Speaker 1: Even though I'm telling you with self-responsibility, hopefully you'll change your behavior, it's still not going to stop us getting in a traffic jam for the next bloody 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: Welcome back to Come Here to Me.

Speaker 1: Today is a very special episode, again, a bit impromptu.

Speaker 1: I'm joined by Nico Holleman, who I am very, very honored to have helping us here at Empathy, and he's been doing a deep dive and trying to understand the Empathy Method and how I think about love and relationship.

Speaker 1: And so we're going to have a conversation about some questions Nico brought up.

Speaker 1: Welcome, Nico.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: It's good to be here.

Speaker 2: Okay, so Figs, as I've been going through and studying the Empathy Method, there have been a few points where I've felt a little bit stuck in my understanding, so I wanted to just run through them with you.

Speaker 2: And the first point is, I don't know what the Empathy Method prescribes when you get into a situation where you're talking with your partner and they have done something that, I'll use myself as an example, say my partner has done something I don't appreciate that triggered me emotionally in a certain way, and I want to then bring that up with them.

Speaker 2: And I do bring it up with them.

Speaker 2: I say, hey, when this happened, I felt this way, and I want to talk to you about it.

Speaker 2: If it turns into a situation where then she comes back and responds, well, I only did that because you did this, and I was pissed off in this moment, so that's why I reacted that way, then I find myself often stuck in this place where what I actually feel like I'm needing in that moment is to be heard and understood for the frustration that I'm experiencing, and that's how she feels as well.

Speaker 2: And there's just this sense of like, neither of us are ready to concede that empathy to each other until we ourselves have been heard, and so there's this kind of stalemate of like, well, you did that, and I only did that because you did that, and back and forth forever.

Speaker 2: So what do you prescribe in that situation to come back to harmonious connection?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question, right?

Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of different things you have to do, unfortunately.

Speaker 1: So the first is being able to see that everybody's experience of conflict begins at a different moment than yours.

Speaker 1: We've got two video cameras and one camera that takes still images.

Speaker 1: I'm much more interested in the still image.

Speaker 1: I can help people with the still image.

Speaker 1: Both people's videos began at different times.

Speaker 1: Just like you described, for you, the video began when your partner did this inconsiderate thing, and you really, in your mind, your subjective experience, this whole place of getting hurt, and then we got stuck in a back and forth, it began when they hurt me.

Speaker 1: That's when the video starts.

Speaker 1: We hit play when we replay what happened, and then this video continues on.

Speaker 1: So I tried to tell them how I was hurting and asked to be heard and understood, and look at the way they then go back at me while I wasn't feeling heard and understood, right?

Speaker 1: Well, they have a video player too, their first person point of view, right, subjective experience.

Speaker 1: And it began like a week earlier when you purposely robbed their towel and left them freezing and cold as they were trying to get out of the shower because you thought it was hilarious.

Speaker 1: Or whatever it is they're holding on to, right?

Speaker 1: That was a silly example.

Speaker 1: But whatever it is you did, that they haven't been able to get over in a week.

Speaker 1: But their video begins then.

Speaker 1: Both videos are right.

Speaker 1: From your subjective experience, you both got hurt.

Speaker 1: The cycle began for you when you got hurt because the other person withheld a flavor of love from you, right?

Speaker 1: But what I'm most interested in is the still picture of the two of you right now when you try and talk about it.

Speaker 1: What needs to be resolved first is right now.

Speaker 1: And right now, let's say we're in a present moment right now.

Speaker 1: Right now I'm hurting and I see you is not listening and understanding me and I'm longing for it.

Speaker 1: And you're hurting because you don't feel heard and understood by me.

Speaker 1: That's a snapshot right now.

Speaker 1: One frame.

Speaker 1: We need to heal this one frame.

Speaker 1: Stop trying to heal the two videos, right?

Speaker 1: The two like periods of time at the video, both of your agendas are not going to work because like you cannot bring your piece of video evidence.

Speaker 1: This is when I got hurt and I try and tell you about it and you won't understand me because they're going to arrive with their video evidence.

Speaker 1: Well, look at me.

Speaker 1: I got hurt a week earlier and you're not exactly offering that.

Speaker 1: That's exact.

Speaker 1: That's going to happen every time.

Speaker 1: But here's what I'm going to try and get your buy in.

Speaker 1: I'm crossing my fingers because it's hard to do.

Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1: Can you notice this still this frame right now?

Speaker 1: Both of us are hurting and both of us look like we're withholding love and understanding from the other person.

Speaker 1: And this is really I'm going to use technical language.

Speaker 1: This is really shitty for both of us.

Speaker 1: Fact.

Speaker 1: This is really shitty for both of us being disconnected from each other, both of us hurting and both of us seeing the other is withholding love and understanding from us.

Speaker 1: That opens up the possibility, and this is the key thing, that you can shift your perspective and your consciousness from only being able to see I consciousness to we consciousness.

Speaker 1: And this isn't particularly appealing to people because this first invitation to we consciousness is look how we are both hurting together in this exact instance of time.

Speaker 1: We're both hurting.

Speaker 1: We're both feeling the other person's not there for us.

Speaker 1: This is very sad for you and me.

Speaker 1: It's only when you can live in that world together, then we can go back to well now that we both really agree we're both hurting right now and we're both hurting each other is this awful moment for both of us and we're living in it.

Speaker 1: Then we can leap into well now let me see your video of how you got hurt.

Speaker 1: And then now they can listen.

Speaker 1: That actually makes sense.

Speaker 1: You came into the kitchen and I only made one cup of coffee and you thought I was making coffee for both.

Speaker 1: Oh, I get it now.

Speaker 1: But to expect someone to be ready to hear your video when they have their own.

Speaker 1: Well, interestingly, I only made one cup of coffee because you left me in the shower without a towel on purpose and you thought it was funny, right?

Speaker 1: They're not ready.

Speaker 1: Your expectations of yourself and the other person are not realistic.

Speaker 1: So you almost have to accept you're asking of each other stuff you cannot do.

Speaker 1: You have to complete this other step first.

Speaker 1: Wait, right now when we try and talk about it, it's not going well.

Speaker 1: We shouldn't expect it's going to go well because now we're both hurting and we're both withholding love from each other.

Speaker 2: Okay, so this brings up a couple questions.

Speaker 2: So what you're describing is the mutual recognition what you call empathy squared where both people recognize that this is a painful moment of disconnection and this actually sucks for both of us and how can we work together to come back into connection.

Speaker 2: What do you prescribe specifically for someone who maybe doesn't have access to a couples therapist and they're just they have to do their best DIY say hypothetically they can't access a couples therapist.

Speaker 2: What do you prescribe for those people who are then in that moment of disconnection back and forth?

Speaker 2: You did this know Wally because you did that.

Speaker 2: How do they go from there to a moment of oh, wow, let's like zoom out and look at this from a bird's-eye view.

Speaker 2: We're both caught in the cycle all of a sudden of blame and disconnection that that's quite a profound shift in self-awareness.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really difficult.

Speaker 1: Let's be clear like it is look.

Speaker 1: It's very very hard to do this without the bird's-eye view, right?

Speaker 1: And whether that's a therapist or you know, people will misuse this if they did actually have a video of them fighting, right?

Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't think couples can be trusted to use videos of them fighting like as a tool for good.

Speaker 1: They'll just now have a tool for even more damage to their relationship unfortunately, right?

Speaker 1: But look you have all the ingredients.

Speaker 1: Here's the thing.

Speaker 1: If one thing is true, all four things are true.

Speaker 1: Here are all four things.

Speaker 1: If you notice you're hurting, your partner's hurting guaranteed.

Speaker 1: If you notice they're behaving badly, you're behaving badly.

Speaker 1: So all four things are there.

Speaker 1: You're both hurting one and two, three and four.

Speaker 1: There you don't like the way they're behaving and I guarantee you they don't like the way you're behaving either.

Speaker 1: So look just think of it as a very simple easy hack.

Speaker 1: If you notice you're hurting, they're hurting, they're not behaving well, and you're not behaving well.

Speaker 1: Every time.

Speaker 1: Just imagine you accepted that as true and then you reversed engineered from I'm hurting to okay, let me see if I can work out how they must be hurting.

Speaker 1: I see they're behaving badly.

Speaker 1: Well, people only behave badly because they're hurting inside, right?

Speaker 1: So basically you got to do the work of reverse engineering back to all four things are happening all at the same time right now in this instant.

Speaker 1: Remember, we're always trying to solve this present moment, not the past.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 2: So are you saying that it's basically essential

Speaker 2: if you want to turn that moment of disconnection into a moment of connection that both people have

Speaker 2: a fairly high level of emotional maturity and self-awareness that they could go perhaps from

Speaker 2: an instant of I feel a deep like visceral physical emotional trigger and I'm hurt to

Speaker 2: snapping out of that together recognizing we're in this cycle of pain and then kind of like almost

Speaker 2: surrendering to the fact that you're in a futile cycle together.

Speaker 2: Like I'm just I'm trying to understand.

Speaker 2: I am saying that.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 1: But here's I think what people this is another thing that for some reason this is really hard to compute.

Speaker 1: Let's say right now, let's say you as a couple, right?

Speaker 1: You and your partner, right?

Speaker 1: Let's say right now we saw every one of your fights for the last year, right?

Speaker 1: And let's say we said your disconnection, the time you're in your negative system, your infinity loop where you're both hurting and you're both behaving in ways that makes you look like you're withholding love from the other person and it hurts them more and you keep going and going.

Speaker 1: Let's say it lasted on average for five days.

Speaker 1: And let's say we had an objective measure of the amount of suffering you cause to each other within the cycle.

Speaker 1: Let's say as the objective measure, we have 800 units of suffering.

Speaker 1: So it's great.

Speaker 1: We now know that you guys stay in your cycle and you cannot get out of your cycle for five days, right?

Speaker 1: And you cause 800 units of joint suffering.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 1: So here's what the work is.

Speaker 1: Let's get you to a place where you now get in your cycle, right?

Speaker 1: Within six months, can we get you to a place that you're in your cycle for one day and you cause 60 units of suffering while you're not able to get out of your cycle?

Speaker 1: So, but let me be clear.

Speaker 1: No one is promising.

Speaker 1: You're about to go, Hey, did you only make one cup of coffee?

Speaker 1: And the other person, yeah, I did because you took my towel last week.

Speaker 1: Like that, that doesn't happen.

Speaker 1: No one's going to be so enlightened that they're going to have zero time in their cycle.

Speaker 1: So what we're talking about, so look, here's the way I describe it here.

Speaker 1: Look, here's your right now, five days of suffering, the width of the screen.

Speaker 1: Here's your 800 units of suffering, big box of suffering.

Speaker 1: That's you come to see me.

Speaker 1: You guys are like, listen, we're creating 800 units of suffering when we fight, right?

Speaker 1: Here's what I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 1: I promise you over time, you come to see me.

Speaker 1: We could get your box of suffering down to eight, eight units of suffering, and you could only do it for five minutes.

Speaker 1: You're going to have a much smaller box of suffering.

Speaker 1: And at the end of that box of suffering, here's the second promise.

Speaker 1: You're going to show up and love each other.

Speaker 1: Now, the way you couldn't back then, you took your towel and it hurt you.

Speaker 1: And I was trying to be funny.

Speaker 1: Oh my God, let me give you a towel now, please.

Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1: And wait a second.

Speaker 1: I only made one cup of coffee for you and you were parched and you love coffee in the morning.

Speaker 1: Come here.

Speaker 1: Let me make you a cup of coffee now.

Speaker 1: So we'll actually do a meaningful repair on the back end of what is now only five minutes and eight units of suffering, but just in conclusion, no one gets to live their life without boxes of suffering in relationship.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 2: That's good to know.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Like it's a, it's, it is a feature boxes of suffering time spent disconnected.

Speaker 1: I'm glad we are both in pain because we look like we're withholding love from each other is a feature, not a bug.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: I understood.

Speaker 2: So I'm really trying to get microscopic so that I can understand this on the deepest level.

Speaker 2: So then there's still two instances that are a mystery to me.

Speaker 2: So one is, is there a way that I can then bring up the thing that I'm unhappy about such that it doesn't by default, suck us into a cycle of pain is my first question.

Speaker 2: You could, you could respond to that first.

Speaker 1: So, well, so here's the thing, look, it's all the framing, right?

Speaker 1: You got to go back to the basics, right?

Speaker 1: Look, if what love really is, if it, what it really is biologically, and the reason why it's there, it has a purpose is that meant that we could survive as a species.

Speaker 1: We're an independent species.

Speaker 1: All the other animals are fucking bigger than us.

Speaker 1: They could have eaten us, ran over us.

Speaker 1: We only survived because we were together.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 1: So it was the mechanism that kept us together attachment.

Speaker 1: You were born.

Speaker 1: Your mom wanted to be there for you.

Speaker 1: You wanted to stay close to her.

Speaker 1: Then your dad was attached to you.

Speaker 1: The community was attached to you.

Speaker 1: You're like, we just, we stayed together.

Speaker 1: Attachment is the glue.

Speaker 1: It's the glue, right?

Speaker 1: So the two main features, are you there for me?

Speaker 1: Am I enough for you?

Speaker 1: Just think about when you bring up something, hey, I wanted to talk to you about a moment.

Speaker 1: My feelings were hurt with you.

Speaker 1: Now, remember you're your partner's primary attachment figure.

Speaker 1: Does it make sense to you that when you come to them with information about, by the way, there's something that happened that you haven't been thinking about that I got hurt by you.

Speaker 1: And I'm going to bring it up.

Speaker 1: Even though I'm going to bring it up skillfully, does it make logical sense that would be a threat to their system?

Speaker 1: If everything I said is true, they just heard either a, oh shit, they're about to leave me.

Speaker 1: And some, it touches upon it, or I'm about to be thrown out of the village, out of this relationship for being not good enough, right?

Speaker 1: Wow.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So I think one should be prepared that if you're going to bring up, hey, I have a little piece of information about how I felt abandoned or rejected by you, that your partner is about to feel abandoned or rejected deep down inside, because that's just how they're built.

Speaker 1: And by the way, that's not a bad thing.

Speaker 1: Cause you know what it means if that's what they touch inside.

Speaker 1: When you bring up your, Hey, I had some feelings that I want to tell you about it.

Speaker 1: And it's actually really hard for them to hear it.

Speaker 1: Guess what?

Speaker 1: Again, I'm going to use technical language again.

Speaker 1: They fucking love the shit out of you.

Speaker 1: It hurts them.

Speaker 1: It's threatening to them.

Speaker 1: When you tell them, by the way, something came up that hurt my feelings.

Speaker 1: And I'd love to tell you about how you're worthy of being abandoned or rejected.

Speaker 1: Now, I know they may not be the words you thought you were saying, but that's what is going to land inside them on the deepest part of who they are, because they're a human being.

Speaker 2: Okay.

Speaker 2: That makes sense.

Speaker 2: And so what do you, what do you then do if, for example, one person is more familiar with your work, say, or more familiar with a certain level of, uh, being comfortable sitting in the pain and, and has familiarity with self-awareness practices.

Speaker 2: So they can kind of bird's eye view the cycle of pain more readily.

Speaker 2: Um, what, what do you do if there's a situation where there is that kind of imbalance in a relationship and when you bring something up, it seems like maybe you're able to witness the cycle of pain from a bird's eye view, but you've just kind of like dragged your partner into it and they're just in it.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean, what do you do?

Speaker 1: Well, look, it's a three-legged race.

Speaker 1: Let's be clear.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: It's a three-legged race, right?

Speaker 1: Let's say you really wanted to win a three-legged race.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: We have to do it in lockstep.

Speaker 1: You can't have one person like I crossed the finish line on my own, right?

Speaker 1: Like I'm really good at three-legged racing and my partner's not like we, you have to do it in lockstep right now.

Speaker 1: Just think about it.

Speaker 1: If you're right, let's say you're just emotionally enlightened and you get this, then that means you would know, Hey, listen, I've got hurt feelings inside.

Speaker 1: There's something in result.

Speaker 1: I have to talk to my partner about it.

Speaker 1: I know it's not going to go well at first.

Speaker 1: Like if you were really enlightened, you wouldn't have an expectation.

Speaker 1: Oh, I'm about to bring up my partner.

Speaker 1: My feelings are hurt and I'm going to expect them.

Speaker 1: Oh, namaste.

Speaker 1: Like, no, they're going to touch terror and they're going to be defensive or attack you temporarily.

Speaker 1: It's going to hurt you.

Speaker 1: You're going to see, see, this is why I can't bring anything up.

Speaker 1: Like I expect for some period of time.

Speaker 1: It's messy.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Let's say you opened your ways app right now on your phone and you know, you trust ways, right?

Speaker 1: Ways knows like the best way across San Francisco, right?

Speaker 1: From North point to mission Bay.

Speaker 1: And it shows you in the middle, there's a 30 minute traffic jam.

Speaker 1: Ways isn't wrong.

Speaker 1: The only way to get across town is we're going to have to deal with the 30 minute traffic jam.

Speaker 1: What's the 30 minute traffic traffic jam.

Speaker 1: It's hard for me to say traffic jam, right?

Speaker 1: The 30 minute traffic jam in this analogy is I'm about to share.

Speaker 1: My feelings are hurt.

Speaker 1: It's really good.

Speaker 1: I do share, but I don't expect it's going to go well.

Speaker 1: Now they're going to be hurt.

Speaker 1: They're going to be, you're telling me I'm not enough again in whatever way they do it.

Speaker 1: Well, you, you, you, you, well, what did you do?

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 1: Look, I know they're going to have a temporary period of time that they're threatened and they're reacting badly.

Speaker 1: I'm going to hurt.

Speaker 1: I'm not going to react.

Speaker 1: Well, we're going to get in our shit, but that's, that's just the traffic jam we have to go through to get to the other side, mission Bay, where our favorite ice cream store is.

Speaker 1: And we can eat ice cream together.

Speaker 1: We're not on the wrong direction just because we get into our attachment fear with each other.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: I guess I just imagine that there's a, a place that we get to in our evolution where we can still be in touch with our attachment fears that come up, but we don't become so absorbed and identified in them that it suddenly becomes like a blanket of unconscious reactivity and that there's a way to then have a real deep conversation where maybe, maybe it doesn't even look like a traffic jam.

Speaker 2: Maybe it's just two people being like, Whoa, I noticed when you share that, that, that I hurt you in this way that I didn't realize that really lands deeply in my heart and it's painful.

Speaker 2: And I, I noticed the anger that that brings up in me and my desire to defend myself and just having like a really high level emotionally aware.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you, but yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: But you have to, here's the way I've always put it.

Speaker 1: You have to earn the right to have those conversations.

Speaker 1: Here's how you earn the right to have those conversations.

Speaker 1: You can get through the traffic jam.

Speaker 1: Like we earned the right, like, yeah, look, we will get there.

Speaker 1: Let's say you're able to go deeply into, you weren't there for me.

Speaker 1: And it's like, you're hurt.

Speaker 1: You tell the other person you weren't there for me.

Speaker 1: And it hurts the other person and go, you're telling me I'm not enough again.

Speaker 1: You're always asking for more and it goes really badly.

Speaker 1: And then you're able to zoom out and go, Oh my God, look at how we were both hurting and how we both protested in ways that hurt each other.

Speaker 1: And then you feel that empathy for each other.

Speaker 1: We now have grown our ability to go to that same spot and then not hurt as much.

Speaker 1: And in fact, not only that, we've grown our ability to have things come up that don't even create the cycle.

Speaker 1: We don't even notice.

Speaker 1: That's one of the other things I always think is magical about this work.

Speaker 1: People go, Oh, nothing came up this week that we thought about.

Speaker 1: They don't even realize that's progress.

Speaker 1: It's not that nothing came up.

Speaker 1: It's that they do feel more safe with each other.

Speaker 1: They trust, Oh, you care about my feelings.

Speaker 1: Oh, I actually understand my vulnerability.

Speaker 1: I can feel it.

Speaker 1: I can regulate better.

Speaker 1: I can commute like, Oh, what you're describing will happen as you quote unquote evolve together.

Speaker 1: All right.

Speaker 1: Both inside yourself and together as a couple, but you have to earn the right.

Speaker 1: What I see usually is what stops people getting to that quote unquote evolve conversation is they try and jump over the mess and get there too quickly.

Speaker 1: You can't jump over the mess and get there too quickly.

Speaker 2: That makes sense.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Really being aware of the things that in this case, me bringing up my pain might evoke in them and being willing to hold space for a while on a primal level, this actually brings up attachment fear and abandonment fear and all of these things and being ready to face that together empathetically.

Speaker 2: I see.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Just imagine in the scenario you spoke about you, what is it that your partner, let's just imagine this, this scenario where you've brought up something, there's something that happened.

Speaker 1: It's hurting my feelings that happened two days ago.

Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about it right now.

Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you unbelievably responsibly, like incredibly well, like nonviolent communication, like beautifully self-responsibly communicated.

Speaker 1: Listen, they're organized organisms, millions of years old.

Speaker 1: You can put it in the nicest, most self-responsible words.

Speaker 1: Their organism knows when they're being told you've disappointed me, you let me down, you didn't love me.

Speaker 1: And it's going to hurt them.

Speaker 1: And thank God it hurts them because it means they freaking love you.

Speaker 1: And they're going to have some moment, whether it's a split second or the next five days, depending on their level of wounding inside where they're going to be protesting, they're going to be defending themselves or saying, well, you, you, what did you do?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: They're just going to like, we'd like if it was a split second and we'd prefer it wasn't five days of them being activated into protesting, trying to survive, but it's going to happen.

Speaker 1: So let's say that's true.

Speaker 1: What is it that they need from you?

Speaker 1: They need two things.

Speaker 1: You already know the way I'm hurt and how much I want to be heard and understood.

Speaker 1: Well done.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: You got the, you got one.

Speaker 1: So there's two other things they need.

Speaker 1: So you got one of the three, they need you to understand, oh my God, this moment is so difficult for them with empathy and care.

Speaker 1: Of course it is.

Speaker 1: They just found out from the person they love that they're disappointing them.

Speaker 1: Ooh, they're in a tough moment.

Speaker 1: You want to have some real empathy for them.

Speaker 1: It's not going to be easy to do because you're hurting and you're consumed with your own hurt.

Speaker 1: Not easy to do.

Speaker 1: In fact, temporarily impossible.

Speaker 1: That's why it's a task to do.

Speaker 1: It's not even possible to do it immediately.

Speaker 1: And then the third thing you have to do is zoom out and see the whole system.

Speaker 1: Would you look how fucking painful this moment is for both of us?

Speaker 1: Also not easy to do and temporarily impossible, but that would be your work.

Speaker 1: Now imagine you could give her that, that you are working on not only being able to communicate, like I understand the way I'm feeling, I'm going to communicate it incredibly self-responsibly so that you have an opportunity to be there for me.

Speaker 1: But you're like, hey, listen, I realize I'm hurting.

Speaker 1: I've communicated self-responsibly, but I know that must be devastating for you to hear.

Speaker 1: Jesus, you're in an awful spot.

Speaker 1: And by the way, that puts both of us in an awful spot.

Speaker 1: Now we're both hurting and we're both experiencing each other as withholding love.

Speaker 1: This is awful for both of us.

Speaker 1: Imagine you being able to provide that holding for her.

Speaker 1: Now that's yeah, she's got, she's got an enlightened partner with her.

Speaker 1: It's amazing.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that that can be a difficult situation if it's a dynamic where it's like, okay, so frequently when I want to bring something up, but then it turns into maybe I'm bringing something up because I'm in pain, but then I actually have to flip into the kind of holding space for your pain role because that actually became more intense than my pain was in the first place.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: It's really hard.

Speaker 1: Listen, here's the underlying principle here.

Speaker 1: Being with what is as painful as it is, is better than living in some imaginary world that you'd prefer to be in.

Speaker 1: Like what is, is like, it's difficult.

Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of giving feedback in relationship.

Speaker 1: The expectations people have that they should be able to hear feedback and it lands really well, and they go, my God, thank you so much.

Speaker 1: Can I learn some more ways that I'm failing?

Speaker 1: It doesn't, it's just not realistic.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 1: Look, you're going to get in these cycles with each other.

Speaker 1: And by the way, here's the other thing in relationship, typically, typically there's one person that I don't quite feel as connected with as I'd like to.

Speaker 1: And I'm going to now tell you about the way I don't feel as connected with to give us an opportunity to get more connected.

Speaker 1: Totally makes sense.

Speaker 1: So they're going to notice more things in the world.

Speaker 1: I'm not acting that, that touch the, I don't quite feel as connected.

Speaker 1: I'm going to have to tell you about it.

Speaker 1: Not because they're bad or complaining or being critical.

Speaker 1: It is how it's going to land by the way.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 1: But, but it does not what they're doing.

Speaker 1: I'm actually trying to get back to connection with you.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 1: So it isn't the tragedy.

Speaker 1: They're actually trying to get back to connection, but everything they say lands as a criticism on their partner because their partner, they're not trying to get back to connection.

Speaker 1: They're trying to make this moment.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 1: They're in a constant, okay, maybe this is enough.

Speaker 1: I'm not a disappointment right now.

Speaker 1: I just sat down on the couch.

Speaker 1: Maybe sitting on the, on the couch is not going to get me in trouble for being inconsiderate, selfish.

Speaker 1: How come you didn't invite me to sit on the couch?

Speaker 1: Ah, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: They're constantly just trying to get to.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 1: Those two people get together 80% of the time.

Speaker 1: One part, look, I've noticed the feeling I need to talk to you about it.

Speaker 1: I think it's going to help us.

Speaker 1: And the other person is, ah, for fuck's sake, I just discovered everything's not okay.

Speaker 1: Again.

Speaker 2: So if you're not as much of a fan of giving feedback and relationship, then what do you do when you feel super triggered by something your partner does or did, and you want to create an environment where that thing doesn't happen again?

Speaker 1: Well, so look, in an idea world, so firstly, you're not going to do anything very well, just the way you described it.

Speaker 1: Let's be clear.

Speaker 1: Again, temporarily, you're not going to do well, right?

Speaker 1: You're going to do some version of fight, flight, freeze, placate.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: You're either going to move towards them and let them know how much you disappointed me.

Speaker 1: You're going to flee.

Speaker 1: You're going to shut down, withdraw from them.

Speaker 1: You're going to placate.

Speaker 1: You're going to pretend nothing happened.

Speaker 1: That's not going to go particularly well.

Speaker 1: Or you're just going to collapse, right?

Speaker 1: Like, so look, you're temporarily going to do some version of one of those four things.

Speaker 1: It's not going to go particularly well temporarily, right?

Speaker 1: Because it's going to, they'll get it.

Speaker 1: They'll, it'll hurt and they'll be react.

Speaker 1: They'll do their version of fight, flight, freeze, placate back because your love is so important to both of you.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Um, but then hopefully you can see, we both got stuck.

Speaker 1: We both got hurt.

Speaker 1: Me getting hurt, telling you, even though it doesn't mean it's a bad idea, I did it.

Speaker 1: It was always going to hurt you, right?

Speaker 1: It was always going to be hard for you to hear.

Speaker 1: And of course you were going to protest back.

Speaker 1: So there's some moment in the future.

Speaker 1: There's some present moment in the future that both of you can see, Hey, I totally understand what happened, both why I got hurt back then.

Speaker 1: And then why the conversation about it didn't work.

Speaker 1: We want to get to that future moment as quickly as possible, but it is an instant.

Speaker 1: And then look at some point, let's say you were going to be able to communicate that as well as possible with the understanding.

Speaker 1: I don't expect this to go particularly well.

Speaker 1: I would love if you started with that.

Speaker 1: I don't think me telling you that I'm really hurt and I'm going to tell you the way I'm hurting means that you'll never do this thing again.

Speaker 1: I'm not, I don't have huge expectations that we're about to have a particularly pleasant next 10 minutes.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: That would be great if we started with that.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: And then I would be able to add all of the above.

Speaker 1: I'd be able to look, I have some awareness, something happened.

Speaker 1: This is what you did.

Speaker 1: Here was my stimulus.

Speaker 1: This is what it felt like inside.

Speaker 1: I felt not cared for abandoned, rejected, not considered shame.

Speaker 1: I'm struggling to deal with that.

Speaker 1: And here I am telling you about it.

Speaker 1: Hopefully you'll change your behavior and make it not happen.

Speaker 1: And you know what as I'm doing all that, I'm scared that you're now going to be hurt with me and reactive.

Speaker 1: And me telling you is about to make things worse.

Speaker 1: There you go.

Speaker 1: Imagine if you knew all of that and were able to say all of it.

Speaker 1: We're about to get in their cycle because I'm hurting and I haven't been able to let it go.

Speaker 1: And now I'm telling you, even though I'm telling you with self-responsibility and it's still not going to stop us getting in a traffic jam for the next bloody 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: So let's go.

Speaker 1: Let's do this.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Like that would be, that would be brilliant.

Speaker 1: As a, see this is, you know, I don't know if you noticed what's absent from that is some expectation that the other person's going to wait.

Speaker 1: I feel an enlightened being entering my body and I'm about to hear the way you're hurting and I'm going to listen to it.

Speaker 1: Now that may happen, right?

Speaker 1: But don't expect it.

Speaker 2: And it'll happen more if you earn the right.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 2: I'm laughing because I think it just like resonates so deeply with the reality of what I experienced.

Speaker 2: And I think the only adjustment maybe I need to make is just understanding that it likely won't go well.

Speaker 2: And now I have a little bit more context as well of why it won't go well based on how deeply rooted our kind of tribal instincts go.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Look, so much of this is first order change of change, like understanding what it is to be human, what love is, what we mean to each other.

Speaker 1: And then that changing our expectation of ourself and each other.

Speaker 1: Now that isn't an excuse to behave badly.

Speaker 1: That's not what it means.

Speaker 1: It'll just grow our empathy and compassion for ourself and each other.

Speaker 1: And a lot more understanding of why we're reactive and we protest in ways we ourselves and other people protest in ways that they're not pleasant and they're not actually helping even the person that's doing the protest.

Speaker 1: It's not like, but everybody makes sense.

Speaker 1: Everybody makes sense.

Speaker 1: Every fight you and your partner have ever gotten into, it actually makes perfect.

Speaker 1: Both of you, every step of the way, I guarantee you, if you ever tell me a fight you guys had, every single thing you felt, did, thought completely logical.

Speaker 1: All makes sense.

Speaker 1: Very sad for both of you.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 2: That makes sense.

Speaker 2: No pun intended.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 2: So you talk a lot about how codependence has kind of been a bit of a bastardized term that it's actually more about maybe a misunderstanding of attachment theory and that we're not being particularly helpful by using the label of codependent when what's really happening is some pretty visceral and complex dynamics of attachment theory.

Speaker 2: And so what I hear you say a lot is something along the lines of the reason you guys feel upset when there's conflict with each other is a feature, not a bug.

Speaker 2: It's because you love each other so much.

Speaker 2: And I wonder if for a select subgroup of people, there are two kind of sneaky things that could be happening when they hear that.

Speaker 2: For one, I wonder how you steer people away from justifying a certain degree of maybe coldness or imbalanced clinginess, shall we say, that comes more from a place of I'm scared to face reality without you, as opposed to being a true actual love.

Speaker 2: Like I don't actually love this person the way that a balanced husband and wife actually feel like maybe a divine love for each other.

Speaker 2: I love this person in the sense from a very kind of attachment biological level of I'm scared to be without you.

Speaker 1: But this is the thing, like again, so this is funny, like I love the question where like, look, this is so deeply ingrained in our thought process, right, that we've inherited that it is wrong.

Speaker 1: Even just the wording of the question, right?

Speaker 1: Here's what love actually is.

Speaker 1: We have to undo this.

Speaker 1: Okay, it is not bad that you love you're emotionally bonded, you're attached with someone that you are scared to be in the world without them.

Speaker 1: In fact, that is what love means.

Speaker 1: Or it is not bad that I love this person so much, I would die if I was a disappointment to them.

Speaker 1: If they rejected me for not being enough, those two, two people, and they come together and my God, I have this terrible confession.

Speaker 1: I do never.

Speaker 1: I never wanted to live in the world without you.

Speaker 1: I'd be scared without you.

Speaker 1: I don't want to do it.

Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this is so good.

Speaker 1: They might be embarrassed to say it because they've lived under this worldview that that's bad.

Speaker 1: You're supposed to love the way they dance or the way they recite poetry, not like, no, I just fucking don't want to be without you.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Because you're that important.

Speaker 1: You're my person.

Speaker 1: My body recognizes as your body is its person in the world.

Speaker 1: I would die without you.

Speaker 1: That's a fucking good thing.

Speaker 1: It's not a codependent thing or a bad thing.

Speaker 1: Or look, I so I feel desperate.

Speaker 1: I want to collapse.

Speaker 1: I want to go to bed for a week.

Speaker 1: If you look at me and you shake your head, like I failed you.

Speaker 1: I literally don't want to see my friends.

Speaker 1: I don't want to do any activity.

Speaker 1: That's how much I fucking love you.

Speaker 1: That's not a bad thing.

Speaker 1: We have been fed this idea that we should hide that, lessen it, water it down.

Speaker 1: It's not true.

Speaker 1: We should be heading to 7-Eleven and buying their most expensive bottle of champagne at 7-Eleven because of how much we love each other.

Speaker 1: We shouldn't be.

Speaker 1: People have to stop watering it down because here's the weird thing.

Speaker 1: That becomes a foundation instead of it being this thing where, oh my God, we'll be useless with you won't leave the house without me and you won't ever try anything in case I'll be disappointed in you.

Speaker 1: That's not what happens when you surrender to that.

Speaker 1: When you surrender to look how much we mean to each other.

Speaker 1: That's what makes people brave and courageous, that they stand upon the foundation of their love and go create amazing things in the world.

Speaker 1: It doesn't create codependence.

Speaker 1: It creates interdependence upon a really solid foundation for people to go thrive.

Speaker 2: And I guess my curiosity with the empathy philosophy here, maybe your philosophy is synonymous with empathy philosophy.

Speaker 2: For example, in a lot of spirituality, there's this idea that love is actually a transcendent quality.

Speaker 2: It's a quality that both is immediate to our direct experience and has, I almost think of it maybe like a diamond.

Speaker 2: If we see love as a diamond with multiple facets, one facet might be the way that we experience a sense of unity with our child and love with our tribe and love for nature.

Speaker 2: And another element being almost like a spiritual non-dual experience where people experience through meditation and introspection experiences of love is somehow embedded within the fabric of the universe itself.

Speaker 2: And it's like this non-dual essence of who I am.

Speaker 2: And then when I hear your definition of love being much more biological, if I'm understanding it correctly, I'm wondering if maybe on some level there is a distinction that can be a drawn between a fear-based attachment, which is just kind of a utilitarian attachment of like, I love you in the sense of, I recognize that if I'm exiled from the tribe, I will die.

Speaker 2: But there's no heart in it.

Speaker 2: It's just kind of like amygdala as opposed to the love that has a little bit more of that actual deep heart connection to another person.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: No, I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 1: And here's what I would say to that, right, is I like the words of John O'Donohue, famous Irish communicator of spiritual wisdom, passed away way too young.

Speaker 1: God is that which you find beautiful, right?

Speaker 1: God is that which you find beautiful, right?

Speaker 1: For you, it might be some piece of classical music.

Speaker 1: For someone else, it's watching two people dance.

Speaker 1: For someone else, it's a random act of kindness you see on the street.

Speaker 1: For someone else, it's going to be, oh my God, look, we developed this mechanism to make sure that we survived and thrived as a species, which is we are emotionally bonded.

Speaker 1: Love matters more than anything else.

Speaker 1: Life is going to be hard.

Speaker 1: It's a complete random walk, but at least we get to hold each other on this random walk, right?

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 1: Totally up to you.

Speaker 1: Is that which you find beautiful or not?

Speaker 1: I am choosing and inviting other people to experience God through this thing that you could go, it's fear-based, is actually the most beautiful thing there is.

Speaker 1: Now, again, go listen to a classical concert, right?

Speaker 1: That's beautiful too.

Speaker 1: But I think we could describe it as this fear-based, amygdala-based thing that we need each other.

Speaker 1: It's just this biological thing.

Speaker 1: I like it because it's grounded in science.

Speaker 1: There's no woo-woo about it, but I think it's fucking beautiful.

Speaker 1: I think it's really beautiful.

Speaker 1: But it is a choice.

Speaker 1: I want to be clear.

Speaker 1: You're right.

Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're wrong.

Speaker 1: It's like, oh my God, this is just this feature.

Speaker 1: I often think about we're going to find some alien species that doesn't have attachment as a feature.

Speaker 1: They're going to come down and, oh my God, this thing that I find the most beautiful thing in the world, me personally, it's just a feature of human mammals.

Speaker 1: It's not a feature of the universe.

Speaker 1: Look, I'm in the business of helping people understand this particular part of themselves.

Speaker 1: And if people want to, helping make love and relationship work.

Speaker 1: And I do, I think it's a feature of mammals.

Speaker 1: I don't think I could do this with a couple of octopuses that are some super intelligent beings from a different galaxy.

Speaker 2: And I just want to clarify that when I bring up this alternative way to perceive love,

Speaker 2: I'm not trying to necessarily, actually, I'm not in any way trying to negate what you see as

Speaker 2: beautiful or what you see as love or even have some kind of high level philosophical debate,

Speaker 2: but more so bring that up as a way of orienting the question, which is, is there a little bit of

Speaker 2: danger or a way that someone could interpret the empathy definition of love as a way of continuing

Speaker 2: to say, see me holding onto you for dear life is a feature and I don't need to address this.

Speaker 2: It's okay to lean into this and not try to also self-empower into maybe actually being with you is not in my highest interest.

Speaker 2: Maybe being connected and bonded with someone is my highest interest because everyone needs someone to be bonded with.

Speaker 2: But maybe this whole time I've been telling myself I'm so attached to you because I love you, but it's actually a thing that is not service to my life anymore that it would serve me to let go of and see bonding in a more balanced place.

Speaker 1: So look, anybody that's just consuming the content without doing the actual experiential work, like this is the rub.

Speaker 1: This is the hard part.

Speaker 1: Absolutely.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: But let's just say if I had two people in my office and remember, like, so look, we have attachment theory and we have systems theory, but there's this other thing that's added in the mix, which is, remember, I'm an experiential psychotherapist.

Speaker 1: So what does that mean?

Speaker 1: I'm going to try and help people be what is deeply somatically in this moment and then bring both of them into complete immersion in the present moment.

Speaker 1: And then we're going to see what's true from being in that truth.

Speaker 1: What is supposed to happen next will happen.

Speaker 1: So I have then there's some theories that inform them what's possible if, oh, my God, it turns out I've never been able to truly say yes to someone.

Speaker 1: I've always been placating.

Speaker 1: And now here I am at this crossroads in my relationship.

Speaker 1: And what really needs to happen developmentally is I say no and I leave.

Speaker 1: I can't believe it.

Speaker 1: This relationship is the casualty of my development as a human being.

Speaker 1: That's an organic, natural, you know, sad thing that needs to happen in a moment of person's journey and their relationship.

Speaker 1: I don't decide.

Speaker 1: I bring people to a core present moment, understanding what attachment is, understanding, you know, what needs to happen, like on these thresholds of possibility, right, the threshold of revelation.

Speaker 1: I just bring people to the edge of a threshold of revelation.

Speaker 1: They decide what happens next.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: So yeah, look, you need all three.

Speaker 1: We need attachment theory.

Speaker 1: We need systems theory.

Speaker 1: And then we need the experience, right, the true, complete immersion in the present moment.

Speaker 1: And I don't know how you do that without, what do we call them, a shaman, right, like a therapist, a ceremonial leader.

Speaker 1: We've got to create ceremony where people enter these places where they discover themselves and they're completely immersed inside themselves and with each other.

Speaker 1: And now we see what happens next.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I hear that.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I think where that question ultimately came from was a place of then just given that someone could be in a situation where they're clinging on so tight, but actually when they get into the experiential work with you, it's probable that they're going to realize that they're holding on to something that is no longer actually serving them.

Speaker 2: And they're kind of just holding on out of fear.

Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but, well, let's just say we, like in the process, we'd want to differentiate between three different things, let's say, right.

Speaker 1: There's the stimulus.

Speaker 1: We want to know what the stimulus is.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: One, two, what the actual experience, the felt present moment experience of the fear, the terror of the unmet love need.

Speaker 1: I'm about to be abandoned.

Speaker 1: Togetherness is all that matters.

Speaker 1: I'm in terror.

Speaker 1: And then there's three, the action clinging.

Speaker 1: There are three different things.

Speaker 1: And we want to be able to know, like, it looks like you're leaving, right.

Speaker 1: That's the stimulus.

Speaker 1: And I cling.

Speaker 1: Those two things aren't that important, actually.

Speaker 1: What's most important is the meat of the sandwich.

Speaker 1: I'm in terror.

Speaker 1: And so what I'm going to do in a real life moment of time, I don't know how else to do this part and do it in a fucking just sending a video or writing a letter.

Speaker 1: Now, I'm going to see if I can have that person feel safe enough.

Speaker 1: Let's go on a journey down into the fear right in between.

Speaker 1: I thought you were going to leave.

Speaker 1: Something happened and made me think you're going to leave.

Speaker 1: And I'm about to cling.

Speaker 1: Now we're going to live in between those two things and just be completely immersed in the fear.

Speaker 1: Let's get to know that you.

Speaker 1: And then deep down from there, when we're totally immersed in the fear, what needs to happen?

Speaker 1: What's next?

Speaker 1: What's next?

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Maybe it is.

Speaker 1: Hey, I'm going to double down and commit to clinging.

Speaker 1: Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: Maybe that is.

Speaker 1: That's there.

Speaker 1: There's their organism's choice.

Speaker 1: But maybe deep down, we're going to get to talk to someone that I am in terror of being abandoned.

Speaker 1: And maybe there's some other action.

Speaker 1: They could knock and go, will you please stay?

Speaker 1: Will you please not leave from a place of I'm just scared and I don't want to lose you?

Speaker 1: Or, you know, I've been scared all my life.

Speaker 1: I'm not going to keep clinging.

Speaker 1: I'm going to let you go.

Speaker 1: I'm so scared.

Speaker 1: But I'm here for that little one inside me now.

Speaker 1: I can let someone go now the way I never could before.

Speaker 1: But the only way we're going to get to that organic outcome is we got to go down to the one right in between the stimulus and and the the and your example, the clinging behavior to not feel the terror of that, which is like incomplete inside me.

Speaker 1: Does that make sense?

Speaker 2: It does make sense.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good dissection.

Speaker 2: It's interesting as you share.

Speaker 2: I'm like, I feel like I'm X-raying myself on like a physiological and spiritual level, which it feels quite profound.

Speaker 2: I think the last thing that would be interesting to leave myself and other people listening to this with would be if they're interested in what you're doing with your couples therapy work and beyond.

Speaker 2: Well, specifically in your couples therapy work, if people are interested in what you're doing, but are maybe hesitant because they don't know what to expect.

Speaker 2: Can you share maybe an example of what a session with you looks like, for example, like what some of the key tools you use are key pillars of a session like in gestalt that might look like using role play of some kind and acting out a scenario that one is afraid of?

Speaker 2: Like, is there is there some equivalent for you that, you know, these are like staples of a session?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean, there are in some ways there's three different types of sessions.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: One is what we call organizing sessions where we're just trying to organize where we are, understand the theory, like just make sure we're all on the same page, the three of us, what we're doing.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: There has to be some cognitive buy in or else people aren't going to do it.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 1: So we've got to do that.

Speaker 1: The other one is then we're we're trying to just name and understand like three scientists together.

Speaker 1: What is actually happening right now?

Speaker 1: So the three of us share an agenda.

Speaker 1: Remember, the two people are going to have different agendas.

Speaker 1: I actually want to talk about how you hurt me and the other ones.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you.

Speaker 1: I'd like to now share some information about how you hurt me.

Speaker 1: Usually the two people have competing agendas.

Speaker 1: Well, I have a third agenda that I'm going to invite them to do.

Speaker 1: Let's see if the three of us could actually study what is it that's happening right now.

Speaker 1: This second, we're going to actually see if we can flesh out what is our system that we get in together that is literally happening right now, whether that's it's happening right now because they were in it in the session organically or we talk about something that happened last week.

Speaker 1: And then the third one is if we can do that, that second one really well, then we have an opportunity to create missing experiences.

Speaker 1: And that's where now that we're safe, we're on the same team.

Speaker 1: We both know it's both of us.

Speaker 1: We both get hurt.

Speaker 1: We both hurt each other.

Speaker 1: It only happens because we love each other.

Speaker 1: Now we can go about actually doing a deep dive into each of our deepest unmet love needs, sharing them with each other and meeting those needs and starting to actually let the love in and then go thrive in the world together as a couple and as individuals.

Speaker 1: Beautiful.

Speaker 1: OK, that was a fun conversation.

Speaker 1: Thanks, Nico, for joining us.

Speaker 1: Happy to.

Speaker 1: It's fun.

Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about me or Empathy, just find us at Empathy.com.

Speaker 1: Remember, it's Empathy with an I on the N, not a Y on the N dot com.

Speaker 2: Thanks, everyone.

Speaker 2: Thank you.

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