Today, we're discussing why we struggle to put the communication and relationship lessons we learn into practice. Current generations are more therapy-literate than ever, but that doesn't mean our relationships are healthier. What happens when everyone knows the psychological buzzwords but hasn't done the deeper work of integration and change? We're diving into the reasons why learning how to do relationships better isn’t always enough, talk about the research available on the topic, and of course, finally give you some practical tools to bridge the gap between insight and real change.

Jase: 00:00:03

I do think that thinking about that again with a partner and with your relationships is if we are in this mindset of it's me against them or I have to win, I have to be right, that then there is no altruistic reason for you to give in any case or to be the first one to apologize or to admit when you've done things wrong versus if you're able to instead think, oh, having a better relationship with this person is also better for me, Then it kind of helps empower your self-interest to also help make things better for that other person. And I think that's that interesting subtle difference people often can overlook how important that can be. Of like how much do we identify our own happiness and well-being with someone else's? Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.

Emily: 00:00:50

I'm Emily.

Dedeker: 00:00:51

And I'm Dedeker.

Emily: 00:00:52

We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.

Dedeker: 00:00:58

Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, Casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.

Jase: 00:01:23

On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're discussing why we struggle to put the communication and relationship lessons that we learn into practice. We are the most therapy literate generation in history, yet our relationships aren't necessarily healthier. What happens when everyone knows the psychological terms but hasn't done the deeper work of integrating that into their lives and changing? Today, we're going to dive into the reasons why learning how to do relationships better isn't always enough, and then dig into some fascinating research about it, and finally give you some practical tools to bridge the gap between insight and real change. If you're interested in learning about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show and how you can put them into practice, check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which you can find at multiamory.com/book or wherever books or audiobooks are sold. All right, so this is a topic that I've been excited to get into. I've been planning this one for a few months. And I think you two can relate to this, but we're in this world where knowing psychological terms and concepts like boundaries or baggage or trauma or these sorts of things are much more commonplace and they're used much more frequently. And yet sometimes it can feel like we have all these words for things, but they're just words that we use to express why we still have all these problems. Rather than being terms we understand to help improve those or make our lives better or not have those problems anymore. Does that ring true? I saw you both nodding there.

Dedeker: 00:03:03

Yeah. A close friend of mine, I think a couple of years ago when she was back on the dating apps after the end of a more significant relationship, she complained about how she was going on dates with men who could be very open about like, yes, I have this avoidant attachment style, or yes, I have this anxious attachment style, or yes, I'm this, or yes, I'm that. So like, They knew the term and they knew that it applied to them and they understood what it meant. They knew that maybe this was a problem or this was something they were struggling with, but then that was sort of where the reflection ended, right? That it was kind of like, yes, I'm avoidant and I'm gonna just go keep on doing all my avoidant behaviors. But just as long as you know that like I'm avoidant and I know I'm avoidant, yeah, I'm working on it.

Jase: 00:03:49

As long as we all know, yeah.

Dedeker: 00:03:51

As long as we all know, right, that that was sort of like the end of it. And of course, I always wanna have compassion for people Because sometimes that's a stage in the process, right? Is understanding that there's a problem or understanding that there's a particular default way that you tend to operate. And sometimes you know that before you're ready to change the pattern. But at least according to how my friend was sharing, it seemed like this wasn't just a temporary stage. It was like people felt like they had landed here and then that was the end. And I do think that sometimes with certain terms that we pick up from social media or even from being in therapy, that landing on a term or landing on, right, this is what's going on with me can feel very freeing and very liberating. And then also it can feel good enough that there's a risk that then you just kind of stop there.

Jase: 00:04:38

It's funny, it kind of reminds me a little bit of that old adage of admitting you have the problem is the first step to recovery. And I think it's that, that it's the first step toward something is maybe the piece that's missing. And it sometimes feels like Figuring out what it is that's, quote, wrong or what it is that I am or what I'm like, that's the end. It's like just about self-discovery and not about self-improvement or change or feeling empowered to be able to change, I guess.

Emily: 00:05:07

That's really interesting. I do wonder if because you place a label on yourself, like, oh, I am anxiously attached or whatever, instead of necessarily saying, I'm going to work towards becoming a more securely attached person. You just sort of stop at, well, I'm anxiously attached and like, that's it. That's who I am. I know now. And so thankfully, I understand like some of the traits that I may have or some of the things that I may be more inclined to do or not because of this like box that I'm putting myself in. But instead of actually moving towards, let's do something about it or let's break that pattern or change that pattern or something, They kind of just resolve in their mind that, like, this is who I am and this is all that I'm ever gonna be. I do think that the three of us are in this unique position where we have so many tools at our disposal. And anyone even who listens to our show or who listens to shows like this, where they're constantly inundated with a lot of information on how to become better or how to break patterns and cycles, and sometimes it almost can be like an abundance of resources that you're not necessarily sure, okay, which one is going to be the one to help. You're going to learn a lot of things and you're going to hear a lot of things, but then maybe it's almost a little too much and too overwhelming to know even where to begin or where to start.

Jase: 00:06:36

I also think that, you know, when we read self-help books or when we listen to relationship podcasts, not always, but I think a lot of the time we're in a pretty regulated state of mind. We're not listening to a relationship podcast while we're in the middle of a fight or, you know, while we're in the middle of being upset by our partner. I mean, sometimes we could reach to a podcast to help us through those times, but just thinking generally that we can tend to think about these tools that we want to use, like how we want to be better in arguments or how we want to communicate more clearly when we're in this really neutral kind of intellectual mindset. but then it all goes out the window when we're actually upset.

Dedeker: 00:07:18

Right.

Jase: 00:07:18

I mean, like how many times have you had the experience of I had the situation and I reacted this way, and I I know better than that. I wish I hadn't done that. I feel like that's a pretty, pretty universal experience.

Dedeker: 00:07:31

And I don't know, Jas, I think that when you and I have an argument I show up exactly the same way as I show up, uh, when I'm recording a podcast learning about all the way every day and directly with communic.

Jase: 00:07:42

Yes, yes.

Dedeker: 00:07:44

Yes I guess a validation What are.

Jase: 00:07:46

My other options for what the S could be?

Dedeker: 00:07:49

No, I think, Emily, yeah, like you're saying that for the three of us, and I think this is not unique to the three of us, this could be, you know, anyone who's gone and gotten their master's degree in psychology or gotten their licensure to be a therapist, or anyone who's spent a long time really inundated in the body of knowledge that is around good relationship practices, good communication practices, good mental health practices may relate to that sensation. I have a lot of knowledge. I have a lot of tools, and that's great. Sometimes they help me, and sometimes they all go flying out the window when I'm just too upset or too overwhelmed or too confused, or I'm facing a situation I've never been in before. I ran into that personally when the pandemic happened, having this sense of, like, God, I've been reading relationship research, and I've written books, and I have so many tools, and I've never had to apply tools in a way that under these particular sets of conditions. And that's not to say that they're not helpful, but it is to say like, I feel completely out of my depth and I'm not entirely sure what to do, even though I technically have a lot of knowledge.

Emily: 00:09:01

That's a really good point.

Jase: 00:09:03

And then to make matters worse with all of this is I think that there's then this in Buddhism, we'd call it the second arrow, right? But then there's this idea of I know better than this. I should know how to handle this because I listen to multiamory, I've got these tools, I've been to therapy, whatever it is. But then I see myself not doing it, and now I feel ashamed and I feel guilty and I feel bad. And now I feel maybe even more entrenched in that belief that I can't change because I saw evidence of like, Look, I learned a better way and I still didn't do it. I'm terrible. I'll never be able to get any better. And maybe that's where you end up in that situation where you just say like, oh yeah, I'm avoidantly attached. End of story, right? That it can be really discouraging and it can make you feel like you're not able to to get any better.

Emily: 00:09:48

Yeah, we know some people out there who have absolutely used therapy and therapy talk to sort of go back and be in a position of, like, weaponizing that speech against their partners. And so I think it is also that struggle of we want to use these tools for good and not for something that is ultimately going to be more harmful. I think that those are just things to be aware of and that It's difficult sometimes to recognize that we might be doing that within ourselves.

Dedeker: 00:10:20

Well, sometimes I don't think it even necessarily has to be weaponized, although that definitely happens. But intellectualization and verbalization can have a protective barrier nature to it in that I can bring online my prefrontal cortex, which is the part of my brain that's good at wordsmithing and good at analyzing concepts. And because I'm heavily leaning on that part of my brain, I don't have to futz with like the amygdala that that deals with like fear feelings and my survival responses. Like I don't have to actually feel into them because I can create space between myself by intellectualizing it and verbalizing it. Something that I love to do, I think a very classic Dedeker Winston interaction in conflict is a partner might be Like, okay, but can you tell me about what you're actually feeling here? And my response will be, well, it reminds me of this amazing research study that I read once upon a time. And let me tell you all about it.

Jase: 00:11:27

I've definitely had this interaction with you.

Emily: 00:11:29

So you're definitely not actually saying anything about how you feel, but rather just throwing more psychology at the problem.

Dedeker: 00:11:36

I will say how I feel in this moment is I'm feeling a little defensive, and I will go on to defend myself by saying, that it's not all, I don't think it's all entirely a distancing tactic because of course, like I do also have a brain that has this full roster of fascinating research studies that I've read. And sometimes that's how I process my feelings. Okay.

Jase: 00:11:58

No, I feel like as someone who knows you pretty well, I am often able to then after you've told the story about the research study or this psychology book that you read or this particular meditation from someone that it reminds you of that then I'm able to kind of piece through that and see, oh, okay, you're saying that you're feeling this way. And usually we're able to get back around to how you're actually feeling after you've gone on that journey.

Dedeker: 00:12:24

Yes.

Jase: 00:12:25

But I do think you bring up a good point where knowing terms for things and knowing these therapeutic concepts or intellectual concepts or even this could be spiritual too. This doesn't have to be psychological necessarily. But There's this term spiritual bypassing for when you kind of use your mindfulness or your spirituality or whatever to avoid actually feeling your feelings. And intellectualization can do that too. So that can definitely be a risk that comes with, I guess I keep coming back to learning things but then not embodying them. Or, I don't know, not taking action.

Dedeker: 00:13:03

Like actually taking action or making behavior change.

Jase: 00:13:06

Yeah, yeah. Because behavior change is hard, right? There's a reason why quitting smoking is so hard or why changing our habits can be hard or developing a new habit's hard, right? It's not something we can just think, oh yeah, I should do that, and then we just do it.

Emily: 00:13:22

I think it's also really difficult to look inward in a way that is more than just surface level. I think at its best, therapy allows us time and space in which to get away from the lizard brain part of ourselves that is just the really emotional doing and existing and emoting at someone. Yeah, reacting when you're in the moment of being really upset. And it allows you to sort of put that away, talk about something from a really rational level, and hopefully get things bounced back at you and reflect in all of those things and whatever form of therapeutic modality you're doing. But I think that that's harder for some people to do than others. It's really difficult to dig deep in those moments. And from an intellectual level, you may hear the words and you may listen to the diagnoses or whatever it is from the standpoint of saying, you,'re somebody with an anxious attachment style or not. But then really getting to the core of why that thing is and what put us in that place in the first place, it's tough. Lifelong work and some people just are simply not willing to go there. I think it's really difficult. And I'm saying this as a person who, like, I think famously on this show for years and years never wanted to go to therapy because I didn't want to face it.

Dedeker: 00:14:49

Yeah, makes sense.

Jase: 00:14:51

Yeah.

Dedeker: 00:14:51

So, so we're from this generation that has been much more likely to be in therapy, much more likely to have picked up a lot of therapy speak online for, for good or for ill. And what I find particularly fascinating is that we can forget that certain concepts, like maybe stuff like attachment style or boundaries, not only do they not translate to, let's say, another language, they don't translate in a one-to-one, but also different cultures may have completely different value systems, right? And different therapeutic concepts. Carry more weight in different cultures than in others. So I'm reminded of Jason and I, a few weeks ago, we hung out with a friend of mine who's Japanese, you know, born in Japan, but is working in Australia. He works in healthcare in Australia. And he was talking about how something that struck him is he was like, Australians are talking about boundaries all the time. Everyone's really clear on like, my boundary is this and I have a boundary around that. And like everyone talks about boundaries and he's like, Japanese people never talk about boundaries. At all, like technically, yes, we have the word for boundary, but nobody uses it. If anything, he shared that at least in like recent days, people will refer to, I guess, the, the AT fields from Evangelion.

Jase: 00:16:11

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dedeker: 00:16:14

That they might say that is a sort of a roundabout way to reference, like maybe having a boundary around, let's say, like your personal space or your social energy capacity.

Jase: 00:16:25

But it's not- But it's like kind of one specific sub-use of boundaries. Yeah, a little more about personal space and just like leave me alone for a sec. It's not quite the same meaning. It's really interesting.

Dedeker: 00:16:36

Yeah, so I just bring that up to say sometimes I think it's helpful to de-reify not only our own attachment to some of our concepts of ourselves and our labels that we apply to ourselves as far as like our own psychological makeup, but also to understand that Just in different contexts, how heavily people weigh certain concepts or not is going to change. So with all of this in mind, we're wanting to take a look at why, even if we can understand some of these things about ourselves, and even if we can have a lot of knowledge about tools and psychological concepts, why that doesn't always necessarily translate to personal change or behavior change.

Jase: 00:17:18

We're going to take a quick break to talk about some sponsors of this show. Please do give them a listen and use the promo codes in our episode description. Or use the links there. That does directly help our show. And of course, if you'd rather have ad-free episodes and get early access to episodes and join our amazing community, go check us [email protected]/join and join the exclusive community there. And now it is time to put on our science hats and start learning some science.

Dedeker: 00:17:49

My science hat has some jingle bells on it. I like to bring some festivity to science.

Emily: 00:17:53

Wow, that's fun. Christmas in July.

Jase: 00:17:55

Yeah.

Dedeker: 00:17:55

Yeah.

Jase: 00:17:55

I'm trying to think, what's my favorite science-related thing? My science hat. Like, I'm imagining my science hat would just have a lot of like LEDs and lights and readouts and sort of a computer-y hat.

Dedeker: 00:18:07

I feel like your science hat would be gathering data from your brainwaves constantly.

Jase: 00:18:12

Oh yeah, yeah.

Emily: 00:18:12

Like an EEG cap that we've talked about. Yeah.

Jase: 00:18:15

It'd be kind of like that cap in Back to the Future 2, I think.

Dedeker: 00:18:19

Oh yeah.

Jase: 00:18:20

He's wearing that dome hat.

Emily: 00:18:21

1.21 gigawatts. Yeah.

Jase: 00:18:24

Once you see that, that was the future one.

Dedeker: 00:18:26

Yeah.

Emily: 00:18:26

Gosh, I don't know. Right now I just want a lot of fans on it because it's so warm outside.

Dedeker: 00:18:31

Yeah.

Emily: 00:18:31

Okay.

Jase: 00:18:31

I feel like that's got a bunch of little fans.

Emily: 00:18:33

Okay, exactly.

Jase: 00:18:34

Okay, well, I hope the listeners, you have your great science hats on as well.

Emily: 00:18:39

There you go.

Jase: 00:18:39

And so, yeah, so please have a seat and let's get into this. So the first thing is I wanted to look for research that was directly relevant to this problem that we're talking about of how do we implement change? What is it that stops us from doing this? Is this a thing that's studied? And because of how common this experience is, it should be no surprise that, yes, it is studied and there's a term for it. And so if you want to do some research on your own, the term that I found is the value action gap, or it's sometimes called the intention behavior gap. But it's basically that gap between our values and then our actions, or that gap between our intentions of what we want to do and then our behavior, what we actually do.

Dedeker: 00:19:23

Jase just gave me more ammunition for... For what? For me to be like, I heard about this fascinating research where they've actually identified this gap. They call it the intention behavior gap. And I think that really explains why, even though I said I'd be nice to you, I wasn't today.

Emily: 00:19:43

Got it. Got it.

Jase: 00:19:44

Yeah. Okay, good. I'll keep an eye out for that.

Dedeker: 00:19:47

Yeah, keep an eye out, because it'll be your fault.

Jase: 00:19:50

Yeah, so this concept emerged actually initially in relation to people's behavior about environmental impact of their actions and behaviors. Oh, okay. But it's also been in other areas. At least that's what I found is it kind of started from people understanding how their behaviors affect the environment and yet still not behaving in a way that's consistent with what they say their values are. And then this phenomenon that people often express positive attitudes or positive intentions towards certain behaviors, but then they don't actually do the actions of that behavior. So some common barriers that came up in this one is conflicting attitudes or a lack of interest or feeling like you're, quote, the wrong type of person to do certain actions. And I think all of those in different ways relate to what we were talking about before of that, like the wrong type of person could fall into that. Oh, well, but I have this attachment style. Therefore, I, I can't even really do that thing. So I'm not even going to try like that's, That's not what I should be doing. Or the lack of interest one's interesting, where it's like, yeah, I do think that'd be good to do, but I haven't got time for that, right? I don't want to spend my energy on that.

Emily: 00:21:03

I've got other things to worry about. I mean, even people who are like, It sounds really interesting, but I could never do monogamy or something along those lines.

Jase: 00:21:11

That's an interesting case, yeah. Like, someone else might be able to do that, but I'm not the type.

Emily: 00:21:16

Of person who can do that.

Dedeker: 00:21:17

Totally. Honestly, Emily, myself personally, I kind of feel that way about veganism. For myself, in a sense, where I'm like, yeah, I could totally see how it makes sense and aligns with my values. And how interested am I in having to be more picky when I go out to eat? Or things like, I don't know, I don't think I'm that interested in that. And it's not a good or very strong argument. But yeah, I think that's for sure a barrier to action for me, interest.

Jase: 00:21:45

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that's a great example of also kind of understanding, is this something I actually care about or not?

Dedeker: 00:21:52

Right?

Jase: 00:21:53

Or is this something I care about enough to be worth trying to make the change? That's an interesting question. Another one is people's attitude about if it's their responsibility or not. And I think that this could come up with environmental things, but I'm thinking about in relationships of this, like, well, I could do this work to try to behave better in these arguments, but really like they should be the one not arguing with me and just accept that I'm right. I mean, I'm being a little silly, but, you know, there's- well, no, no, no. -aspect of diffusion of responsibility.

Dedeker: 00:22:26

Yeah, you're onto something there. I can think of a ton of examples. Like one example that I see play out and I've fallen victim to this too, is it might be, I could be the bigger person and like reach out first and try to repair with my partner first. I could be the one to choose to apologize first, but I don't think that's my responsibility to apologize first. Like, I'm tired of doing the work. I'm tired of being the one who steps up first.

Jase: 00:22:53

They should do it.

Dedeker: 00:22:54

Right.

Jase: 00:22:54

So, like, that's why-- and that's not always wrong, right? There is a certain aspect of-- maybe that is true. Maybe you are the only one doing.

Dedeker: 00:23:02

Your work, and then there's maybe a different issue to tackle here. But Saint Esther Perel, patron saint of all relationship podcasters, you know, in one of her episodes, she Remember she talked about this concept of hostile dependency. And that's this idea of, well, the only reason why I'm behaving this way is because they're behaving that way. If my partner would stop behaving that way, then I would stop behaving this way. And then the partner is also like, well, the only reason I'm behaving this way is because you're behaving that way. If you would stop being so hysterical during fights, then I wouldn't run out and slam the door. And then the partner is like, well, if you wouldn't run out and slam the door, then I wouldn't be so hysterical.

Jase: 00:23:40

Right. And, and that can just go on for eternity. This just occurred to me right now, and so this was not something I planned to talk about, but I learned about this fascinating research the other day.

Emily: 00:23:48

Of course.

Jase: 00:23:48

I was watching this YouTube video about the phenomenon of crowd crushes, I think. Right, you talked to me about this one.

Dedeker: 00:23:55

You were talking about this. This is when you're at a concert and you see someone all the way across the other side of the crowd, and they're so cute, and you just instantly have a crush on them, and you're like, oh my God, maybe I'll mosh my way over there. And we can't- Unfortunately, that's how we.

Jase: 00:24:12

Love this band, and then we'll be together forever.

Dedeker: 00:24:13

Crowd crush, right?

Jase: 00:24:14

Unfortunately, this is something much more tragic, actually. So crowd crush is basically a phenomenon where a large crowd of people is in a particular environment where they're all vying for something. This often happens with getting into a concert or certain religious pilgrimages sometimes can have this issue. But basically where the dynamics of how the crowd is flowing through an area can end up with some people ending up kind of crushed in the corner and people die from this, right? There's fatalities every year around the world from this, from a crowd crush. And so because this is a problem, there's been a lot of research on it and a lot of looking at what happens. And just, I'm not going to go into all the details, but one thing I thought was really interesting is they were talking about that in the research, they found that in situations of terrorist attacks, and the crowd's reaction to running away from a bombing or something like that, that crowd crushes basically never happen. And they were talking about that psychologically, the explanation they believe is that in those situations, there's the trauma of the danger and the attack that we're all under unifies us. And so we're all on the same team, that people are actually more likely to help each other in those situations than they are with something like getting into a concert, Where it's kind of like all these other people are my competition for getting a good space, right? Right, like we're not on the same team here. We're sort of opposed to each other, or at least we're not allies, right? And that that's where the most danger for crowd crushes comes from. There's also about ways about how the line is managed and stuff that is a big part of it that's been researched. But I just thought that was interesting. So now to bring that to our relationships, this idea of even with two people, that mental shift, I think we've all experienced at different times between feeling like my partner and I are allies trying to solve this problem, or they're kind of a little bit my competition in this area, in this conflict that we have, right? Like in those examples you were just talking about, I don't know, just something to throw out there that popped into my head.

Dedeker: 00:26:24

I mean, I guess if we're on the subject of responsibility and this idea of responsibility barriers, if we're extrapolating from the crowd crush example to a relationship conflict, Yeah, I guess in a crowd, if you're like, oh, well, it's this stranger's responsibility to try to get a good view. It's not my responsibility. Like, I need to get a good view, too, right? And so I need to look out for number one and try to get in there as fast as possible by whatever means possible to make sure I get a good view, as opposed to if it's something more life-threatening that's happening that, like, maybe, hopefully, I know it's easy to be cynical that maybe there's something in our human nature that is maybe less likely to be like, well.

Jase: 00:27:06

It'S on them, every man for himself, essentially. It's on them to get to safety instead of like, hey, we all need to get to safety.

Dedeker: 00:27:06

Safety.

Jase: 00:27:08

And our different views on how we would behave in that shows up in our shows and movies and how differently different movies portray how humans would react in those situations. But that's maybe for another episode. But the reason why it ties to this is that also in the research they found that often a barrier to changing behaviors is if self-interest gets involved. Because self-interest tends to outweigh altruistic values in decision-making.

Emily: 00:27:33

Really?

Jase: 00:27:33

So it could just be, well, this serves me a little bit better. And so I'll do that rather than eat vegan or vegetarian or something. It's like, well, yeah, but that puts me out. I love my cheese.

Dedeker: 00:27:46

I mean, hey, I do love my cheese.

Emily: 00:27:49

How many times have I heard that?

Dedeker: 00:27:50

It's really hard for me to imagine a future where I'm saying no to cheese. I'm very self-interested in that regard. Yes.

Emily: 00:27:57

That's fine. Many people are.

Jase: 00:28:00

But I do think that thinking about that again with a partner and with your relationships is if we are in this mindset of it's me against them or I have to win, I have to be right, that then there is no altruistic reason for you to give in any case or to be the first one to apologize or to admit when you've done things wrong versus if you're able to instead think, oh, having a better relationship with this person is also better for me. Then it kind of helps empower your self-interest to also help make things better for that other person. And I think that's that interesting subtle difference people often can overlook how important that can be. Of like, how much do we identify our own happiness and well-being with someone else's? Well, can I just share with you.

Dedeker: 00:28:43

A fascinating research study that I also found fascinating.

Jase: 00:28:47

Oh, please.

Emily: 00:28:47

Lots of fun.

Dedeker: 00:28:48

There's a window into, if you just set up a camera inside mine and Jase's house, it's just all day back and forth in suffer plug. No, I think I cited this on an episode and we record so many episodes, I could not for the life of me tell you which one I cited this on. So if anyone out there has it at the top of their brain, let me know. But yeah, basically they found that if someone already anticipates that their partner is not going to be understanding of them or they have an assumption their partner is not going to make an effort to hear them or listen to them, They will often choose means of communicating that make that true, as in they will choose a means of communicating that is very hard for the partner to receive, right? They might be more aggressive, they might be more accusatory, they might come in just like with a more angry energy or a more critical energy, which then makes it really hard for the partner to listen to them, to understand their side of the story. And then it's the self-fulfilling prophecy. And that's what it reminds me of.

Emily: 00:29:52

This is so difficult because I constantly say this and I don't always do it, but I'm trying to do it more and more, especially in the healthier relationships that I'm in now. But it's that hope that you assume good intent first, that you assume also that your partner is going to be able to take something well, or at least be able to hear it, and at least be able to move in a direction of like, okay, I acknowledge that this might be a hard thing for me to hear, but that hopefully they are telling me this with the intention of us being more positive to one another or breaking the cycle of some bad pattern that we have or something. But that's so, so hard to do, especially in the moment, from either end, when your partner comes to you to not be like, oh, they're about to tell me something shitty. And so I'm already, like, in a state of defensiveness before I even hear it. And so they may even say something that's not that challenging, but because of my preconceived notion, I am hearing the story in my head that they're being really awful to me in this moment. And also, yeah, from the other end. Exactly. We're primed. We're priming ourselves.

Dedeker: 00:31:01

Yeah.

Emily: 00:31:02

Then just what you said, Dedeker, that if you think your partner is not going to take something well, you may end up saying it to them in a really poor way.

Dedeker: 00:31:10

So we've talked about how there can be these individual barriers to action. There can be these responsibility barriers to behavior change, but there can straight up be practical constraints as well. And those are things like a lack of time, a lack of money, lack of resources, not having the physical ability that does get in the way of making a change. And so, I don't know, I'm imagining something like, you know, you want to be the person who gets eight hours of sleep per night because you know that it's good for you and you know it's good for your health and you know that you're a better, more functioning human being when you do. But maybe you're working two jobs and caregiving and getting full eight hours of sleep practically is really difficult when that's a barrier in the way, even though you feel like, yes, this is my responsibility to change. You have the interest, you don't have a conflicting attitude around it, right? But sometimes that's a part of life as well, that there are factors outside of our control preventing us or making it at least much more difficult to change our behaviors.

Jase: 00:32:11

Yeah, and we'll talk about this a little bit more later on in the tools section after this, where we can kind of look at what are some things we can do in those situations. But first, I want to talk about a couple of studies real quick here. One of these is from 2020. This is called Closing the Knowledge Behavior Gap in Health Promotion, the Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy. And this is by Rajiv N. Rimal from Texas A&M University. So this is, they used data from previous longitudinal studies about how participants who had gone through a program learning about healthy eating, how their eating behavior changed afterward. And basically what they found was, that people who on a test rated high on self-efficacy was really important. So what that means is that people who had a lot of knowledge, who like got this education, but had low self-efficacy, like low feeling that they could actually do something about it, didn't have much behavior change at all. And that in this study, they measured self-efficacy by identifying how confident someone was that they would perform each of the following activities consistently beginning tomorrow for at least six months. And they were different healthy eating behaviors. But basically, like, the more someone believed from the start they were going to be able to commit to that, the more likely they were to actually do it. So the people with high self-efficacy were the most likely to apply their knowledge. And those with low self-efficacy showed basically no change at all, even though they've gained more knowledge than they'd had before. So I feel like this study is relatively straightforward and simple and kind of backs up a lot of what we've talked about already in terms of kind of our own mental blocks. To making these changes. But it's just interesting to see, from a relatively recent study, such a clear confirmation that the way they were taught, the knowledge they had, was not the thing that mattered, actually.

Emily: 00:34:03

I wonder, what if your self-efficacy kind of shifts throughout the course of your life, or even throughout the course of a week?

Dedeker: 00:34:09

Totally.

Emily: 00:34:10

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the course of a week, if sometimes you're like, I feel really good about myself in this moment, I feel like I can do anything, versus the times when that's not the case. Then what? And so I'd be interested to know if you fall off the wagon, maybe in those moments where you're not feeling great about yourself, and then you're able to pick yourself back up in the moments when you are feeling good about yourself. I think again, when it comes to relational behaviors, this is a really interesting thing to think about, because probably when you are feeling good about yourself, you are more able to implement the good behaviors and the good ways of speaking to one another versus when you're feeling really down in the dumps, really insecure, you may be more likely to kind of lash out and feel like, oh, I can't put my best foot forward in these moments because I just simply, like, don't have the emotional bandwidth or the ability to believe in myself to be able to do those things well, so. This is a tough one.

Jase: 00:35:16

I think you've hit on such a key thing there, is that it does all change and that it's affected by all sorts of circumstances in our lives. So yeah, this could be much harder at some times than another. In this particular study, they followed these people over six months, but at a different point in their life, yeah, that could have been very different. So yeah, absolutely. This is not a static trait that you're just born with and stuck with.

Dedeker: 00:35:39

Well, I think, What I've noticed is, you know, I've grown to a place in my life where, yeah, I feel pretty confident when it comes to, you know, learning about different communication tools, implementing different communication tools, you know, learning to feel my feelings better, implementing being able to talk about my feelings better. And I feel the highest self-efficacy when it comes to my personal relationships, but not when it comes to my family relationships. In my family relationships there. I think I have that, yes, high knowledge, very, very high knowledge, a constant sense of this could be better. There are better ways to do this. I could be better, but very low self-efficacy around, can I actually change my behavior around my family members? You know, like low confidence around being able to keep myself in one piece and not like have all the screws fall out of my, like, you know, you know what I mean?

Jase: 00:36:36

Yeah, that we can have very different self-efficacy even in the same- -same person.

Emily: 00:36:41

In front of the same situation.

Jase: 00:36:41

-Yeah, exactly.

Dedeker: 00:36:43

-Same time of life between different relationships.

Jase: 00:36:46

-Yeah, absolutely. -yeah. So this next one I want to talk about is actually a paper from 2018 called Embodied Cognition and the Direct Induction of Affect as a Complement to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This is from Behavioral Sciences and it's by Petržilk, Lore, John, and Hawk. So this one is not specifically a research study. I mean, there's a study in it, but it's kind of proposing a modality to add to complement cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT. And in this, they talk about how the research proposes that while CBT has been shown to be very effective, especially for anxiety, the purely cognitive approach of it can miss the sensory motor integration which maybe the more hippie dippy of us would say, like the more embodied part necessary for real change. And they looked at embodied cognition research from cognitive neuroscience that looks at experiences and behavior patterns being stored as, quote, reenactments of sensory motor and emotional experiences. And this is something I've talked about on this show before, but it's been a long time. That there's a lot of research basically showing that emotions don't come from our thoughts, or at least they don't always come from our thoughts. That often our body experiences a sensation first, and then our mind detects that physical change and then says, oh, I'm feeling this emotion. That actually comes like body first that then our brain interprets rather than being a top down, the mind thinks an emotion, and then our palms get sweaty, or then our stomach gets twisted up, that it actually might go the other way around. So basically their proposal is that CBT has been shown to be really effective, but it's only going mind down, right? And so their proposal was taking this idea of CBT, which is kind of changing your beliefs, which then changes your thoughts, which then changes how you behave. That's kind of the whole, the whole idea there. And taking that and then adding into it also coming up with body postures or movements that represent those changes. Basically going from where you are now in terms of how you believe now, how you think now, and how you behave now, to then what your goal state is, how you want to behave, how you want to think and believe, and then doing both of those together. So they would actually like have a hallway and kind of decide, okay, at this point in the hallway, you know, at the start of it, you're in your present state, and let's come up with like a posture for that. Maybe it's like hunched shoulders, or maybe it's like your hands up in fear, or, you know, something like that. And then they'd have them walk down the hallway kind of striking different poses as they went to then getting to the end of in the posture or doing the gesture of the pose that represents their goal state. And so kind of combining the cognitive side with then having them walk through these states together with the therapist and kind of practicing the physical side of it too. It sounds pretty hippie dippy, but I think it sounds fun. I'd love to try it.

Dedeker: 00:39:54

Well, can I just say that this is literally an exercise that Orit facilitates during the retreats that we run.

Emily: 00:40:00

Really?

Dedeker: 00:40:01

Yeah, because she's a dance and movement therapist, right? And so, yeah, this is very much in the wheelhouse. And sorry for the plug, go to multiamory.com/retreat if you're interested in something like this, specifically for polyamorous people. Sorry about the plug, but you just teed it up so perfectly. And I'll leave it there, because otherwise I could talk for six hours about this very subject.

Emily: 00:40:22

Yeah, and that the whole, like, the body keeps the score type thing, and why you can be in situations where you're like, this It seems like it's really innocuous, nothing's going on, but whatever just happened is putting my body in this really intense state of fight or flight where I feel like I gotta get out of here or I'm gonna break down in tears or whatever it might be.

Jase: 00:40:44

Yeah.

Dedeker: 00:40:45

Yeah. And I think that anyone who's experiencing frustration, like let's say you're in a relationship and maybe a long time ago there was maybe some sort of breach of trust between you and your partner and Small or big, I think it doesn't matter. Really what matters was the impact that it had on you and your system, that maybe your partner dropped you in a particular way, or maybe they lied to you in a particular way, or they didn't show up the way that you thought that they would. Even if you have processed that with your partner, talked it through, maybe you've forgiven them, maybe the two of you have agreed, yeah, that was in the past, maybe they've apologized, maybe the whole process has been a student as far as getting through it. But then if you feel frustrated, yeah, I still feel this tightness in my chest when, you know, I have the suspicion, like, are they being honest with me? Like, I don't know. Or I still feel like a little bit of this panic or anxiety come up when, you know, they're gone and I don't know where they're at or whatever, that I think this really underlines the fact that sometimes trust, you can cognitively choose to forward some trust to your partner, but you're not actually going to feel trust of your partner until your body and your nervous system has gone through the experience of your partner coming back and feeling safe again, like over and over and over and over and over again, right? And I think that's the frustrating part in relationships sometimes when it comes to repairing ruptures is that in an ideal situation, like you and your partner have a rupture of some kind, and then you're able to sit down and talk it out, hug it out, maybe repair it, and then we kind of keep going on as usual. And that doesn't stick with us, but sometimes things stick with us. Certain breaches, certain ruptures are more sticky than others. And I know people get really frustrated feeling like I should be, quote unquote, over this by now, or I shouldn't be upset by this anymore. I said that I forgave my partner. Why am I still getting upset about it? Or maybe your partner's frustrated with you about the fact that, like, you're still feeling upset about a hurt that happened, you know, like years ago or things like that. But I don't know, this is something that comes up often in my work with clients, and especially my somatic work with clients, that, like, we need to attend to the fact that. As I've said a billion times, everything from the neck down doesn't speak English. And so just trying to talk yourself out of the way you're feeling doesn't necessarily always work.

Jase: 00:43:11

And with that, we're going to take another quick break to talk about some sponsors. Again, please check them out. You can use our links and our promo codes in our episode description. And of course, if you would like to join our amazing community, get access to our video processing groups that we do each month, and have an awesome community of people to support each other, ask questions, discuss episodes, you can go to multiamory.com/join join. And for joining our community, you'll also get access to ad free episodes that come out a day early. And now let's talk about how do we put all this into practice? How do we actually change? I know we've hinted at some of it so far, but let's get into it. And the first one is the one I promised we would come back to, which is about that self-efficacy thing, right? Of how do we gain the confidence to think that we can change so that we actually can change, right? It seems like a little bit of a catch 22 cyclical thing there. And so with this one, basically it comes down to baby steps or small experiments. We're all still wearing our science hats, right?

Dedeker: 00:44:13

Yes, yes. Mine's still jingling away.

Emily: 00:44:15

I haven't taken it off.

Jase: 00:44:16

Yes, my lights are still flashing on mine.

Dedeker: 00:44:18

Yeah.

Jase: 00:44:19

So the idea here is to take a look at, you know, what it is that you want to change, right? Maybe it's about how you react when your partner comes home from being on a date with somebody else, or like the first time you see them again after that, or maybe it's, how you react when your partner's stressed. Maybe it's how you react when they are upset about something at work and maybe you take it personally. Or how do you react when they're too tired to hang out with you, whatever it is, like some larger picture thing, is to look at that and say, okay, rather than trying to change that whole thing all at once, if I don't feel confident that I could do that, if you're already scoring 100 on the self-efficacy, go for it. Look great. The odds are in your favor.

Emily: 00:45:03

Never have any self-doubt, ever. I wish I were you.

Jase: 00:45:07

And it might change by area, right? Like we talked about. Maybe with this one person, you're good, but with someone else, it's harder. Like that occur with their family, right? Is to then say, okay, instead of trying to change everything, what would be one small part of that that I could decide I'm going to change that feels doable? And I think that's the key part. It's like, what's something and you could even go so small, but to just find something that feels like, yeah, okay, sure, I could do that, whatever. That's not a problem. Maybe it's as small as like, I'm going to wait one second longer before I reply or something, and I'll just count to myself one, and then I'll yell at them about what a jerk they're being. Well, hopefully not.

Dedeker: 00:45:49

Okay, I have an example because something that I've tried to implement with certain family members is trying to just be a little bit better at taking their bids. So like, I have certain family members who I think spam me way too much with memes and videos from the internet, like way too much. But instead of just ignoring it or getting annoyed by it, you know, I've tried to be like, okay, I'm gonna at least try to at least like drop a little heart react or indication that I did see it, like just to, you know, it's not that I wanna encourage the behavior, but also that I wanna have a good relationship. And so trying to at least show up in the sense of I can respond to some bids for attention and connection. In a low effort sort of way. And I think that's the key, right?

Jase: 00:46:30

Is identifying, yeah, like the ideal behavior would be what? They send me something and I watch it and write a thoughtful reaction to it and share something back, but you're like, I don't want to do that. I don't have time for that. I don't actually want that at all. But saying like, okay, what's a small thing like that of just doing a reaction to it? I could see that being a case where someone's like, you don't respond to my messages when you're at work. And you're like, yeah, I'm at work. Like, I don't have time for that. But maybe Maybe it is something where you could viably reply with an emoji and you could agree together, like, Hey, that's gonna be what I can do in that situation, but at least let's you know I'm thinking about you and I'm getting your messages. Just as a random example.

Emily: 00:47:11

I talked about this on a recent episode where sometimes I wonder if me asking where my partner is or what they're doing that night when I'm not with them, for example, if that's kind of controlling behavior, I think part of it is just me trying to keep myself safe. But sometimes it results in me, like, questioning, like, why is it that I need this information? What is it that I'm really worried about here? And so I'd like to, even if it's, like, half of the week or four days out of the week or three days out of the week when I'm not with them, just, you know, if they want to tell me what they're up to, then they can. And otherwise, I'll just kind of let it be. And I don't have to necessarily ask, just sort of weaning myself out of this idea that I have to know in order to, like, be safe in the relationship.

Jase: 00:47:58

Yeah, of like trying to identify what's some small part, right? Maybe like you said, it's a few days a week, or maybe it's finding like an adjusted version of the question. Because part of the idea here is it's not that you do this one little thing and then you stop, but that you do this one little thing partly because it makes a little bit of a difference.

Dedeker: 00:48:15

Yeah.

Jase: 00:48:16

But then also because you can then look back at it. So then that's the second part of this is you identify what's the small experiment, what's the manageable thing that you can confidently say, yes, I believe that I could do this consistently for the next six months or whatever length of time. Like, I believe I could do this. That's pretty easy to then look back and say, Hey, I did that. Cool. Like that actually wasn't so bad. Maybe you actually ended up doing more than you had planned because it's like, well, I already started doing that little thing, so I'll do a little more. It's like the whole micro habits thing that I think we've talked about in the past, but like, if you want to start flossing your teeth, just make a deal to yourself that you'll floss one tooth. And that's all you have to do. If you just get out your floss and you floss one tooth, cool, you're good. But you're kind of like, well, I'm here. I might as well keep going, right? I might as well floss a few more teeth. Okay, I might as well just do all of them. So you might find that you even do more than you'd planned. But the point is to celebrate that success and to then look at, okay, how could I build on this? Or maybe like, that was enough, actually. I solved the problem. I'm done. And now look at myself. Efficacy points have gone up. I can build this into something else. So it's really important to have that feedback loop of acknowledging your successes, acknowledging what was easier than you thought about it, congratulating yourself for being able to do it, kind of proving to yourself that it's possible. And then of course, in the event that you struggle, to try to reframe from I failed to what did I learn? Okay, maybe I picked a behavior that's actually harder than I thought. Or maybe I picked something that I don't care about very much. Like, I'm not actually motivated to change, right? Of kind of looking at not just, oh, I failed. See, look, I can never change. And recognizing, well, what was it specifically about this that didn't work? Maybe I could do something else. Maybe it's something smaller. Maybe it's something different. And just trying to get in that mindset. And I feel like of all the steps, that's the one that's the hardest because it's also kind of a behavior change. So maybe that's the behavior where you could try to take some small part of that and try that of just not quite beating yourself up as much about not doing the things you wanted to do and trying to find what are the small victories you can celebrate.

Dedeker: 00:50:26

I think it helps to set you up to, again, be like a little scientist of your own life by being able to examine, like, okay, so when I wasn't able to necessarily follow through with a small experiment, like, what did happen? And I can recognize, yeah, I went ahead and, you know, tried to keep tabs on my partner on a day that I was, like, super exhausted and really mentally drained and feeling disconnected and I was feeling really lonely, right? I can see, like, oh, there were a lot of things that got in the way. Got in the way of me being able to make this particular change. And that offers more insight to you, right? Where either it might be like, huh, this maybe is tied to something bigger that I need to address with my partner, or, huh, maybe this is something where I need to look out for how I act out on days when I have really low capacity and low resources. Or maybe this is something where I need to notice that if I'm having a day like this, I need to step up the way I care for myself or any number of variations.

Jase: 00:51:23

All right, so the next one is called if this, then that. That's what I've named it here. And this is based on some research talking about if then planning and how it can significantly improve follow through. So this is based on a 2020 paper written for therapists called Assessing and Promoting the Use of Implementation Intentions in Clinical Practice, published in Social Science and Medicine. Basically, the idea is that specific if then planning, so saying if this happens, then I'll do this, creates these automatic behavioral triggers that help translate goals into action. So instead of relying on willpower or like relying on being in a state to cognitively think through how you should behave, an automatic trigger is easier to apply in those day to day moments or even when you're a little more activated. And so it works by creating this strong link between situations and then the responses rather than just thinking about the things in the abstract. It's like the specific situation, specific response. And there's a large amount of research that shows making a plan for how you will implement a behavior in specific situations is effective, but we often focus more on learning than on planning for how we're going to use the stuff that we learn. So it's kind of the taking it just from learning in an abstract way to literally planning, this is how I will do this in this specific type of situation. So two things. It's a lot like microscripts.

Dedeker: 00:52:50

Well, it seems like there's some overlap with microscripts. There's some overlap with how we talk about boundaries to a certain extent. Maybe that's just because it's very like focused on your own behavior. I, I think in my work with clients, sometimes I end up approaching this sort of in a, a side door, if you will, by if my client has reached a place where maybe they have a very strong intention, right, of, well, I'm going to stop texting him altogether, right? I'm going to stop reaching out to my ex or I'm going to stop. Stalking this person on Instagram or whatever, like, yeah, I need to stop. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna stop that. I will try to bring in, yeah, that's great. Can you anticipate any obstacles that might get in the way of you being able to stop, right? Or to do this thing that you want to do? And I do find that's a very helpful exercise, I think, for maybe priming some of this actually thinking about real life situations, you know, instead of just holding the intention or just having the willpower that it does get you to think about like, okay, yeah, as I go about my day or about my week, what could I see coming along that could totally derail my intention?

Jase: 00:53:57

Yeah. And I think that's interesting too, because it could be a case of the if-then, like trigger response, but it also could be you realize, Hey, actually in this one situation, that's really going to be a problem. Can I avoid that situation? An example of that might be, I want to change my behavior to not immediately check my phone in the morning. And I could say, I'll just not check my phone in the morning. But then when it has the alarm that goes off and you pick it up, then you just check it 'cause it's there. And you say, you know what? That's a situation that's too hard and I'm not awake enough to stop myself. So what if I change the situation? What if I instead put my phone in the other room and I buy an alarm clock or something like that, right? Or put an alarm on my watch or something like that. But I think that's a great question to ask of like, what are the obstacles? What are the situations where, where this would actually come up.

Emily: 00:54:47

Another example is something along the lines where your partner is maybe giving you, you know, some feedback on something that you did and maybe critiquing me.

Dedeker: 00:54:58

It could be anything.

Emily: 00:55:00

Yeah, it could be anything. But perhaps you find that you get defensive a lot whenever you receive feedback from your partner. So you can do something like, okay, if I feel like I'm going to get defensive during this feedback time from my partner, that I'm just going to take three deep breaths and ask a clarifying question, like, fascinating. Well, this is not a clarifying question.

Dedeker: 00:55:22

No, I was going to say- I like that.

Emily: 00:55:24

It's kind of like that.

Dedeker: 00:55:25

Yes, it's a little microscript, right? If you know that you tend to get defensive and maybe you have a tendency towards, I ask a clarifying question, but really it's just an argumentative question, trying to poke holes in what they're trying to tell me or request of me. That, yeah, maybe you do set up an if then that, like, yeah, if I notice myself feeling defensive, I'm gonna take three deep breaths, and then I'm just gonna say, Fascinating. Fascinating.

Jase: 00:55:49

Maybe just one deep breath and fascinating.

Emily: 00:55:51

I was gonna say, Fascinating. Can you think of a specific example where I did that thing, or can you relay what your feelings were when I said that thing to you? How did it make you feel? Something along those lines.

Jase: 00:56:06

I don't know. Either way, either way.

Dedeker: 00:56:08

Especially if you and your partner get on the same page where, where you can tell them, hey, I know my defensiveness is an issue, and I'm going to work on that. And this is the script we're going to implement so that you at least know, hey, I'm feeling defensive, but I'm also making an effort to not be a jerk about it and just puke my defensiveness all over you. I could see it being fine.

Jase: 00:56:27

I can see that working. I can think of some situations where I might start trying that one.

Emily: 00:56:31

Oh boy.

Jase: 00:56:32

You two let me know how it goes.

Dedeker: 00:56:34

All right, okay. I'm ready.

Jase: 00:56:35

Got it.

Emily: 00:56:36

The key to all this is to make your plans really specific, make them behavioral, so in actual behavior that you can do, like say fascinating, or take three deep breaths or whatever it might be, and that it's tied to specific triggers. I think it's something for me is that I find that I have really low self-efficacy or just ability to like be able to think rationally and without feeling like really down on myself. I am not able to do that when I'm really tired or when I'm in a space where like I'm overworked and emotional or upset or just, you know, all of my emotions, like, come to the surface really easily. So I know that in those situations, like a halt or halted is very, very important for me so that I can, like, actually take the time to rest and focus on that thing that is causing me to not feel good about myself or not be able to come to a situation where I'm in the best spot possible. I need to address that first before I go and take on and tackle the problem in front of me.

Jase: 00:57:42

Yeah, you know, this just makes me think too that we've talked about these triggers and actions as being kind of things that you just plan like, oh, when I feel this or when this happens. But you could even make this like a very concrete thing. Like if you have a watch that measures your heart rate, some of them you can set like an alarm, like a thing that'll buzz when your heart rate goes above a certain amount. We've talked in the past about flooding, which is if you're having an emotional conversation, there's research that shows if your heart rate goes above around 100 beats per minute, you're actually entering a state where it's harder to manage your emotions and regulate and communicate clearly. So it could even be like a very literal, when I, you know, I set that and if I'm in a discussion and I feel that buzz, I acknowledge it and say, okay, I need to take a moment for that to go back down. So we can use, you know, science and technology to our advantage is what I'm saying here. Well, this has definitely been a fun and deep journey into some of our own baggages and some things that we need to work on and hopefully was inspiring and relatable to a lot of you as well. I think feeling empowered to make the changes that we want to make is such a huge thing. And so anything we can do to give that gift to ourselves is awesome. So I really hope this is helpful for all of you. So just take of those couple tools that we mentioned or some of the things we discussed earlier on in the episode from the studies. Is pick one to experiment with this week and see if you notice any difference between how you might have thought about that change in the past to then actually putting something in place to implement behaviors to change it or to change your physiological reaction to things. I think it'll be really cool to see if even in a week you can notice a change from trying one of these.

Dedeker: 00:59:25

Sometimes when I'm frustrated by myself, if I'm frustrated around a particular behavior that I'm repeating that I know is not good for me or where I feel stuck in the way that I'm relating to somebody. Something that really encourages me is to remind myself that nothing is a death sentence. Like nothing about myself is a death sentence. As in, I'm not stuck, I'm not broken. I've entered this world with some scrapes and some injuries and some patterns that are maybe not the healthiest, but that But it is possible to shift those. And I really strongly believe in that. And that doesn't mean you can flip a switch. That doesn't mean you can willpower your way through it. That's not what I'm implying. But yeah, just that reminder that we do have the power to shift things, right? We're not stuck. And yeah, just don't beat yourself up feeling like you've been given this death sentence in the form of your attachment style or in the form of your PTSD or in the form of your mental health issues, right? That you're worthy and you matter, and all of us can find ways to relate to each other in a way that's compassionate and healthy.

Jase: 01:00:41

And we would love to hear from all of you. After listening to this episode, we have our question of the week, which will be on Instagram at multiamorypodcast. And that is, what's one relationship insight that you've understood for years but still struggle to put into practice? And what is it that gets in the way? We would love to hear from you on Instagram and we will repost some of your answers anonymously. So please share there. And the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners and discuss this episode is in our episode discussion channel on our Discord server. Or you can post about it in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our amazing community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share publicly on Instagram at multiamorypodcast. Multiamory is created and produced by Dedeker Winston, Emily Matlack, and me, Jase Lindgren. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins. Our theme song is Forms I Know I Did by Josh and Anand from the Fractal Cave EP. The full transcript is available on this episode's page on multiamory.com.