00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 296, "Creating More Safety in Your Relationships." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:23 

Alright, hey there and welcome the podcast today. So glad to have you here. I am still in Samoa and loving it. It is so humid here. Let me tell you something crazy. Today I looked at my travel backpack that I only use for traveling, so it's been sitting in the corner of our bedroom for almost three weeks and I looked over and iIm like "what is that on my backpack? Like, what's going on?" And I pulled it out and, I have white mold starting to grow all over my backpack because it's just so humid and the material is that thick canvas and so it is just getting humid from the air and not drying. And so anyway that's crazy, right? Amazing, but still loving it. We still have nine days left here and we have just enjoyed every minute of it. It was breathtakingly beautiful. American Samoa is a wonderful place if you ever get to come here. No big cities, all little villages, and it just adorable and breathtaking beautiful. 

01:23 

So one thing that I want to chat about before we jump in today is my emotional and physical intimacy discussion group that is coming up. It's going to be starting on March 9th. We're going be doing it for 12 weeks, Saturday mornings, early in the morning, so that it is out of your way. You can do it while other people are still sleeping, before your family and stuff get up and moving, especially if you're in West Coast. I'm East Eastern time zone and so for me it's nine o 'clock, which I know for some of you would go "oh I would love a nine o'clock class," and I am a little bit like "nine o'clock, a little late for me," but we're still gonna do it because I am just really excited about it. So this is a class where you're gonna go out, you're gonna find information, and you bring it back to the group. And this is gonna be a really great place for us to talk about what really creates emotional and physical safety in our relationships: intimacy. How do we do that? And how do we move forward? How I create that in my own marriage? All of you are going to have different ideas and see things from different perspectives and I just love the idea of diving deep. 

02:32 

I am capping the class at 10 people because I want to keep it small. We're going have a Facebook group so that we can continue the discussion during the week and so that we can share additional resources and things that we find so everybody can have that. And if you are a man out there and thinking, "I might like to do this, but I'm not sure." I have had several men express interest, no men sign up yet. Also some couples have expressed interest in both of them doing it at the same time. So if you're a man, don't be afraid to join the conversation. Both men and women in the group would really help to create a well-rounded understanding of what's going on. So check that out. You can go to tanyahale.com. At the very top, there will be a tab that says "Discussion Group" and you can get signed up there. It really is fairly, fairly cheap considering what coaching costs and I think it's gonna be fabulous. I'm super excited about it. So I hope that if this is something that interests you that you will join the group and if you know other people who might be interested, share that information with them. I think it's going to be a great, great place. 

03:40 

Alright, so today we are continuing a little bit on the discussion we talked about last week. We're going be talking about creating more safety in your relationship. So what are some other things that you can do to create safety for your partner? So the safety that we're seeking to create allows us to honor and respect the other person. and it teaches us to be more accepting and loving toward them as well. Now, one thing that I wanna clarify after last week's podcast, I'm not sure that was really forthright with this, but I want to clarify that we don't go into behaviors that are out of our alignment with our value system or that violate our own safety in trying to create safety for our partner, right? In those situations, however, it is incredibly important that we make those situations a matter of honest and open discussion. We're going to talk today about some reasons that we don't, but part of creating that safety is not that we just have to become a puppet and do whatever they say. We do have be in alignment with ourselves, but we also want to ask ourselves that question we talked about last week. Why am I resistant? And that will help us know because it goes against my values or my own safety or is it just because I'm being lazy or I've been annoyed or I am not willing to step into the relationship at that level? And those are the kinds of things that we want to start asking ourselves. 

05:11 

But today I want step in to a few more specifics about what it can mean to create a safe space in your relationship circle. And I have broken it down into 10 things that you can do to show up as a safer person in the relationships. These obviously are not all inclusive. There is a lot of overlapping in them, but hopefully in breaking it down this way you'll be able to see more clearly what's going on. And these are also in no particular order, just as they came to my mind. 

05:34 

Number 1, you can learn to accept the other person just is they are. The more we can learn, to let go of our expectations that the other person will show up a certain way, the safer of a space we create for them. Imagine that in your relationship your spouse is always criticizing you and the things that you do. "You talk too much when you're out with other people. You don't like having the right kind of sex and you don t want it the right amount of times during the week. You're not as religious as I think you should be. You want to share too many details about your day. You are too lenient with parenting the kids or you are driving our adult children away with how you interact with them. You've gained weight and now are not attracted to you." 

06:18 

So here's the deal. We didn't marry our clone. And guess what? You do not even have a clone out there. There won't be anyone in the world who has all of the same ideas and opinions and hopes and dreams as you. No one will see the world through the same lens as you. And yet, somewhere in our primitive brain, we think that the other person should be more like us, and it would make our lives a whole lot easier if they were. Or, if they changed how they were to be more like us. Because, of course, we know all things and we do all the things the right way, right? But of course, if they changed to be more like you, your life would be easier. But a huge part of being in a relationship is learning to love the other person just as they are. When we don't accept them, but rather continually criticize and push them to how we want them to, we are not creating a safe place. Accepting them for who they. 

07:14 

Number two, love them no matter what they do or how they're behaving. Now, obviously we're not talking about abusive behavior here, but loving them when their behavior exemplifies being a human is a great step to creating safety. Your person is human and they will act like a human. This means they will sometimes make decisions that aren't decisions that you would make and sometimes their behaviors will impact you negatively. When we can learn to accept that their behaviors are a part of them, that they are part of their human journey of learning and growing and progressing, we can offer a lot more grace for behaviors that may be more difficult for us to accept and lean into. 

07:59 

When I work with clients around this, their spouse may be working through pornography, depression, work issues, cleanliness issues, phone/gaming issues, just to name a few. Learning to offer more love, and not less love, can be a challenge for us, but that is what is required to create a safe environment. If our loving them is fickle and based on whether or not they are behaving the way that we want them to, then they don't feel safe. When we withhold love in an attempt to punish their behavior or to falsely establish boundaries, we are not creating a safety space. 

08:39 

Now, boundaries are absolutely appropriate at times, but boundaries, remember, always come from a place of love, not from punishment or in an effort to control or change the other person. Appropriate boundaries absolutely are a healthy and important part of loving the person regardless of their behavior, and a safe relationship will have safe, appropriate boundaries stemming from love and not seeking to control. So this number two, we need to learn to love them even though they're human. 

09:17 

Okay, number three, provide healthy and safe opportunities for them to grow and progress. This can be closely tied to the previous suggestion. When we are creating a safe space, we recognize that the other person is a work in progress, they aren't the end all be all. They will have weaknesses and flaws just as you do. And when we provide a place for them to put their struggles and difficulties on the table, and when stand back and withhold judgment, when we validate, empathize and show curiosity, we create a safe space for people to explore their options, to struggle with their decisions, to process their emotions. When people feel safe to talk about their struggle without judgment and without unwanted advice, and without being pushed or manipulated, they will most likely figure out a way to move forward, to address what needs to be addressed to grow and progress. 

10:12 

If we create a place of shame for them, chances that they want to hide their flaws from us, and from themselves, increases. One of the amazing benefits I've found about having a great partner is the safe space to put some really undesirable parts of me on the table so that I can see them better and have Sione not get judge-y or pushy or try to tell me what to do. He'll ask questions, he'll get curious about my thoughts and feelings, and he always loves and accepts me regardless of what I put on the table, and regardless whether he agrees with my final decision or not. This allows me to grow in ways that I need to in a place where I'm not afraid to fail or disappoint. 

10:58 

Okay, number four, creating a safe space for your person means you allow them to be themselves around you without judgment or rejection. Okay, let's face it: we are all weird. We all have strange idiosyncrasies. We all have our own sense of humor and we see the world in our unique way. Really embracing your person's uniqueness lets them know that you accept them just as they are. They may tell the world's worst dad jokes. They may sing off tune, they may dance like a goofball in the kitchen, their moves may not be smooth, and they make up corny roses or red poems for you. So you can either get super annoyed by all of this and let them know that who they are is not okay and thereby shut them down, or you can embrace who you are, love who they are even when they're singing at the top of their lungs in the shower, right? 

11:54 

Being in places where we feel we have to monitor all of our behavior, where we think we need to walk on eggshells or show up as a shadow of ourselves in order to not annoy or bug the other person, never feels safe. And if your spouse feels that way, we have some things to work on. Creating a safe space allows the person to feel comfortable and accepted, showing their unique, weird, authentic self to you. 

12:23 

Alright, number five, another way that we can create a safe space is to be aware of how our actions impact the other person, even if it was completely unintentional. Now, we are humans as well. We will make mistakes, we unintentionally say or do things that are hurtful or dismissive or unkind. When we do, rather than brushing it off and thinking and saying "I didn't mean it like that, it was taken out of context, they're overreacting. They know I wasn't trying to be mean," we can, rather, address the hurt that we have caused. Of course we don't want to hurt the person we love, but owning that sometimes we do hurt them and making the effort to apologize by circling back around to clean things up, to let them know that our relationship with them is more important than our ego and our pride, that creates safety. 

13:17 

Number six, creating safety in your relationship means that we also don't expect them to sacrifice their own well-being for ours. Sometimes we can get a little self-centered in our relationships and we don't pay as close of attention as we could to our partner. And in this place, we may neglect to see and acknowledge that some of the things we ask are not fair to them. For example, a stay-at-home mom who is tired and exhausted and her husband who has worked all day comes home and she packs up and leaves and comes home at nine or ten o'clock at night. Right? Yeah, so she's worked hard all day, so has her husband, right? And them joining in working together rather than saying "okay, I'm tired. I'm done here," and we all have those days, right? Where we're just like "listen I gotta have a break," okay? And that's not what I'm talking about. We're talking about the regular expectation that they sacrifice their own well-being for ours. 

14:17 

Okay, in this place we may neglect to see and acknowledge that some of the things we ask are not fair to them. Maybe we expect them to stay up late every night watching a show with us or having deep discussions when they have to get up early in the morning for work. Maybe we're so focused on our own struggles and challenges and always expect to be a listening ear and a non-judgmental sounding board, but when they try to share something with us, we shut them down and don't create the same kind of space for them. Maybe when they try and share something with us, it freaks us out a little bit. We refuse to listen, and we refuse to accept their weakness and struggle because it scares us to have them share these things. 

15:00 

An example of this could be like a spouse having some questions and even doubts around your shared religious belief system. It might be scary to you to have them share those things, and so to acquiesce to your own well-being, you shut  them down and force them to sacrifice their own sense of needing to ask questions. You don't give them a safe space to figure it out. This could also be expecting your spouse to just never want to have a sexual relationship with you because you don't want one, or you won't work through your personal struggles that are holding you back from stepping into your sexuality. What the other person wants in the relationship is just as valid as what you want, and a safe partner will create a safe space for the person's wants and needs and desires. 

15:53 

Number seven, being a safe place for your person means that you will keep your word. You will not keep keep telling them that you're going to do something and then never do it. It is so important in our relationships that we create trust, and keeping your word is a very important way to that. John Gottman regularly talks about trust as being the most important element in a relationship. Everything great stems from trust. When we move into these spaces of regularly not keeping our word, often it stems from a place of peacekeeping; we're just trying to keep the moment from exploding. We are trying appease the other person and often that means that we are not being honest with them about what we want. This is where I see the dysfunctional phrases such as, "yes dear," and "it's fine," start to show up. We seek to avoid conflict and, rather than having a tough discussion, we acquiesce to what the person wants, with zero intention of doing it. 

16:57 

So, relating this to last week's discussion, it's important that we don't act out of alignment with our values for the relationship. So sometimes a tough discussion is needed. But the people pleaser in many of us can find it all too easy to say we'll do something to get them off our back when we actually have no intention of doing the thing in the first place. This is not okay if we want a safe relationship. It's important that we step into some honesty and have the discussion. It is imperative to choose to be honest at all times. That being said, all of us fall short of keeping all our commitments some of the time. We might say we're going to get there at a certain time and get distracted on Facebook or Instagram and don't leave on time, but when we don't keep our word, it's incredibly important we have an honest discussion about why. No lying about there being too much traffic. Own it. Be honest about it, circle back around and work hard to keep commitments in the future. If a spouse can't trust you to do what you say you're going to when you say you're going do it, or honestly own up to it when you don't, the basic trust needed to sustain a healthy intimate relationship deteriorates. So do what you say are going to do or don't commit to doing it, and have a conversation about why. 

18:21 

Number eight, creating safety for your person means you will not ignore or invalidate their wants and needs. You will try to meet them when you can't, or if it goes against your values or beliefs, you'll communicate it in healthy ways. This is basically last week's podcast. When your person asks you for something, don't pretend you didn't hear or understand the request. Step into it, either by doing it or by starting a conversation about it. I know that many of us pretend, because I used to do it a lot in my previous marriage. It just seemed like such an easier way. But that avoidance was my way of passive aggressively not doing what I didn't want to and also not having it turn into a fight because I don't know how to have conversations around my own wants and needs. And invalidating would be saying that what they are asking for is ridiculous or unreasonable, that they shouldn't want or need the thing. 

19:22 

This can often happen in relationships over the topic of sex. One spouse may desire to have more sex or less sex than the other, and they may invalidate their spouse's desires. They may start name calling, accusing, blaming, attacking. On either side, somebody might say "you're just a sex addict" or somebody on the other side may say, "you are just frigid," right? Here's the thing, their desire for more or less sex is just as valid as your desire for how often you want it. Acknowledging this and having healthy conversations around it have to happen if we are to create safety in our relationships. There cannot be topics that we just don't talk about. Safety means we can talk about it all in a place where we're okay talking about, even if we have different opinions around it. 

20:25 

Okay, so pretending it doesn't exist, taking a perceived moral high ground, invalidating what they want, none of those create safety. Now, some of these topics are really tough to get to collaboration on, absolutely. It may be helpful in the case of topics that are just too hot for the two of you to handle to get someone who can help mediate and teach you how to communicate better. Or if you can find places to educate yourself more and learn about tools that can like this or other podcasts, books, coaching, or counseling, but do something to figure it out until we can really learn to see and hear and validate our partner, we won't create a safe space for them. 

21:11 

Number nine, to create emotional safety, it's important that we refrain from criticizing, manipulating, or seeking to control the other person in order to get what we want. Instead, we will work to collaborate openly and honestly in finding solutions and in setting appropriate boundaries when necessary. So many of us have patterned behaviors that very easily move us into controlling and manipulative behaviors. We will often use passive aggressive techniques, gaslighting, withholding the entire truth, pretending, and often without any conscious awareness that we're doing it. To become aware of these often unconscious behaviors, there's two things I want to talk about. One, educate yourself and learn what these things are and how they manifest themselves and then start looking for them in yourself. And two, ask someone to help you see it. A coach such as myself can help. And you can enlist the help of your person. That conversation would sound something like this: "I'm starting to realize that I criticize you way more often than I've ever been aware of, and I am really sorry. This is not how I want to be in our relationship. I like to treat you better. I wanna be a better partner. Part of my struggle is that I don't often realize I do it. I don't see it, so I ask, will you help me? When I say something critical, you point it out to me by saying..." Find a phrase that is non-triggering for you that will stop you in your behavior and allow you to get curious. We want to find a common phrase between the two of you because if you just say, 'help me see it,' and then you do it and they say see how critical you are, that's going to ignite, that it's gonna trigger us, right? And so you wanna find something that is non triggering for, but that also allows them to join in the conversation in a non tricking way, like you could say something like 'that was a little critical, maybe we could try again' or maybe you just need something completely off the wall like you could say 'I don't think Donald Duck would say that,' right? Just find a phrase that is non-triggering for you that's going to stop you and have you go 'oh wait, okay.' 

23:36 

So continuing with what the conversation would say "so you would something like when I say something critical will you point it out to me by saying, (and here's your phrase.) I really do want to see when I'm being critical. And if I don't understand how what I said is critical, will you help me with that also? I'd like to be able to ask you questions about why it comes across critical to you so that I can figure this out and know how to treat you better." And then your job is to really, really open to when they say you're agreed-upon phrase. Yes, growth and understanding can be really painful sometimes, and asking your person to help you grow can also be super, super vulnerable. But courage up, my friend. Ask for help, then when they give it, receive it graciously. See it. Work to understand it! Circle back around and apologize for it… You don't want to hurt the person you love. And if you are unknowingly doing it, of course you want clean it up. And, hopefully, you want to clean it up more than you want protect your ego. And when your person shows it to you, thank them, circle back around and apologize for it, and pay attention to adjust your behavior accordingly. Knowing that you are working on being a more loving and accepting person will also help to develop a place of safety in your relationship. 

25:11 

10, if you need more help than your person can assist you with, or that you can figure out on your own, get the help. Let your person know you value the relationship enough to figure out how you are showing up in unhealthy ways and that you want your best self to be available to them. Can counseling or coaching be expensive? Yes. Yes, it can. But I also can promise you it is cheaper than a divorce and it is so much better than years and years of dysfunctional, hurtful, overwhelming, and unsavory behavior. When you recognize the value of living in a way that is in alignment with who you really want to be and when you value your relationship enough to figure out your own dysfunctional behaviors, you will realize that the monetary investment is a small price to pay for the next 20, 30, or 40 years of a healthy, intimate, safe relationship. Maybe even 50 years. Having been in both an unhealthy and a healthy relationship, I can promise you that you will not regret the investment in money, time, and energy to clean up your stuff, to learn to be more vulnerable, to create an emotionally intimate, safe space. 

26:35 

Since my divorce eight and a half years ago, I have invested close to $50,000 in coaching of various sorts to see myself more clearly, to understand and clean up my own hurtful behaviors, and to learned how to engage in a relationship with more vulnerability, self-awareness, and honesty. And I do not regret one penny of that money. It's come in a lot of different forms but all of it has helped me to create the relationship that I get to share with Sione. And what we are creating is priceless. It is like nothing that I had ever dreamed of. It is so much deeper, rich, and satisfying than I could have imagined. You don't need to work with me. But my friend, if you are in over your head, work with someone who you're confident can help you see and understand yourself and your behaviors and provide you with the tools to help you clean it up. 

27:41 

If you do want to work with me, go to tanyahale.com, click on the "free consultation" tab at the top and let's set up a 90 minute session where we can do some coaching with you to help you see what coaching is like, how it can help you, and that can be part of your decision-making on "do I want to invest the money to work with this person," and if I'm not your 

person find somebody else please. This is an amazing part of growing up, is learning how to own our own stuff, learning how to see our stuff and not be afraid of it and learning how to work through it, and clean it up so that we can create what we want. I think a lot of times we are just not prepared with the information until later on. Sione and I were talking the other day about how interesting it is that all of these concepts that as I've come into them I have gone like "oh my gosh! This is amazing! People have never known this before!" And then as I continue to read books and learn stuff I find out that throughout the ages, and not just 100 years ago or 500 years, but thousands of years, 5000 years ago, these kinds of concepts were being talked about and shared. 

29:03 

I just think that there's a time in our life that we have enough knowledge behind us for things to really start making sense, for the pieces to start fitting together. And that's why middle age is so magical. That's why this is the time to really do this work, because you will see and experience things you haven't before. This creating more safety in your relationships is vital for healthy places, to be able to create the kinds of intimacy that we want. Step into it, my friends. You have got this, you can do this. You can create healthier and better relationships. Set your ego aside and let's figure it out together, shall we? Okay, that's going to do it for me. 

29:57 

Really quickly. Don't forget about the emotional and physical intimacy class. You can go to tanyahale.com to check that out and sign up for that. And if you love this podcast, if it's helping you, please share it. You could share one-on-one with people, you can share on your social media, you could copy the link and text it to people. If that all feels a little bit invasive to you because it's too one-on-one, write a review. If you have Apple, you can just scroll down to the bottom of my feed and it will have "reviews" and a place where you could do that. It's super, super easy. It will take you less than five minutes. Leaving a review, what it does is, I mean, other people are going to read it, right, if they're interested in doing this to see what people have to say. But also for people who type in similar kinds of concepts than what I've got on there, it will pop up as a "suggested for you" podcast and you can share this podcast that way. Okay, so do this, my friends. Share the love, get this amazing content out there so that people's lives and relationships can be changed for the better, okay? 

31:12 

That is it. I wish you all the best this week. Have an awesome week. I'm gonna enjoy my last nine days here in American Samoa, and I guess that's gonna do it. Have a great week, see you next time. Bye. 

31:30 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!