(upbeat music) - Well hello there, it's Dr. Deborah Rouse. - And I'm Dr. James Rouse. - And this is Love and Life Elevated. - How you doing, honey? - So good, and today, boom, boom, boom, boom. - Boom, boom, boom. We're talking about conflict resolution. - Turning tension into transformation. - Oh, did you just make that up, maybe? - That is so good. This is such an important topic. How many of you have tension and opportunities for transformation within relationships? Whether it's with your bestie, with your partner, your life partner, could be family, friends, all of us have conflict. And for a lot of us, particularly people who are in that kind of spiritual, personal development place, we kind of look as conflict as sort of a failure, like, oh my gosh, there's conflict. This is something I must be doing wrong. Number one, conflict is normal. And I think we have to give ourselves permission to see conflict resolution as a superpower that we can all develop. - Totally, I see conflict as opportunity. And when we're talking about conflict, the things that I think about are, of course, I go back into friend history, our history together and the things that bring up the most, like, agitation or confrontation, money, biggie, parenting, work, stress, or just really, like, the financial appearance. - Biggie? - Yeah. - Aging. - Individual. - Hitching individuals, biggie. - Yeah, just how we respond, all the things. - Puppies. - We've got a new one. - Nothing. Hey, Noah, it's interesting because so much of how we react versus respond to conflict is something that we grew up in our own family of origin. A lot of research out there on the epigenetics on conflict resolution is basically our family of origin story. How did our parents deal with conflict? Did they actually fight, they rage, or not? Did they go into silence, which was part of, my family had the initial rage, and then there was the silence that living could go on for days. And it was, oh my gosh, that was so hard to be in that house when that was happening. So a lot of our stories that we bring into our present relationships are something that we lived as children, and they became normal even if they're not so healthy. - Yeah, and it's totally natural for all of us to have things that trigger us. So it's really great when you know your partners, what triggers your partner, because then it's an opportunity to not avoid it entirely, but not keep pressing that button to purposefully hit the hot button. And it's an opportunity to work things out. - It is, and I think for a lot of us, when we think about the people that we love most, and a lot of us feel, those are people feel safest to work through our things. This is something I think you and I over the last 30 plus years have learned, is that I know that you know my areas where I'm really sensitive, where I can easily be triggered, and you've helped me to soften those triggers by not necessarily not bringing them to the surface, but us talking through the fact that, hey, this is something I know that gets you. So I'm gonna help you to kind of work through this. Let's talk about it. Let's figure out a better way to resolve, so this doesn't bring up such history or such emotion, a lot of sympathetic dominance coming through that, where we find ourselves immediately resorting to our stress response. So I think in our relationship, Sweetheart, over the last number of years, we've really started to help cultivate a safe environment where we know we're human, there's gonna be challenges, there's gonna be stuff that comes up, but rather than poking the bear, we massage the spots that we know are tender and need compassion, so we can bring love to those places, which actually helps us to evolve, not just in relationship, but certainly as individuals. - I agree, and I think it's a real opportunity to work on our own self-awareness and emotional intelligence, because when you recognize certain triggers, you have to really rely on those superpowers, the emotional intelligence piece to be like, why do I wanna constantly press this hot button for you? Like being sensitive around it, using, it's not really psychology, but it kind of is, but how can I approach this in a more sensitive manner, and hey, I'm the first to admit that one thing that I really struggle with is confrontation. So this isn't about turning conflict into confrontation, it's about turning it into conversation, and real, and compassion, and working with that, and recognizing, oh wait, we've been together 30 years, this subject has come up before, I know it's really sensitive, so let's talk about it, and how we can work together on a resolution, or a solution, or transformation around it. - That is so good, and I think for anyone who's in relationship, whether it's friends, love, or family, wherever those relationships have work, and they all have work, we all have work to do, creating structure in your relationship, and I know me in a sense that building structure, there has to be this hard and fast, but one of the things I know that we've learned over the years, we don't want to have a lot of time apart, so when there's gonna be something that's gonna be either a conflict, or an opportunity confrontation, we've got the foundation, I like to call it baseline fitness, that we have time together every single day that's structured, every morning we take a walk together, so we can talk through certain things, we can vision together, we can talk, what may be happening with our kids, what may be happening in our own lives, so when something comes up inevitably, we've already got a foundation of fitness, and presence, and faith, and trust in one another, so those things don't go and escalate off the handle, where all of a sudden it wins from something like, oh my gosh, how did that go from here to here? Well, a lot of research says that so much around how we actually turn conflict and confrontation into compassion and conversation is not what you have a baseline of trust, so structure time with your people that you love every single day, so you have a baseline of conversation, so when something happens, it's not foreign to talk about things that are hard. - Yeah, I was just thinking about also recognizing that your timeliness may not be a partner's timeliness, like maybe the most inopportune time, just because I'm ready to deal with a certain subject or talk about something, you may have a tired day full of meetings, you may not have slept well, so being aware of where your friend, your partner, your lover, what's going on outside of you, it's great to have a partnership, but we are each individuals, and we have our own schedule, our own lives, our own process of thinking, and so my time of working on something may not align with your time, and so that's a part about also being emotionally intelligent, about when's the best time to approach this, I know it's not right before bed, although we don't wanna go to bed angry, but let's have a kiss and agree that we're gonna talk about this in the morning. - Absolutely, there's a saying that says, vulnerability lets in light, and I think one of the ways that you and I've always done our best, especially in the last 20 plus years, since we worked through a lot of our initial conflicts, which were so much related to our childhood stuff, I know that for me, so many things that I were reacted to in this relationship were just wounds inside of me from a little boy that did not get what he needed and found himself really trying to resource that in our relationship, but not having the ability to bring that to a conversation because the vulnerability was so hard, like, hey sweetheart, this is a sensitive area for me, this is an area that brings up a lot of emotion for me, and I think when we can actually tell our partner and tell someone that we're wanting to work through something with, introduce it by saying, hey, this is vulnerable for me, and this is really not easy, but I trust that I can share this with you, and we can create a time to really work through this together. I think any time that you're working through something, you can bring up, hey this is hard, this is vulnerable, but I trust you, oh my goodness, does that open up a level of openness and really help to facilitate a way in which healing can be met by both people coming together in a safer place? There's that beautiful roomy saying, beyond right doing and wrong doing, there is a field, I'll meet you there. Beyond right doing and wrong doing, there's a field. Let's meet over there in vulnerability, open, compassion, and have a relationship connect in a different place other than the hard place. - I know that we've actually taken advantage of that saying a couple of times in our relationships. I can, our relationship, I can think of two specific tough times. I mean, obviously every relationship has ebbs and flows and really high points and lower points, but we had two really low points. One was when we were in school full time, and we had only been married like a year and a half, big stress, brief separation period, and then shortly after we graduated school, and it was all around finances and stress around finances, and I think what we finally came to recognize is that that has nothing to do with our love for each other. It's a problem that we need to find a solution for, and that that also had to do with our upbringing around stress around finances, and working out a problem together. Luckily it wasn't because either one of us was a big spender, and that can be another issue. - Or hard worker, we at that time, we always had at least three jobs. - We're working our butts off, for sure. But that's very real for a lot. I would say it's probably the primary trigger and conflict starter in a lot of relationships, and so getting really clear on your priorities ahead of time and actually talking about, one thing I wouldn't necessarily recommend, but it worked for us is that we had a joint bank account before we were even married, and we met and married within a year. So that tells you about how much we trusted each other, but we still didn't have enough of a conversation around finances and future plans, and now we're really good about budgeting and planning things out and working on that together, and we would never do a big ticket purchase without chatting about it, even just a minor household, hey, should we get this chair, whatever. I don't just go buy a chair for the house. So yeah, I would say real open communication is key. And same thing with parenting, before you even think about having kids, make sure you're on the same page there because that can be really a source of conflict for a lot of couples. - Gosh, so true. - We were lucky there. - What was the second one? - What do you mean? - The second hard thing. - I think it's parenting, isn't it? - Oh, did you have a particular thing that you said that this would be something that was like, I can think of two things that are very, very hard. One was when we first- - Finances. - Finances, what was the second one? - No, the two things were the two times we broke up. Well, we didn't break up, but our hardest times together were finance-related. - Finance-related, okay, cool. I thought not cool, but I just want to make sure I didn't miss the other ones, sweetheart. So thank you. And I think as we kind of look at moving forward and how it is that we help ourselves to grow, one of the most awesome things that we do in all relationships, whether it's an intimate relationship, family, kids, friends, is really seeing your role and helping to facilitate a healthy environment. So someone feels like they can really do their best work. I think one of the things that we've learned in our 30-plus years together is that we have very aligned values. And we have very strong beliefs and the way that we lead our life day-by-day-by-day. And I think that creates an experience where conflict, confrontation, growth, and opportunities to come together and do the work, it's because there's an environment that feels safe. In fact, it's encouraged. This whole idea of making sure that this is seen as an opportunity for personal growth, relationship opportunity for facilitating evolution, it's all part of the same thing. But because it's whether they're a person, it has a lot more stickiness to it in terms of emotional baggage and places that we have a lot of work that still is connected to some wounds in ourself. So I think in that relationship, look at all of this as an opportunity to do great work, create with your partner an opportunity to facilitate safe spaces to do the work. And honey, there was one more piece that we wanted to connect with today around this idea of a superpower and really treating it with a level of reverence and really ritualizing connection. So when there is a conflict, there is confrontation, you don't see it as a deficit in the relationship. You don't see it as a failure. If you're doing work, there's gonna be confrontation. If there is opportunities for things to discuss that are charged for us, I think that simply means that you're the relationship that has work to do and we should be rejoicing and celebrating the fact that we have someone to do the work with if we've created that type of relationship. - Yeah, I was thinking about transformation and the comfort zone. Comfort or transformation does not take place personally or in a partnership when you're in the comfort zone. It takes challenges. It takes, you know, that it's like building muscle. It takes like a little micro tears in the muscle to build more muscle to make it grow. And so conflict is an inevitable part of relationship that actually makes relationships grow stronger and stronger because otherwise status quo doesn't really make for a lasting relationship. You need something to like stir up the pot and help you grow, you know, just that little something, making you a little uncomfortable to the point where it's like, oh, we really need to do something to grow from this. And I think it's really fun and exciting. It's not fun in the process all the time. It's hard and it's uncomfortable. And then when you come out and you emerge from it, you're like, wow, that was really hard. And now that's amazing. And we grew closer as a result. So it's like not avoiding confrontation. If you need a third party, like to be and not like just an objective witness or someone to kind of guide and spirit you through the process, that's a whole nother consideration. And if you don't think you have the tools to personally work through things with your partner, then I would definitely recommend third party person to help steward that. - Absolutely, so I think a couple of take home tools that I'd love to share. And these are things that I think both you and I know how they've made our relationship really flourish because we've got these as foundational practices. Number one, we think in terms of the structural discipline, having some structure in your day that you know that you connect with your partner, not necessarily just from confrontation or not just when there's something coming up, but create time together with your person. So there's a baseline of fitness that you guys really do have a lot of good that you're trying to continually facilitate and grow the good. So not just when you're coming together, it's about conflict and confrontation. That's a key distinction. And I think a mindfulness practice that you do for yourself, whether it's prayer, meditation, we know that so much what brings up for us when we have a hard time with conflict or confrontation, it's because we're not realistically responding, what's happening, we're reacting. And we know that mindfulness, meditation and prayer helps us kind of get an extra moment. You know, it's just a second where we kind of go, wait, is that my seven-year-old child responding and reacting with, oh my gosh, you know, I'm feeling vulnerable, I'm putting my guard up, I don't like this, or does an extra moment go, hey, wait a second, I'm this person, I love this person, I trust this person, meditation gives us an extra moment. So we don't react. We get a chance to respond, hopefully with some love, with some compassion, with some forgiveness, at the very least some openness to exchange energy so that the relationship continues to move forward. Relationship is a workshop, it is a laboratory for love, and there's so many ingredients, and I think this is just one of the most important ingredients that this is part of life, it's not a failure, and when it happens, we get a chance to use as a facilitating for our own growth and obviously the growth in our relationship. So honey, I just, I'm gonna state the obvious, 31 years into this laboratory of our love, I'm just proud of us, and that's not an ego statement, I'm just proud of the way that you and I really, really do the work, and I'm so proud of us that we haven't allowed our family histories to eclipse or cloud what it is that you and I know that we have in the sacredness of what we have and treating it with that level of sacredness, that we do, gets me kind of emotional, just really love that about us. - Yeah, I love that you have really held onto that with me and stayed true to always doing that work, it's really beautiful, and we wanted to keep this shorter today and we're getting further ahead than we wanted to, and there's so much more to say and you say everything so eloquently, but what I'm gonna say is thanks for listening, we love you, we'll expand more on this in the future, I'm sure, and just thank you for being that pillar in our family always, and not letting me get away with not working through the conflict. - It's a honor and a privilege. Thank you for showing up today, much love, every blessing. We'll see you next Wednesday, bye for now. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)
