Tanya Hale 00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 352, "Lessons Learned in Our Third Year of Marriage." 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 is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

Tanya Hale 00:22 

Alright, hey there. Welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you here. I've got Sione here with me today. 

Sione 00:27 

Hey, everybody. 

Tanya Hale 00:28 

Always glad when he's here. Hey, before we jump in really quick, if you are interested in signing up for the next Talk with Tanya, you can go to my website, go to the "group coaching" tab. It is March 8th at two o'clock Eastern, 12 o'clock Mountain. And that is just an hour where you can get on a Zoom call with me, whoever shows up. We've had four or five people showing up every week. We just talk about whatever you wanna talk about. You can get ideas. We can do deeper into concepts. You can ask me any questions. I'm a pretty open book about anything that I have gone through or am going through. And it's just a great time. I really enjoy the time that we have spent doing that. So if you're interested, go there. 

Tanya Hale 01:14 

Alright, guess what? This comes out on Monday and on Tuesday is Sione and my third anniversary. Woo hoo. Happy anniversary, babe. 

Sione 01:24 

Yeah, you too as well. 

Tanya Hale 01:26 

Yeah, it's been three years. What are your thoughts? 

Sione 01:29 

That it's gone very quick. 

Tanya Hale 01:30 

It has gone by quick. Yeah. And any other thoughts? 

Sione 01:35 

I'm just amazed at how different it is than my first marriage experience. 

Tanya Hale 01:43 

Me too. I honestly had no idea before this that marriage could be both easy and fun. 

Sione 01:50 

Well, and I had no idea that I was not the greatest husband. Now I know, uh, at least most, not, I don't know if it's most, but I know many of the things that I did not do well in my first marriage that I'm hopefully doing better at in this marriage. 

Tanya Hale 02:09 

Yeah, isn't it great to learn those things and figure them out and be able to apply them in something new? 

Sione 02:14 

It sure is. And, you know, just offering myself the grace of going, okay, I just had no clue. Like nobody ever taught me any of that stuff. I had no access to resources that would have ever taught me this. Your podcast didn't exist back in the nineties. So it was, none of this stuff was available. And what was modeled for me was also not what we have and not that what was modeled was bad. It just wasn't what, what we're building. 

Tanya Hale 02:42 

Yeah, yeah, I think my parents had a pretty good marriage from what I could see on the outside. And even, you know, as inside as you get as kids. But yeah, I don't think my parents were creating what we're creating here. And I think what we're doing is pretty darn great. 

Sione 03:01 

Me too. 

Tanya Hale 03:02 

So we're going to talk about some of the big ahas that we've had this this year. As we've sat down and talked, I think it's just been more settling in for me of concepts things that we've done that have really kind of solidified in a way and and just make a lot more sense to me. 

Sione 03:24 

Well, as we have more experiences together, we have more opportunities to go, "oh, this is something we need to talk about." Yeah. So and different and just more variety of experiences, right? Like it's how life goes. Fortunately, we don't have the "raising young children" life experience. Right. That is so tough. And we get to skip that step. 

Tanya Hale 03:47 

Yeah, it feels like a little bit of a cheat card, doesn't it, in some ways? It is a little bit. 

Sione 03:52 

For sure. 

Tanya Hale 03:54 

So we wanted to talk about the first thing that has really kind of stood out to us as we have looked at this year and looked at the situations that we've gotten to discuss and talk about and work through. And I think one of the biggest pieces for us has been stepping into curiosity. 

Sione 04:15 

Yeah, that underlying creating a culture of safety within the marriage has been really critical. I think curiosity is kind of the doorway when you open that door of curiosity, it allows you to step into the room of safety. 

Tanya Hale 04:35 

Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking like, just like last week, you had gotten an email and you shared it with me. And, and you're like, "what do you think?" And my first instinct was to get a little bit hot under the collar with some of the information. And, and I caught myself stopping before I said anything to even your question, "what do you think," right? You asked me what I thought. And I had the clarity of mind to stop and go, "Oh, ask him first." And I said, "well, tell me what some of your thoughts are." And I think we had a very different discussion because I was able to step into that curiosity, which was, which was not my first thought, I'll be honest. Like my first thought was, "Oh, I'm going to tell you all the things that I'm thinking right now." But learning how to stand back from that. 

Tanya Hale 05:32 

And my primitive brain, of course, wants to jump in and take charge and say all the things. And my prefrontal cortex is like, "wait a minute, slow down, think first, how do you want to show up here?" And I want to show up. I mean, it was your email, it was your situation to work through. And so I wanted to show up creating the space for you to do that. 

Sione 05:56 

Yeah, it was brilliant because I did ask your advice and you didn't jump in with answers, so. 

Tanya Hale 06:03 

I told you my thoughts later on. 

Sione 06:05 

Yes, yes, but that was after we'd already had a great discussion. 

Tanya Hale 06:09 

Yeah, yeah, so I think that this space of curiosity, learning how to slow down, and... 

Sione 06:21 

Well, I think that's mindfulness, that slowing down our first response is mindfulness, but using the mindfulness to then step into curiosity, because you can use mindfulness and then come up with a solution or mindfulness and then start blaming people, but the mindfulness and then stepping into curiosity, I think is the critical step that we're trying to do that makes it different from the other options that are available. 

Tanya Hale 06:50 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that for me, when you respond that way to me, because you're really great at that as well. You know, when I bring something up of turning it back and getting curious and saying, "well, tell me a little bit more about that. What are you thinking about that? Tell me more about this aspect." 

Sione 07:11 

Yeah, most of the time it's because I have no clue what you're talking about, but yeah. 

Tanya Hale 07:17 

There we go. Right? That's it. Wow. 

Sione 07:21 

"What? What are you talking about?" "Oh, he's getting curious. How great is that?" 

Tanya Hale 07:25 

Jumping into feigned intelligence, right? I know all the answers here. 

Sione 07:30 

It's valid too. 

Tanya Hale 07:31 

So no, but I think that that's been a really great part of what has really stood out to me this last year is this creating that pause, creating that space, allowing the other person to share and seeking to validate, to get curious about their experience before we jump in and share whatever we've got going on there on the head. 

Sione 07:57 

I think we, as in society, there are a lot of times we're trained to do that, like in business or in church settings or social settings, right? We don't just say the first thing that pops into our head at a dinner party. How is this going to go over, you know? And yet in our intimate relationships, oftentimes it's the first thing that pops into our head that shoots out. And I think that that's probably the more important place to be careful about what we're saying. 

Tanya Hale 08:24 

Yeah, I think the general space that most people move into their relationship, so is we just let down all of those expectations of ourselves, right? To show up better, like, we would do that at work. Like, I'm not just going to haul off and yell at somebody at work. But we allow ourselves permission to haul off and yell at our spouse at home. And, I respect you, I'm going to treat you well, you are one of you are probably my favorite person in the world, and I'm going to treat you that way. 

Sione 09:02 

And if you're in a space of vulnerability together, if one person lets their guard down, it can actually hurt because the vulnerability is there. And that's what helps build walls is when people say, "okay, I can't be vulnerable in my intimate relationship with my spouse because this person has hurt me in the past." And taking down those walls once they're up is very, very hard. 

Tanya Hale 09:31 

Yeah. Yeah. And creating that safety. Yeah. And I think for people who are in a situation like us where we're creating a new relationship, I think we can start off from that place. And I think that if we are cognizant of the concepts and the ideas, that sometimes it can be easier. And I think sometimes if you're in a long-term relationship where there has not been a lot of safety, I think that that takes some time to rebuild that, to help the other person know that, listen, this person is safe for me to be vulnerable with. 

Sione 10:05 

And I think the stepping into that room or opening that door of curiosity allows both parties to engage their prefrontal cortex and and become safe and say, you know, like, because when I know I am getting curious with you, I really truly am thinking, "OK, what are her thoughts about this? What is she thinking about this?" And I become much more interested in you as a person. And less interested in defending myself or my behaviors or anything like that, which then allows it to be a much safer place. And so that curiosity is, I think, is the key to creating safety because it true curiosity, not curiosity to say, "Oh, what do you think about that?" And in your head, you're coming up with your retort for whatever they're going to say. But true curiosity and saying, "wow, that's an interesting thing you just said on the table. What do you think it is or what do you think we should do about it?" And really wondering and not trying to pick it up yourself and solve it yourself is to use your metaphor of putting the item on the table is I think that's what creates that safe culture. 

Tanya Hale 11:24 

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. And I think that we have gotten better at that this last year. 

Sione 11:32 

Yeah, I think so too. Certainly more practiced at it, right? It just, at some point it just becomes natural to step into curiosity because that's just the pattern you've always done rather than stepping into blaming or shaming or other things. 

Tanya Hale 11:46 

And I think with you, that is the pattern that we have both really tried to step into in our marriages. As I was back at my previous marriage, that wasn't the pattern at all. I found myself behaving so often from this place of panicked protection. Like I have to protect myself. I have to let him know that he's wrong about this and this and this and moving into that space, which did not create any sort of safety for vulnerability. And in fact, it just built those walls. Every time I would do that, it was like putting some mortar and a couple more bricks on that wall. And so this has been a really brilliant space, I think, for us to move into. 

Sione 12:27 

Yeah, and since I knew everything in my first marriage, it was difficult to, you know, she'd put something on the table and I'd be like, "oh, here's the solution. See, I got it all sorted out. You're welcome." But now that I know I don't know as much as I thought I knew, it's much easier to step into curiosity. 

Tanya Hale 12:48 

Yeah, isn't it great to grow up? I know I'm supposed to say that at the end, but I do think this this process of learning and understand and being able to to see the processes and see the patterns and see what's going on and then incorporate them is just brilliant. 

Sione 13:06 

And I think there's something about being older that allows that to come up, just the experience of life and just, you know, having failed at things and having succeeded at things and just having a better understanding. So I don't beat up 20-year old Sione for the mistakes he made. I go, "well, I'm glad I learned what I, you know, now that I look back on that, I learned, I know now better." And without that experience, I wouldn't have learned. But it would be easy to criticize 20-year-old Sione for not knowing what he didn't know. 

Tanya Hale 13:46 

Yeah. And I think just that compassion is just so vital to us being able to grow and move into something different. 

Tanya Hale 13:54 

We were going to talk about two experiences today that we have had in the in the last actually last month, the last month, where we have had an opportunity to do this one. We did pretty good at and one we didn't do so good at. And I think a part of this place of safety is is recognizing that the other person is an individual. They are very different than us and they're supposed to be different than us. And how do we create a safe space in that relationship circle for them to be themselves, their individual distinct self and also how do we work together with those differences? 

Sione 14:37 

Yeah, I think the phrase "opposites attract" is not necessarily true, but I think that people who create safe spaces for people who are different than them, which is everybody, can be attractive to the other side. And I think, so it's not necessarily "opposites attract", but "safety attracts." 

Tanya Hale 14:57 

Right, right. So like many of y'all at this time of year, we were doing our taxes. 

Sione 15:06 

Some of you are already done, we get it. 

Tanya Hale 15:09 

We just turned ours in, but anyway, so taxes give us a great opportunity to see our differences. So, Sione, as we've talked about here on the podcast before, is much more red of a personality and I am much more yellow of a personality. So red is a lot more like" I like all the details, I like all the eyes dotted and T's crossed, I like the, you know, all the pieces to fit together." And I'm yellow and I'm a little bit more like, "oh, it's just all good, like whatever happens, happens" and they both have their benefits and people have their drawbacks, right? Everything has a light and a dark side. So, but boy, taxes are a really great opportunity for those differences to really stand out. 

Sione 15:54 

Yeah, I think that's true. 

Tanya Hale 15:56 

So here we go. So we're doing taxes and and we found that with some of our stuff we couldn't, like we had some months that some bills were not showing up and I was just kind of like "well, I mean, I have a recollection that I think that that bill was that we just overpaid the month before and that's why we don't have a payment for this month and this is what was going on. So I think that that's okay." So Sione, you tell them how you respond to that. 

Sione 16:27 

Yeah, well we changed banks, and we did some other major changes in some things, and so the record of our financial life this last year was scattered across many different areas, and I was interested in tracking down and hunting every last possible charge, and you were not.Aand so I got very frustrated that, and some stuff I have access to and some stuff only you have access to, and so I was depending on you to give me some information, and you were like, "that information isn't all that important." 

Tanya Hale 17:09 

And I got you the information, but I didn't care about all those little details. So I was like, "this is good." 

Sione 17:16 

Yeah. So if we're missing a utility bill from February or March or April, like it's okay, it's not that much. And it doesn't matter that much anyway, which is probably a true statement. 

Tanya Hale 17:26 

And it would have gotten paid, right? 'Cause it's not like the utility bill is going to pay for February. And so we're just going to like write that one off. So in my brain, "Of course it got paid," right? And it's going to be on either the bill of the month before or the bill of the month later, the next month, right, if we missed it. 

Sione 17:47 

Right. And I get paid to trust nobody to verify my own information all the time. So that's how my brain works is I needed to verify and validate that fact. And you were OK with the assumption of that fact. 

Tanya Hale 18:02 

Yes. So how do we create safety here? 

Sione 18:08 

How did we create safety or how do you create safety? Well, I think. 

Tanya Hale 18:12 

Did we? Because I think we did a good job there. 

Sione 18:14 

Well, I think it was just that both of us cared more about the other person than we did about the receipt, so to speak. So I cared more about not, I don't wanna use the word insulting, but I cared more about you and how much I loved you than I did about whether things were accurate or not. Because even no matter how hard you try, things are not gonna be 100%  accurate. But you can be 100% safe, and you can be caring more about the person than about the thing. And so that's what I had to step into and say, "okay, she's yellow, you love her yellow. It balances out your red so nicely." And so I'd say, "okay, this is just her yellow steppin' out. It's okay, find the information yourself and be patient with her trying to find that information and don't start going into blaming." And I also tend to catastrophize really well. Is that a right word, catastrophize? Is that a real word? Okay. And say like, "oh my goodness, the sky is falling. We've missed the February receipt," you know? And you're like, "it's okay, like the sky is not falling." And so I have to like take a step back and go, "okay, the sky is not falling, that's a valid point. And just be patient and let things play out the way they will play out." 

Tanya Hale 19:54 

Yes. And on my part, I could see that you were pushing for more information and that you wanted that. And even though my brain was saying, "oh, come on, like this is not that big of a deal. Like, of course the money was paid somewhere. Otherwise people would be knocking on our doors." That's how my brain works. But I knew that it was important to you. So I think I sat in my office for a couple of hours longer than I would have if I was doing it on my own to try and track down the information and to find the specifics of what happened and what was going on and all of that kind of stuff. And again, it was honoring the fact that this is important to you. And I do have to say though, that I was very impressed because as we talked about it later, I realized that you were much more frustrated than you let on for sure. I mean, I knew that the information was important to you because you were asking for it, but you were not expressing a lot of frustration with me at all, if any. I don't even remember. I knew it was important to you, but I don't remember getting any vibes from you that you were super annoyed with me. 

Sione 21:04 

Oh, good. Because I was totally thinking "I care more about her than about this situation." And so we can figure this out without any blaming or any like, "well, you always don't care about receipts or you never care about these receipts or whatever," the always and never phrases that come up a lot when people get frustrated. And so just taking a step back, taking some deep breaths and going, "okay, this isn't she's right. This isn't that big of a deal. We're not getting foreclosed on. Like, the bill got paid somewhere. We just can't find it. We just need to keep looking rather than then starting to get frustrated with you." 

Sione 21:53 

So and it was kind of funny because your office is upstairs and mine is downstairs. And so we're on FaceTime in our own house trying to figure out where all these things went. So anyway, that kind of made me laugh a little bit as we were doing it. 

Tanya Hale 22:08 

And it all went really well. And the next morning we were kind of laughing about it because we said, "hey, you know, like, let's kind of look at how we did with taxes, what was going on." And you made a joke about how you just wish that my brain worked more like an accountant's brain. And I love this space that I've been able to move into with more safety with myself even, where I was just able to say, "well babe, that's just never gonna happen. Like you did not marry somebody whose brain is ever gonna work like an accountant's brain." And we just kind of laughed about it and it was pleasant. And I think we did a really good job with that. Yeah, good. Okay. 

Sione 22:48 

Because it would have been easy to jump into that other blame or something like that. 

Tanya Hale 22:55 

Oh yeah, for sure. Would have been super easy. So, but let's talk about a situation that that we still handled in many ways very good, but we as we've talked about it and processed it, we've been able to identify ways that we both could have shown up better. Do you want to introduce this? 

Sione 23:13 

Sure. And if any of my family or my former spouse are listening, they will also recognize this as well. But when I travel, if things are not going exactly as planned, I get very anxious and my stress levels start to go way up, so much up that they exude out from my body. It kind of oozes out, right? And everybody around me can feel it. And I don't know if I just think, like, "you all should be feeling just as stressed as I am, darn it." Or if I'm just trying to keep it within myself and I can't, I don't know. But I get very anxious. And so after we had been in American Samoa, we decided to fly to Fiji and just spend a week in Fiji and hang out. And we had made some changes to our flight plans because that international date line really messed us up. And so we were getting back at a different date than we planned and to the state's different date than we planned. And anyway, so we decided to change our tickets in Fiji. And I was nervous that things hadn't worked out right, that things hadn't been processed properly by the airlines. And so I was nervous and anxious about getting home. And so when we were driving back from the hotel to the airport, which was about a three hour, beautiful drive through the countryside of Fiji, along the coast, it was just amazing drive. My thoughts were, "I hope we have a plane ticket to get out of Fiji." And I was tailgating and, which is not all that unusual for me, but I was tailgating and driving fast and we're driving on the different side of the road. And so there were a lot of reasons for Tanya to be nervous about what was happening in our lives. 

Tanya Hale 25:27 

And I was a little nervous and and this is a space that I know I've talked a lot about on here for as women. A lot of times we struggle with with having a voice and I was kind of struggling with this a little bit because I'm sitting there in the passenger side of the car and the steering wheel is on the different side of the car and we're driving on the left side of the road. And he was he was following a little bit too closely and being a little more erratic and I just kept thinking, "okay, I can manage my mind around this, okay is it just because everything's on the different side that I'm feeling uncomfortable?" And I just kind of kept talking myself out of just reaching over and saying "hey, love, can we slow down a little bit." 

Sione 26:26 

Stepping into curiosity, like, why? 

Tanya Hale 26:28 

Which would have been better, right? We just talked about curiosity. 

Sione 26:30 

"What's going on in your head that you think being six inches behind that car is so important." So, yeah, and I just went internal as well, like, "okay, I can't share this anxiety." 

Tanya Hale 26:48 

Because I would be like, "I'm always totally okay. Like there's nothing wrong. I'll get there and things will be just fine." Like that's my... 

Sione 26:56 

Reds and yellows conflict is when the reds are like, wait, there's a plan. And I'm not sure the plan is right. And yellows are like, why did we have a plan to begin with? Like, what was our thinking that we would make a plan? 

Tanya Hale 27:08 

have a plan. I've been very well trained in the last four years to go. I don't see how he has a plan. We'll figure it out. Oh, by the way, do we even have cash on this trip? 

Sione 27:17 

Yeah, so see, it's all your fault. 

Tanya Hale 27:21 

You've trained me to rely on your red tendencies. 

Sione 27:25 

And, for the most part, my red tendencies do well, but when red tendencies do not do well is in this situation where I was super anxious. 

Tanya Hale 27:35 

So yeah, so I was struggling feeling like I couldn't speak up and not because of anything that Sione was doing. I just had too much talk going on in my head about, you know, is it getting in his lane? If I asked him to slow down, am I out of line? Am I being too needy as a woman? Am I, you know, just this whole narrative that we seem to have very often as women about how if we have wants and needs that, that we become unlovable. And that, that seems to be a thought that continually surfaces for me. 

Sione 28:12 

And not to decrease your unable to speak up-ness, I was also unable to speak up because I knew you, I shouldn't say I knew you, and I didn't think you would share my feelings of anxiety or at least validate my feelings of anxiety. So we both didn't feel comfortable speaking up, even though we both could see the thing on the table and it was the same thing, but we were just looking at it from different perspectives, right? I was looking at the thing across the table from you. So I was seeing, "are the plane tickets right? Let's hurry and get to the airport so that if they're not right, we can sort it out." And you were looking at it from, "holy cow, why are we driving so close? And this is crazy. Like he's driving way too fast and way too erratic." 

Tanya Hale 28:58 

So we didn't get curious, that was an experience where we didn't really get very curious. Then we get to the airport and all the heck breaks loose, right? We ended up not having tickets, and then we had to fly into a different airport, and then we had to change those tickets to get up to Utah where we were headed for the next week. It was a little bit stressful, and because of Sione's bit of anxiety, he wants to like OJ Simpson it through the airport. 

Sione 29:36 

Which for those of you who don't get that reference, he ran through airports in the 70s and 80s jumping over things. 

Tanya Hale 29:43 

Anyway, and in my brain, I'm like, "listen, I can hurry and I can rush, but I'm not going to run through the airport. Like, that's just not going to work for me." And I wasn't trying to be passive aggressive in that. Because I was hurrying. I was just like, "yeah, I'm not going to full on sprint down the hallway." But anyway, I think we were both feeling a little bit tense, but we also do not go into this place of blaming or accusing or attacking or criticizing. I think we're really, really good at standing back and taking that pause and thinking, "how do I want to show up here? I don't want to hurt this person. I don't want to do damage." And so I think we both did very well at not moving into hurtful or harmful behavior. Even though. A little bit tense. 

Sione 30:37 

Right, even though i wanted you to run. I was like get your butt moving, let's go. Right? 

Tanya Hale 30:44 

And I was like, "you run, I'll catch up with you." Which is not invalid. 

Sione 30:49 

If one of us can get to the gate, usually you can stop the gate agent from closing the door. 

Tanya Hale 30:56 

Anyway, so I think when we finally got to a hotel that night, because we didn't get on a plane, we missed our flight, but we couldn't have got it anyway. Let's be real. 

Sione 31:10 

If the flight out of Fiji had left on time instead of an hour late, we would have caught it. Nothing we could have done to change that. 

Tanya Hale 31:17 

We were in, yeah, no matter how fast we ran, right? 

Sione 31:21 

For sure. 

Tanya Hale 31:22 

We were in the hotel and we were like, "okay, can we just talk a little bit about what happened? And what was going on?" And I think we had a really great talk that night. We didn't necessarily resolve all the things, but I think we put all the little pieces out on the table of what was going on, what each person was thinking, what each person was feeling, what was happening. And then we hit a point where I was just tired and I was like, "okay, can we just sleep on this for now? Let our brains rest and revisit this tomorrow?" And you said "yes," is there anything else you would want to add to that part? 

Sione 32:05 

No, I just said that was when we got curious about what the other person was thinking. 

Tanya Hale 32:10 

Yeah, rather than in the heat of the moment. 

Sione 32:12 

Yeah. Which may be a valid thing to do, right? To wait and figure out what the heck was that later on, not necessarily while things were happening. 

Tanya Hale 32:25 

Yeah. So in the heat of it, I think those challenges are going to come up in our relationships, right? Because we do approach the world with different lenses. 

Sione 32:37 

Yeah, I hope they do because that means that we're doing stuff and not just sitting on like blobs in our living room. 

Tanya Hale 32:42 

Rocking it out on the front porch on the front porch and we can argue. 

Sione 32:47 

About the weather. 

Tanya Hale 32:50 

But one thing that I thought that we did really brilliantly the next morning when we started to talk about this was I said, "you know, what are your thoughts about what happened and what we talked about yesterday." And I love that you immediately said, "well, if we could do it again, I would do this and this different." There was no telling me what I should do different. And there was no blame again, no blaming, accusing, attacking, criticizing. 

Sione 33:21 

Yeah, I did that before. It didn't work. It didn't work out at all. So. 

Tanya Hale 33:25 

Not before with me. 

Sione 33:27 

No, not before with you. Sorry to my ex-spouse, but yeah. 

Tanya Hale 33:29 

And then for me was like a "oh right." And then I was able to go into the same place and say "and you know, in a similar situation again I would do this and this different. This is how I would want to show up different in this relationship in this kind of scenario." I just really loved... that piece that to me was like the bow on top of the present. Not only did we talk about it in loving and kind and respectful ways, but neither of us came across and said "well, next time you need to do this differently." We both took responsibility for for how we showed up and how we could have shown up in more healthy ways. I think we both showed up loving but I think that we had healthier behaviors that we could have stepped into and we both owned the behaviors, what we could have done differently to to show up better that way 

Sione 34:32 

Well, and I think we're still looking at it and still noticing things about those events and saying, "okay, this is what I could have done better. Hey, I was revisiting this in my head. What do you think about this? Or what do you think about that?" 'Cause it's been a month now and we're still talking about it. 

Tanya Hale 34:56 

It still comes up and we still discuss it. And I love that it's always a very safe space to talk about it. I think we're doing a brilliant job with that. 

Sione 35:07 

Yeah. 

Tanya Hale 35:08 

So nicely done, love. 

Sione 35:10 

Yeah, you as well. Good job. 

Tanya Hale 35:12 

So I think just kind of wrapping up that piece, I think as we continue to process that experience for us and how we did and did not show up in ways that we wanted to, I think a phrase that I use often with my clients is "over communication is better than under communication any day of the week." And so I think the more that we communicate about this and process it and talk about it and clean it up, I just think that is always going to serve us very, very well. 

Sione 35:49 

Well, and the thought that I think a lot is "this is the person that I love and care about more than almost anything in the entire world." So if that's true, are you showing up that way? Are you communicating that? Because it's not just verbal communication with each other, but there's definitely a lot of nonverbal communication. In fact, I think most of our communication is nonverbal, right? I don't study this. 

Tanya Hale 36:16 

It's a huge number, it's a high number. 

Sione 36:18 

Yeah, and so I remember one of our therapists with my former spouse, we were talking about communication and we were thinking, "oh, we just need to get better at communicating." And the therapist kind of laughed and said, "no, you guys are communicating really well with each other. Each of you knows exactly where the other person stands on this, even though you're not using any words." And I think that for me, what I have to think is, "is what am I communicating? What message am I sending? Does she feel loved and cared about?" And even in this tough situation, or even in this moment of stress for 

me, and trying to keep that in the forefront of my mind helps me to show up in this situation the way I want to, which is loving and caring. And I haven't always been able to do that. I didn't always have the skill set to show up that way. 

Tanya Hale 37:21 

Yeah, I didn't either, but I think you're doing a brilliant job with me. 

Sione 37:25 

Thanks. 

Tanya Hale 37:26 

That reminds me of Gordon B. Hinckley who taught once that he said, "don't ever let a problem to be solved be more important than a person to be loved." And I think you do a really, really great job of that. 

Sione 37:40 

Yeah, I didn't have that quote, but I agree 100% was President Hinckley. 

Tanya Hale 37:50 

Alright, so that's some stuff that we have learned. Any other thoughts here, Sione? 

Sione 37:58 

Oh, I kind of like that one of the things that also I like to do is I like to predict the future. And so, uh, my life is planned for the next, like, 40 years. And rather than tell me, like, "how are you planning 40 years in the future?" You're like, "oh, isn't that great? You know, like, can you just let me..." 

Tanya Hale 38:24 

Tell me all the things. 

Sione 38:25 

Spout things off. You just get curious about all the stuff that's going through my head. All 80,000 thoughts a day I have. And rather than going, "well, that's the most ridiculous thing in the world." Why are you even thinking about when we're in our 90s, you know? And so I just love that about you, that you just let me share all those thoughts and dreams and goals and plans and maybe only, I don't know, five percent or less are actually going to happen. But I just appreciate that you're so curious about my thoughts that you don't let what I'm saying out loud affect how you respond. 

Tanya Hale 39:13 

Yeah, I think that's good. I love your dreams. And I think they're fun. And a lot of them, you'll bring something up and I'll think, "oh my gosh, there's no way we're going to do that." But regardless of whether I think that, it still is your dream. And I  found that for the most part, anytime that I've gone, "oh, tell me more about that, like, what kind of a car would you buy? Why would you buy that kind? Why do you like it?" Like, you know, and just asked all the questions about it, you know, it inevitably comes back around and it's like, "well, I'm actually not going to buy that $120,000 car. Why would I buy $120,000 car? I don't even like cars. I just want to dream about it. I just want to have this dream about it." I want to, you know, put it on the table and just see what it looks like on there and see if I like it. And I think that there's some beautiful stuff about letting your partner just dream and put all their stuff out there without being a dream killer. 

Sione 40:14 

Right, because you could be like, "oh, my heck, like, seriously, you think we're going to do...we're never going to do that," and that doesn't create a safe space for me to bring up real issues. Yeah. So thank you for getting curious, which again, is that I think the doorway to that safe space. 

Tanya Hale 40:33 

Yeah. So anyway, so that's what we've got. This at the end of the third year marriage. Here we go. Yeah, creating safety through curiosity, I think has been a really brilliant space for us. So that's it. 

Sione 40:52 

Yep. 

Tanya Hale 40:53 

OK, I still do divorce coaching. I do couples coaching and I do individual coaching. For those of you whose whose partner is not interested in doing this work, there's so much work that we can do on our own to to help our relationships be healthier and happier, for sure. 

Sione 41:15 

Well, and you did your work after your divorce. Yeah. And I did a lot of my work before I got divorced. I had my own therapist for four or five years before I actually got divorced. But you gotta do the work. You got to figure it out. You can't just not do any of the work. And so. 

Tanya Hale 41:38 

Yeah, I mean the work has to be done, and either it's done in your current relationship, or it's going to be done in a future relationship, but it just has to be done. We have to figure out these pieces. We have to learn how to pause and show up the way that we want to, and we have to be clear on what that means, how we want to show up. And that's a lot of the tools that we talk about here on the podcast, and a lot of the tools that I'm able to help you get if you're taking a group coaching class, or if you're working with me one on one. So okay, well, that's going to do it. Thanks, Sione, for joining me today. 

Sione 42:13 

Yeah, my pleasure. 

Tanya Hale 42:14 

Appreciate you sharing, being vulnerable, vulnerable enough to share some of these experiences that we've had, some that have been great, and some that have been a little bit edgy at times, but always beautiful and loving. 

Sione 42:29 

Yeah, I think anyone who's traveled with me knows that I can get anxious at times when things aren't going exactly like we planned them to. 

Tanya Hale 42:41 

It's all part of what I love about you. 

Sione 42:43 

Right. First world problems. 

Tanya Hale 42:45 

Alright, my friends, have an awesome, awesome week and happy third anniversary to us. 

Sione 42:53 

Yeah. 

Tanya Hale 42:55 

And we'll see you next week. Bye. 

Tanya Hale 42:59 

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!