connect it back to a real place of honesty and truth
and a more loving perspective and angle, even when it's not always like super positive,
there's still just a very big energetic difference.
And yeah, I've said this before in the podcast, but I think the head and the heart are they
meet together at the throat space.
And so our words really help connect the two.
And yeah, it's just super powerful.
So to talk about my upbringing, I have gone into this like so much in therapy and just
a lot of reflection that in my household, no one really talked about their emotional
need.
You would have never heard someone saying like, I'm feeling this way, you know, can
we support each other within this feeling this need?
I think pretty much every single thing was communicated through body language or behavior.
So you would hear someone like slamming the cabinets a little harder, or you'd see someone
go and isolate themselves and close the door, you'd see someone run out of the house.
It was a lot of behaviors that because no one was really saying what they actually were
experiencing and going through that made room for a lot of assumptions.
So I think we all kind of learned how to navigate in an individual way, like how to survive
kind of that household dynamic, how to look out for ourselves and then how to read this
invisible kind of body language terrain to figure out what was going to be easiest to
do to, you know, not have to go into anything hard.
So I definitely tried to nurture a lot of my parents big emotions by being more pleasant,
taking care of myself more, not bringing up or facing a lot of my own emotional needs.
I did a lot of the lag work for them not communicating by just figuring it out and figuring out what
made mom feel the best, what made dad feel the best, when what could I do that would
slow down their behavior and none of that was done through actually sitting down and
talking it out.
It was all done through these like, yeah, reads, which made me very good at scanning
and reading the room all of the time everywhere I go.
But I've also had so many things like come up later in my adult years because of that
habit of not really knowing how to first of all face my own emotional stuff because yeah,
I got really good at making myself have very little needs, you know, convincing myself
I had very little needs.
And yeah, and then really focusing on how to make the person in front of me feel the
most comfortable.
And within that, I think it's been really hard to first of all come back to addressing
my own emotional needs, but also then to not always take up the slack for someone that's
not communicating how they actually feel.
I, I think for a lot of our listeners, there's probably a lot of intuitive and empathic people.
And that is a real gift when it comes to reading energy.
But it's also exhausting to always, you know, do the hard work for people instead of them
figuring out how to use their own voice or state their own need.
You're picking up on this invisible information.
And then, yeah, it just prevents a lot of growth, I think on both ends.
And it's also exhausting for the person who's always trying to do this, this reading of
the other person when they're not really doing it back to you.
I think it can be really isolating and lonely over time, because you realize you're doing
so much to figure out other people, and that's not always being turned back to you.
But that's also because you're not communicating a basic need either.
I think it goes both ways.
It's not one person's fault, but I have had to do a ton of work on this.
Thoughts, Kat?
Yes.
So all of that makes me think about something that I heard a little while ago that blew
my mind.
It feels kind of obvious, but I just never heard it put that way, and it's that empaths
or highly sensitive people are actually created from families just like yours, who don't express
emotion and that it's not a safe place to verbalize that.
And so your energetic field is so hyper tuned to picking up on these tiny little nuances,
which requires a lot of energy.
And that takes a toll on your entire persona.
Yep.
And so becoming an empath, it's a trauma response.
And it's also a superhero, a superpower, right?
Because you're highly attuned, so it is a gift, but it's created from a place of real
hardship for most of us a lot of the time.
Yeah.
And I think it's a gift that would have probably been there.
I know for highly sensitive, they can sense that even in newborn infants, just there's
a predisposition to taking in more information.
But instead of it being used as a gift where you still make space for you, I think it can
very quickly become this trauma response of always looking outside of yourself and picking
up on so many things.
And you can get really disconnected for picking up on what it feels like in your own body.
Absolutely.
And we have a hankering that a bunch of you, our listeners, fit into this box as well,
because there's a link with spirituality and people who are hyper-tuned to the senses and
in psychic abilities, right?
And so a lot of us are created in households like this.
And we are so focused on our healing journeys because we share a lot of the same roots,
right?
And so just wanted to share that because I think we're all in it together.
I do resonate quite a bit with what you shared.
And yeah, so thanks for sharing that.
Yeah.
And I think within some of that too, and we can go into, yeah, some of the stuff we've
dissected in this in therapy.
But I think the biggest thing to review is that even though we could be picking up on
accurate information in ways by just looking at what the person needs and not really making
them have to step up to the plate to talk and actually say what they are feeling, the
biggest thing is that we make a lot of assumptions and those assumptions over time, I think,
can really stack up and it actually can end up painting a pretty incorrect picture.
So I've definitely learned that.
One of my favorite quotes is we make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage
to ask questions.
So I tell myself that whenever I'm afraid and I'm picking up on something and I can
tell in my body, like I so deeply want to know this, but asking questions is scary versus
doing kind of your secret superpower move.
But I've learned that it always ends up giving me more information than what I'm expecting.
And I think it also helps the person who maybe doesn't read as well know what you actually
know about them.
And I have like, you know, this is such an air sign thing as well, but I feel like I
have filing cabinets of people of information on people just from what I have picked up.
But just because I have all of that and it can help me navigate the relationship really
efficiently, the other person might not know how much I've even realized.
And so within that dialogue, it helps both people feel so much more seen and heard and
validated and recognized.
And another component of this that I want to share too, while we're on it is, I think
a huge other part of communication is we have this basic need, right?
This need of, yeah, I'm scared or I'm feeling lonely or I'm feeling unheard and unseen.
There can be a very, very basic need underneath what appears to be way different responses,
right?
So you could be lashing out and screaming at someone when reality underneath that is
an inner child version of yourself that just doesn't feel like anyone's ever actually
hearing them.
So that's why when we go over inner child work, we're looking at what needs weren't
met in our childhood.
What did we continuously not receive?
And how is our actions of how we meet a lot of dynamics and interpersonal relationships
kind of mirroring that?
And so, yeah, I think that's another huge component of it is looking at maybe what you
were lacking because a lot of what you were lacking in your childhood is going to mirror
into a lot of your behaviors.
And this is also why me and Kat love attachment styles, love language, enneagram, all of the
things that kind of point to those, some of our childhood wounds.
And I think knowing your partner's attachment style, love language, enneagram, and knowing
your own can also help kind of be like a guide map for some of that communication too.
A hundred percent.
I so agree.
Yeah.
And to share a little bit about how I developed my communication styles for my childhood.
My mom is anxious avoidant.
She hasn't taken any tests, but it's going to tell these things when you look back and
reflect on just all the things that came up.
And so whenever things are hard to talk about, especially when they involve her or any criticism
that she feels are being taken on her, as she will just change the subject to the point
where it's freaking comical.
Like, I love my mom so much.
We talk every day.
She is a fellow Gemini, like Jen, and literally I call her every morning.
And so we still, we talk all the time.
And if I know how anybody communicates, it's her, the longest relationship in my life.
But yeah, whenever there's something that's faulting her, that is even political, anything
that she just doesn't want to hear, she will just choose to not hear it.
And she will jump into the next category so fast.
And she expects you to just follow her there and not even realize what she just did, this
little mind game of hers.
So it's gotten to the point where I'm like, I know what you are trying to do.
Like I'll call it out, because it's so funny.
I can do that with her.
And then she'll just kind of roll her eyes and be like, oh, she sees me.
Like, damn it, she knows.
My brother picked this up from her too.
So he's similar in that way of just whenever the four of us are together as a family or
Kyle too.
Kyle and I love going deep and having hard conversations and we have a lot of practice
at it, right?
But whenever we're around them, it's kind of funny to see how far we can take things
and how uncomfortable they get.
Because we're fine.
We're cool.
You know, we're chilling.
But they are like, okay, so the weather or like, how about them red socks?
It's just so funny to see.
And then my dad, he is anxious, secure.
I'd say that's kind of how I gather it.
Like he will go there with me much further than my mom or brother.
And I think it's because he has had some hard things in life.
You know, he lost his parents at a young age and so hard emotions and speaking about them,
it doesn't seem to be as foreign to him.
So he's the one I go to when I want to talk about psychedelics.
He's like a little hesitant, but he'll continue asking questions because he's curious.
And my mom will just be like, oh, cat, I don't want to hear this.
It's so funny.
And then thinking about when I was in my dark cat days, I was having a really hard time
in high school and I was battling depression and anxiety and all the traumas that I was
going through at the time with abuse.
She wanted to know how I was doing at that time so she could best help me and get me
the support I needed.
But I remember sharing with her how I was so sad and I didn't know why and just trying
to explain through my words what I was feeling.
And I just remember her having a hard time holding that space because I don't think she
was used to it.
Right.
It takes practice and it's like a muscle.
It's a muscle that we flex.
And this actually came up in my couples therapy with Kyle the other day.
It's like holding your breath underwater.
When you're going to these hard, deep, heavy places and the longer that you do it, the
longer you can hold your breath.
But if you're not used to it, you can maybe only hold that breath for a second or a couple
seconds.
So she would kind of make it about her without knowing that she was doing it.
And so she would start crying and saying, I'm so sad.
I'm so sorry.
You're feeling this.
I don't know what to do for you.
We'll get you help.
And then I just would immediately feel bad as the child that I was making my mom feel
this way.
And so then I wouldn't want to tell her these things to upset her.
And so that's parentified child syndrome.
So it's something I've learned.
I don't know if it's syndrome actually, but it's parentified child when the parent feels
like the child.
Yeah.
And the child is parenting the parent.
Yeah.
A lot of that comes from just not knowing how to sit with pain with someone.
She had to recognize her own pain to be able to see yours.
And that is really hard when you've barely let yourself go there.
It's exactly.
Yeah.
And she's someone who goes about life being dysregulated often and I don't think realizes
that.
We all know those people who are just always kind of high strung.
I'm definitely that way sometimes.
But when you realize it, it's like, oh, OK, who finally deep breath.
This is what being calm and grounded feels like.
Yeah.
And that's one of the ways that that manifested more in my high school years.
And this is so funny thinking back because I was sharing.
We didn't really communicate any boundaries.
And I don't think we really had very good boundaries in our household in lots of ways
because I don't remember ever really being allowed to be my own individual self as much
because the religion trauma that was interwoven within all of that, I don't think there was
a lot of privacy and space for my own individuality to have space.
But it's so funny how that manifested.
I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast, but I moved into my closet.
Have I shared this on here?
Yes.
OK.
I think maybe once, though.
Great.
I just moved into my like I shared a room with my sister and I moved into our walk in
closet and I stayed there for three years.
And if that's not like an example of like me trying to physically create a boundary
for privacy without.
I'm sorry I'm laughing, but it's so funny.
What is that?
Because it just so so's instead of like asking for boundaries, I literally created a physical
like manifestation of like, please give me fucking space.
It's like that Harry Potter life without choosing it.
Yes.
And so, yeah, it's just wild instead of like, yeah, the realization that I had space to
ask for that, which I don't think I actually would have been safe in.
It's just funny how that kind of like manifested physically.
So yeah, there's there's so many things I think for each one of us who are listening
that you can reflect on in your own journey, because I'm sure that there's habits that
have come from both childhood and how other people have dealt with your pain that can
really stick.
And another thing me and Kat were talking about as we were brainstorming for this episode
is another thing that can be really embarrassing.
And I don't think this is talked about very much at all is that our needs of something
can also change.
So suppose you were really brave and you voice something that you like or that you needed
or that, you know, bothers you consistently, you could go a couple of years and that could
completely shift.
And I think we also are very scared of changing the rules or, you know, contradicting ourselves,
right?
Like coming up with something that we've already shared.
And it's it can be so scary to say, like, I don't know why, but this is changing for
me.
And yeah, we can get stuck in habit loops because we're scared to hurt people's feelings.
When in reality, it's there needs to be so many ways to kind of navigate even the growth
and change that happens like every year we're on this, you know, in this life.
100% Yeah.
So Kyle and I are now on our third relationship therapist, third couples therapist.
We met with one before getting engaged and then we met with another one last year about
communication and our meeting with one about like children and sexuality.
And I think the reason for that is because of what you're saying and how we change so
much as we heal, as we grow, as we live our dynamic lives.
And Kyle and I've been together almost 12 years.
It'll be 12 years.
Crazy.
Like, come on, yeah, people are going to change.
And when we first started dating and got together back in 2011, like we were babies.
We were 19, right?
And so Kyle hadn't begun his healing journey.
He hadn't been to therapy.
He hadn't begun to process the trauma that happened to him in his childhood.
And so once all of that started to unfoil and he started to do the work, his personality
changed too with that and his needs and his likes and how he needed to be communicated
with.
And so we were talking about this recently of like, wow, the way that we interact is
so different now in so many ways.
And it's just had to evolve as we've evolved.
And I think that's what makes a really stable relationship and partnership is not the ability
to just change with the person, but to hold space and be committed to do the work.
Because if you know you love that person and you want to be with them forever and you're
seeing that they're changing, it's deciding not to just fight over it the whole time and
actually look for solutions and do the work and get uncomfortable with each other.
It's been a lot of the process.
Yeah, that's freaking huge.
And it's like, yeah, it's such an important point because me and Danny have had very similar
conversations recently.
Like, I hadn't even started the journey on religion trauma healing when me and Danny
got together.
And I feel like I am a completely different version of Jen than I was.
And within that, that also has changed a ton of our habit loops, the things that I would
have been really adamant about have shifted.
And yeah, it can be really confusing for your partner within that.
And so that's where the communication really has to come to the surface and is so important.
Exactly.
Yes.
So when thinking about just beginning a hard conversation or approaching, let's say that
you have something in your heart that you really feel needs to be communicated with
your partner.
If it's something that they're doing that's bothering you, if it's something deep and
dark that you've just been fostering and that you would like to connect on, this work happens
before that conversation even starts.
And this is something that I've been really learning through couples therapy.
So something that Kyle and I have agreed on is sorry, my voice is hooking.
Minnie.
Hi, Minnie.
Minnie has a lot to say about this stuff.
She's a communicator.
She sure is.
But it's making sure that your partner is in a space to even have this conversation.
Because what happens if they are in a dysregulated place and you are going to open the doors
to something that could potentially trigger their defenses to go right up and shut the
conversation down before it even started.
So something simple we've decided we've landed on that really works well for us.
One of two things.
For a long time with our last couple's therapist, we were using the feelings wheel.
And now if you haven't heard of the feelings wheel before, literally go to feelingswheel.com
and it'll pull up an image of this.
This is something that I think 99% of therapists know of, if not use actively.
So it's a chart with a lot of different emotions so that when you're in that moment and you're
checking in to see like, okay, am I in a place where I can have this conversation?
It just helps you provide some language.
You can literally go around the wheel and share which words speak truth for you in that
moment.
And I recommend like each of us do that together and so that we know.
Oh, Wilson's changing.
I know.
God, everyone is talking today.
Yeah.
So just making sure that like we feel like we are in the right place to hold space for
each other and not let those defenses just come all the way up.
So that's one option is asking what's your feelings wheel right now.
Option two is even simpler than that.
It's when you are comfortable with doing that work and identifying how you're feeling, just
asking are you feeling regulated right now?
And what that means is you're in a space where you feel grounded enough, tethered enough.
Defenses can stay down.
They might peak up, but you feel like you have a good grasp on your breath, where you
are and that you're in a space to hold that for your partner.
So that is one thing we recommend.
And then the other part of that is on that note of assumptions and expectations, it can
be really, really easy to go there.
So something that Kyle and I have gotten into the habit of sharing is leveling that and
taking that kind of off, taking that out of the equation by saying the story that I'm
telling myself is dot, dot, dot.
And this could be something like the story I'm telling myself is, is that right now you
care more about being on your phone than you care about connecting with me.
And what that does, it's taking the blame off and it's basically saying that I know
that this might be an assumption.
And so that's just received so much better whenever we remember to do it that way.
And then the response can come from a place that again isn't coming from defense or being
judged.
Much easier.
Yeah.
So dropping defenses is hard, right?
So hard.
Really freaking hard.
It can lead to trigger spirals.
That happens a lot for us.
If we are just in that defensive place and I say something that triggers Kyle and that
his tone will trigger me, it'll just lead to feelings of abandonment and body language
have a big part of it too.
I've noticed that with tone, Kyle could say the same thing with two different tones.
And if his tone feels a little bit more harsh or in a way that I feel like he's acting as
a parent or talking down to me, I will react like the child.
I have to respond from this small place where I have to just defend myself.
So the more we can get away from that and approach these conversations from those regulated
places, the easier and more productive they'll be.
Yes.
Also, because our nervous system has these automatics based on our past experiences.
So it's not always your fault and it's not always your failing.
Your body has these stories that it takes time to rebuild your nervous system to not
be as reactive to different things.
And it takes exposure to a lot of those things and then regulating yourself back down to
get to a point where they're not so triggering.
So that's an incredible practice to ask where your partner is at before going into all of
that stuff.
And then also knowing that even when you're having hard conversations, they're always
going to be slightly dysregulating, even if you do everything right, because it's vulnerable
to share what needs are.
It's not something our culture has really taught us to mirror in any way, even on movies
and stuff.
But if you learn conscious communication, you rewatch movies and it's cringey, what
they glorify.
It's just so much reactivity and there's no hearing the need beneath the action.
It's actually crazy how much we've been fed the worst form.
Reality TV shows, oh my gosh, the worst of it, right?
Yeah, no wonder we don't know how to say stuff.
So I was just finishing season two of Jenny and Georgia on Netflix.
I love that show.
I was so impressed that I think with this new generation coming up, Pluto Sagittarius,
there's so much more conscious communication being shown even in TV shows.
And I am so fucking here for it.
In that show, they showed communication during sex, like, oh, that doesn't feel good.
Try this.
Oh, can you shift your hand a little bit?
So I think it's just so much more of a
little thing and just talking about the needs being communicated versus, you know, doing
these whole like glorified reactivity things that sometimes get spun off as like passion.
And it's just I'm so happy that this is starting to change and it's going to take, you know,
so much more to get to a place.
But I think all of us doing this work on communication is so important.
A few of the things I wanted to share is just to go over a list of actual ways to word it
that can be helpful.
So here's a few that I have just kind of played out in my own communication dynamics.
So first of all, if I'm feeling like I really am wanting feedback on something, I'm wanting
to hear what someone else's opinion is.
I will say like, what is your take on this?
And then I will share something and then give them space to comment back.
Now if I know that I am about to share something that I am not going to want feedback on at
all and I know that that feedback is going to trigger me and I'm really just needing
someone to help me feel less alone and what I'm experiencing, I will say, can you come
sit by me and just hold space?
And I do really well with having touch during conversation, like a hand on me that's regulating
for me because I have abandonment issues and I feel like I'm just going to upset someone
and they're going to run off because that's what my family did when they were feeling
something is escaping from it.
So it helps me feel really good to have like an anchor, like a physical anchor on me when
I'm communicating.
And then, yeah, I think saying I have gotten a lot better at instead of assuming something
from body language, like seeing someone's shoulders all of a sudden like shrug and then
just being like, never mind, just forget it, you know, which is so common.
You see them like change and instead of, yeah, trying to figure that out, you act from a
place on they don't care, they don't give a shit, like we'll just end it then.
And instead I'll say like, I noticed your shoulders just changed.
Can you tell me what's happening for you so that we can navigate this together?
So easy, you point out what you notice instead of trying to go on a defense because of it.
And then another one is how can I help you or how can I support you when you're feeling
like your partner is sharing something?
Those little words can be so helpful to just have a give them an out or have them learn
how to give you that out of what do you need from this?
Talking if maybe they want advice, validation, distraction, or just for you to be here and
hold space once again.
And then I think another freaking huge one, I don't think this necessarily, I feel like
with like my air sign and like my love of talking and communication, I have, I've said
a lot on here, I feel like I'm like a top down processor, like I think before I feel
so this doesn't come up for me as much, but you're allowed to ask for time and you're
allowed to say pause, you're allowed to say like, I need time to feel into this and I
really don't have the words for it at this exact moment.
That can help someone across from you feel just as supported because you're voicing that
you don't have what the answer is right now.
And I think sometimes we get so scared to pause the other person because we feel like
we're going to get in trouble or you know, they're going to read it the wrong way, but
that helps at least give an answer versus trying to fake your way through it, which
doesn't really lead to a pure, more authentic like energy exchange.
So knowing that if your feelings are so overwhelming that you don't even know how to really say
what's going on, don't feel like you have to put words on something right away.
Your feelings are just as valid as what your thoughts are.
And sometimes the feelings need space to cultivate thinking and thoughts to be able to even say
it.
You don't always have to keep up with the other person that's in front of you.
And I think that's important too.
And then a hundred percent.
Yeah.
Just a comment on that one.
It's something that actually just last night, Kyle and I had a situation like this and he
was kind of like, yeah, you know, I don't really know what else to say.
I'm just feeling kind of down.
And I was like, I understand.
I'm sorry.
I don't really know what to say right now either.
And I'm kind of afraid that anything I say is just going to make this worse.
So I'm going to go take a shower, but know that I love you.
And when you want to talk about this, I'm going to be right here.
Perfect.
Happy to pick it back up.
Yeah, that feels good.
That's like a warm hug to hear, you know, and saying that, yeah, I want to come back
to this conversation is so huge.
It's showing that the person's not going to be abandoned or alone or that they're crazy
for what they're experiencing.
But you're also knowing that you don't need to be pushing full steam ahead.
I think a lot of that comes from ego and pride and trying to be right to always just keep
dumping stuff out even when you're not even intentionally connected to it at that point,
you know?
Yeah, a lot of it for me comes from trying to fix it.
And I'm such a doer and a fixer and just being with feelings sometimes can be hard for me,
like the holding the breath thing, like Kyle can hold his breath and go deep with hard
feelings much longer than I can.
Yeah, because he's had a lot of unfortunate practice, you know, with having just enduring
more trauma in his life.
But just just learning that and still being there for it and and just sharing, you know,
like I'm kind of at the end of my capacity to hold the space for this.
It's nothing against you.
I love you.
But I want to come back to this.
I just need a little break.
Yeah, advocating for yourself.
So so perfect.
And then just a couple other things I wrote is that we also can help each other regulate
in conversation.
So I mentioned that touch helps.
I also think like being able to say like, I see you, I hear you or I'm with you or you're
safe like these little lines when feelings are getting really heavy can feel like the
most supportive thing.
And I think teaching your partner the words that help you feel, you know, held and vice
versa can also be really important.
Like someone saying you're safe in the middle of me talking is huge for me because I usually
am so far from feeling safe.
It's not even funny.
So having that line can be a game changer for my nervous system as I'm navigating something
challenging.
That's beautiful.
Yeah, such good tips.
I have just a couple more to add to the list for more so like, OK, you and your partner
have kind of concluded a hard conversation, right?
And you might not be feeling amazing, even though you kind of worked your way through
it.
So a couple things that we have learned to do in this point is sharing like, OK, my inner
child is feeling this right now.
Like my inner child just kind of naming that part of you, my inner teenager is feeling
like a little rebellious, like it wants to just say, it's not fair.
Why do we always have to have conversations like this?
And kind of bond on that, right?
And just ask how the different ages, the different parts of you are feeling at that time.
And something that is super simple, but really healing is after one of those conversations
have concluded, it's doing a nice heart hug.
And so oftentimes when we hug somebody, naturally we go to the left.
But the invitation for a heart hug is to actually go to the right for each other.
And that allows the heart of each of us to really place itself on each other's hearts
and just hold each other right there until you can kind of feel each other soften into
it and just kind of melt and get ooey gooey.
And you're able to just kind of see each other for who each other is and not the energy that
might have just been drawn up through that whole conversation.
So eye gazing long enough for like sometimes tears to come or just to really feel like
you're seeing each other through the words and really seeing that soul that you love.
And then leaning into each other's love languages.
If you've kind of moved past it and you want to show your person or your friend or whoever
it is that you respect them and are listening to them doing something that is along the
way that they like to receive love.
So for Kyle, if he after a hard conversation were to like, I don't know, take Minnie for
a walk on one of the days that it's my days to walk her just because he knows that he
wants to do something nice for me and that it's my love language.
Like, oh, beautiful.
Like swoon.
So sweet.
And for his like words of affirmation, if I can really say something that I've seen
him do that I really, really appreciate little things like that, right?
How can we show each other that we love each other and that we're there and that these
conversations, the hard ones are really just measures of growth.
They're needed.
And I fully believe that in any relationship that you're having hard conversations about
the important things, those are the real like soul contract important life relationships
rather than the shallow ones where you never argue or fight ever.
Like there's just so much room and amplitude for growth and healing when we're doing the
hard things.
Yeah.
We are all navigating being our weird little human selves together.
And it's actually the cutest thing when you zoom out.
So I love that.
Yeah.
That's right.
Well, thank you for your words, Kat.
And thank you all for listening.
We will share that feelings wheel with you and we'd love to hear feedback as always.
If you can make sure you're following us on Instagram at the awaken together podcast,
make sure that you are following our podcast, reviewing it to continue to help us grow for
the season four.
We love you guys.
Love you.
Thank you so much.
Bye.