May 20, 2024 • 41 mins
Deescalating an escalating situation is not an easy task however we can learn to do it successfully by implementing Anita Astley’s “Tabling It” method; a method developed and designed through years of working with individuals, couples, and families struggling to manage uncontrolled fighting. It’s simple yet complicated by our interpersonal dynamics. Tune in and learn how to UNBLEEP this by following some basic steps of interaction and communication. Also many thanks to our first time caller. If you would like to share your comments and questions with Anita, please email us at anita@anitaastley.com
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
MESSI bringing out the best and worstin all of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. I'm
a licensed marriage, family and Individualtherapist in Wisconsin and I have been doing
this for like twenty five years.I can over twenty five years. I
think wow, time flies when you'rehaving fun. I recently published a book
(00:46):
called Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.It is available on Amazon and the Simon
and Schuster website. So I don'tknow about you, guys, but relationships
are complicated. They're complex because weare complex gated as human beings. And
then I have tried to help otherpeople and bleep some of that stuff on
this show. My goal is alwaysfor you to have some concrete takeaways on
(01:10):
how can you can improve your relationships? As always, from the inside out
starting with ourselves. We've covered topicslike emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, getting
our needs and expectations met. Alot of these things I do talk about
in my book. If you're interestedin more detail. Today we are going
to be talking about fighting. Fighting. People are afraid to fight. And
(01:34):
when people say to me, oh, we're pretty we're doing pretty good,
Aneda, we never fight, andI'm thinking, oh, wait a minute,
this is a right flag. Ofcourse, we all fight because we
are not mirror images of the otherperson. Now, think about what a
fight really is between people, andgenerally doesn't happen at the beginning of a
(01:55):
relationship. It happens kind of whenwe start to feel like we can really
be ourselves, putting the best footforward. It's not really real and it
doesn't last. If this relationship isgoing to be something that's intimate that you
want to get closer to the otherperson. Think of what a conflict is.
What is a fight, Well,it's generally when I'm able to say
(02:17):
what I really think and feel abouta situation, and so is the other
person. Because at the beginning,we're all kind of nice. Yeah,
sure I'll do that, Yeah,I love that restaurant. Yeah, those
shoes look really good on you,but that is fleeting that only lasts a
little bit, and then we getto the real crux of our issues with
another person if the relationship is somethingthat's meaningful to us. So fighting is
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normal, Fighting is healthy, andit's okay to fight, and yeah,
sometimes you just need a good fightto get all of that stuff out to
get to some type of resolution.If we don't fight, we're not going
to get to a resolution. Soit's not the fighting that's the issue.
It's usually how people fight. AndGreg is here studio with me as always
the producer. What are you saying. I'm sure you've had a lot of
(03:04):
fights. You've been married by I'msure you fight about the silliest things.
Sometimes sometimes it can be a toughone too. So the resolution is the
big thing. The resolution is thebig thing. And you know, part
of my goal with this show isto talk about these complicated things we're going
to and I always want to say, Okay, this is the what,
this is the why, and thisis the how. If I can help
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you with some of those things,then I feel like the show has been
successful. So the what today isde escalating and escalating situation. What does
that really mean. It's not thoselittle fights, but it's when you have
the boom and we've all been inthat situation where we're having a big fight
and it's just getting out of control. Nobody is with well, some people
(03:50):
might withdraw. It depends on therole that you're taking in the fight.
We're going to talk about that alittle bit later, but it is the
big fight. If you haven't beenthere yourself, you're probably holding back.
But I'm sure you've talked to yourfriends. We're like, oh my god,
I gotta call you up because Ihad this big fight with my wife,
big fight with my brother. We'vebeen there. Now people will say,
(04:10):
well, why do I need todeal with this? Why can't I
just kind of let these bomb bigfights happen once years every six months,
Because it's not healthy. It meanswe are not actually dealing and resolving anything
in our relationship, and we're notdealing with what I call the mini fights
that happen along the way. Thereason we're having this big, massive fight
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is because we haven't dealt with someof the smaller things that are going on
in our relationship that add up tothat big fight. The boom. The
boom just doesn't happen out of nowhere. The boom happens because there's a lot
of little things you haven't dealt with. Now, we're also going to get
to the how. The how isreally important part of this show. It
is me sharing with you some ofthe things that I know clinically, but
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also some of the things I knowis just being a human being and being
a and bleeped up relationships and I'mbleeping them myself. So the how this
week is going to be my tablingmethod. I'm going to share this with
you, and I've come across andI've developed this, not come across,
I've developed this method myself after workingwith people for twenty five years, couples,
couples, couples, we've all beenin that coupleship, families, families,
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families, we're all in family ships, and we have friendships. So
this can also be used. Thesetechniques I talk about, by the way,
are not just for romantic relationships.They can be used all across our
relationships. Again, guys, wehave to think differently about relationships. Relationships
are not limited to romantic ones.I know, I got a lot of
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relationships going on in my life,the one I have with myself, the
one I talk to all the time, my neighbors, your colleagues, peers.
We are all in some kind ofrelationship or not. But the tabling
method is really used in relationships thatwe get into that big boom, that
big fight with Now. I callit the tabling method because I think we
have all and conceptualize what a tableis. Right. Sure, there's the
(06:08):
top, there's legs, and weknow the utility of a table. What
do we use the table for?We put all kinds of junk on it,
sometimes junk sometimes We all know whatit is. And I like for
you guys today to internalize these twoconcepts of anything else a table, our
emotional table, I call it,and the emotional bookshelf. There are very
(06:29):
different things. And you might bethinking, oh my god, she's getting
all psychobab, but I am.The emotional bookshelf for me is very different
to what the emotional table is.Guys, think of it. You got
stuff going on in your head.Where do you put that stuff? Greg?
Where do you put it? Repressit? Under your pillows? Yes,
somewhere, And you're trying to avoidit the emotional bookshelf. If you
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don't have one today, I'm goingto give you one. Guys, imagine
an emotional bookshop side of your head. We know, sorry, my allergies
are really bad today, so ifmy voice sounds funny, I apologize.
The emotional bookshelf is where you're goingto put stuff that you don't need to
resolve immediately, but you need toget to. So it's not a form
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of avoidance, but it really isa safe place that you can put your
stuff. I have stuff I wantto talk to you, you know,
my friend about something that happened acouple of months ago. It's not really
urgent. It's not going to betoday, it's not going to be tomorrow,
but it's going to be there.I don't want to avoid it because
it's important, but I'm going toput it there for when I'm ready to
talk about it. There is asafe place. It's a holding place.
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We all need an emotional bookshelf.Get one. It's not even from Ikia,
it's for free. I'm giving itto you today. The second one
is the emotional table. We allknow, like I said, what a
table looks like. Now, thisone, I believe we have one,
and we unintentionally and unconsciously put stuffon the emotional bookshelf. Every time there's
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a fight that we don't deal with, I believe we wrap it up in
a little box and we put iton our emotional bookshelf. It's unintentional.
It's the stuff that we're trying toavoid. But guess what. That stuff
doesn't disappear gone into space. Itgoes somewhere and it goes on your emotional
table. It's unintentional, and it'sunconscious, all the stuff you don't want
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to deal with, all the stuffwe are trying to avoid. But guys,
you know that doesn't work because thatwhole blow up that I just talked
about that most of us I shouldn'tsay most of us, some of us
get into at some point in ourlife, in our relationship. When all
that stuff blows up, it iscalled the emotional collapse of your emotional table.
I mean, think about a table. If we overload a table,
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what happens to a table? Itcollapses And then when it collapses, all
the stuff can I say? Isay, it falls onto the ground and
then it's all over the place,and all the box ins of the box
were all mixed up one with theother. We don't know what came first.
And then when people find say,well, we had this massify and
then she brought something up that happenedfive years ago. I don't know why
(09:09):
she brought up has nothing to dowith what we were having this big fight
about. So I don't know whatto tell you, Anita, And I
will say to you, well,it's because you never resolved it. All
you did was put it on youremotional table, hoping that it would disappear.
But it hasn't disappeared, because it'scome back in this big, massive
blowout that you've had. I don'tknow that's happened to me where I've been,
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and I have been a very passionate, expressive person in my younger years,
when I was much more volatile andsensitive, I wouldn't resolve those issues
because again in my family of origin, we couldnfront in each other, but
we never resolved anything. So allthat stuff and my emotional table got piled
up all the time, it collapsedall the time, it was mixed up
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all over the floor, and inthe fight, I couldn't really, you
know, say what I was reallyfighting about at that time, because I
was fighting about everything that had andwe're resolved in the micro the little fights
that we had all along, Sothat's when the stuff comes up. We
are going to continue this conversation afterthis commercial break, and I'm going to
teach you how to unpack that emotionaltable and deload it. Everyone strives for
(10:16):
healthier relationships. Here's more of UnbleepYour Life and Relationships on News Talk.
Ele wisn Welcome back to Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host,
Anita Asley. Today we are talkingabout de escalating an escalating situation, and
I just talked about the emotional tableand the emotional bookshelf. We all need
(10:41):
both and they serve very different functionsand they also are something that we can
get for free. Visualize it.It's inside of your set yourself. You
don't need to go and buy itfrom rank you a different color. I
pick whatever color you want, butdon't pick red. Red is heated and
hot. Right, we're trying toescalate here, okay, so let me
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just differentiate very quickly. The emotionalbookshelf is something is something that you need
to have internally within yourself, andyou put stuff on there that is not
urgent. You want to deal withit at a later date, but it's
not avoiding it. It's there.You can take it off when you're ready
and deal with it. The emotionaltable is something that's there that we unconsciously,
unintentionally put stuff on that we don'twant to resolve. We want to
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avoid because we don't want to havethe big fight. But what I'll say
to you guys, whether you wantit or not, that big fight is
coming. If you're not working outyour issues now, think about the last
time you had to fight that bigfight. Think about it, what happened.
We generally think about what happened,what was the story, what did
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you say? What is? Butwe rarely think about the process. How
did we fight? Do you greg? How did you fight? What role
did you take on? This isvery important. I remember in my training
as a therapist, my professor sayingto me Anita, to all the students,
we have to learn to differentiate betweenthe content and the process. And
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I was like, what does thatmean? Of course the content is important.
We want to know what they're fightingabout, don't we Isn't that what
we're trying to fix here? Yes? And no, So think about that,
guys for a minute, the contentand the process. Think about your
last fight. The process is importantbecause generally when we get into a fight,
a big one with our partner,we fight in a very similar fashion,
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meaning we take on the same roles. What are these roles? Well,
I mean, think about your lastfight. Were you the one chasing
your partner around to say, wegot to talk about this, listen to
me, sit down and they werejust kind of sitting there thinking, oh
my god, how can I runaway from this? And the more they
did that, the more you're like, no, no, no, come
back, come back, yelling,screaming, whatever it is. The other
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might be that you're both yelling andyou're both going kind of crazy, and
then you both get tired and youretreat. The other one is you both
kind of withdraw. Nobody wants tosay anything, and then you know,
but nothing gets resolved. These arethree styles that most of us have been
involved in, and there are threethat I've observed and help people with.
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So number one is both partners yellat each other, Ah, nothing gets
solved. One yells and the otherone withdraws. And then the other one,
of course, is both people withdrawall three are very unhealthy ways of
dealing with conflict because nothing constructive isgoing to happen in that moment. And
in all three dynamics, we're tryingto resolve something in that moment. Even
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the ones that are withdrawing, we'regiving a message. Remember I've said to
you guys before, one cannot notcommunicate the roles that we take on,
even while, especially during a bigfight like this, we are saying something
to our partner. Now, allof this has to stop if we want
to build healthy relationships, not onlywith ourselves but with our partner. These
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kinds of dynamics only serve to keepunhealthy patterns alive. And one of the
things we want to break out of, and I'm sure you guys can relate
to this. I help people dothis all the time, is the attack
defense dynamic. You might be thinkingwhat is that? And you might be
think it was not never my fault, it's always my partner, even if
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you're the one that's feeling attacked.You keep it alive by becoming defensive.
The more you attack, the moredefensive the other person becomes, and the
more defensive that other person becomes.The more you attack, we get stuck
in the circular argument. I callit a dance. It's the circular dance,
all of which is very unhealthy.We want to get unstuck, so
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let me help you do this.We want to prevent the collapse our emotional
table. What we want to dois we don't want to have an empty
table either, because we're all goingto have fights and that's normal and that's
healthy. What we want to dois keep those boxes rotating off the table
up there. Another one will comeon, but make sure that box is
(15:03):
taken off so you don't have anemotional collapse. And you're gonna say,
okay, Anita, well are wegonna get to the how? Now that
you've told me what the problem is, can we get to the how?
Yes? Absolutely, we're gonna getto the how, because if you don't
do this, you're gonna have arelational cancer in your relationship. We talked
about the malignancy of it, andGreg is looking at like, hey,
I don't want that. Is itcontagious? Well if we don't for that,
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I don't know, but maybe weshould create one. Now. Most
of us, when we've engaged thesein these three unhealthy styles, generally we
wake up the next morning, andI can relate to this. I've been
in there, and I'm sure allyou guys have been there at some point
in your relationships. You get upand you're like trying to read the other
person. Okay, is she okay? See okay? Seems to be having
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coffee and sitting next to me.So I guess we're all good. And
nobody wants to bring up what justhappened yesterday, that whole big mess.
So we go on our merry littleway thinking everything is okay, but it
is not okay. You're avoiding whyyou should have been confronting ages ago and
stopped. It's time to stop doingthat. We need to wake up,
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and we need to get out ofthis unhealthy dance because what it ultimately does.
And I speak about this all thetime, and you guys are gonna
think, ah, she's repeating herself. I am. If you continue to
do this, you're gonna wake upfive years, ten years, fifteen years
feeling very disconnected from the person that'ssupposed to be the most important person in
your life. Emotional intimacy erodes whenwe keep avoiding conflict and we keep not
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wanting to have these massive explanation escalations. Sorry, nobody wants to have that,
but they are going to continue tohappen. And if your emotional intimacy
erodes in the relationship, everything elsealso will be compromised. So all that
stuff you might be thinking, ohmy god, is there any hope?
Of course there is hope. Ifyou learn to do this, you will
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have better relationship. You will feellistened to, you will feel validated emotionally,
and mostly you will feel respected withregards to your needs and expectations.
Because, again, guys, fightingis a way of trying to connect with
your partner. It is a wayto reveal your authentic self, your true
self. And again go back towhat I said earlier, what is a
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fight? It is two opposing opinionscoming together to come to hopefully a common
ground. All right, are youready, guys, let's get to the
how how to unbleep this unhealthy dynamic? Here it is, and I've come
to this over twenty five years,as I said before, of helping people
do this. Now, people sometimesthey're like, well, Anita didn't work
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for me. I've tried it afew times, and this method sucks.
You don't know what you're talking aboutwell, I said, okay, well
tell me what happened. Let's talkabout this. They failed at the first
step, which was actually to gettheir partner on board. It is not
going to work for you if youhaven't sat down and said, hey,
I need to say, you know, maybe we should try her tabling method,
not maybe she actually said we should, because otherwise we're going to be
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really bleeped up. You have toagree with your partner. You have to
make an understanding that you're going todo this, and they'll say, well,
in the middle of an escalation,how do I do this? You
don't do it in the middle ofan escalation. You sit down and you
have a meeting, just like inmy office, I have sessions and I
say, hey, this is theagreement we're going to make. You're going
to agree to use the tabling methodthe next time you sense this fight is
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going to escalate to the point whereit's going to be the big man.
You have to agree to that.Once you've agreed to it, you have
to understand how it works. Andonce you understand how it works, then
you're going to do it. Andif you have any questions, you're going
to ask each other rather than doingduring the fight. So that's the most
important thing to have an agreement thatyou're going to do this step number one
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right. It makes sense. Right, because you can't do it and your
partner's not on board, it's goingto fail. So, like I say,
it's not going to fail, andit is one hundred percent proof if
we both agree to do it andwe implement it the correct way. Okay,
let's get to it. What isthis tabling method? What is it
all about the next time you're ina big fight or you no, let
me take a step back. Thenext time you have this sense that this
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is going to be a doozy it'sgetting out of hand. I'm going to
give you the words on what tosay. But before you out of the
words, you're going to take astep back. You're going to breathe.
Well, yeah, let's lean in. Breathe. You know something that we
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do voluntarily, But in the middleof a fight, our breathing is all
out of whack. And I'm nota hookey pooky therapist where I say,
here, breathe, do this andeverything will be better. Absolutely not.
But when we are in control ofour breathing, our body and mind are
impacted. Think of it when Iget nervous and I'm in a fight.
Sometimes even doing this radiosh on mybreathing. What don't I start talking loud
because I'm out out of whack.Stop, take a deep breath, step
(20:00):
back, and we're going Because whenyou control our breathing, what I meant
to say is our physiology calms down, our body and our mind calm down.
And that is exactly what we needto do when the situation is escalating.
Step back, take a deep breath, press the pause. But press
(20:22):
the pause. But what does thatmean? I'm going to continue this conversation
after we take a little break.We'll be back with Unbleep Your Life and
Relationships. Anita Ashley has more adviceon how to unbleep your Life and relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Welcomeback to Unbleep your Life and Relationships.
(20:45):
I'm your host, Anita Asley.We were just talking about pausing. Okay,
what is it when we pause?And most of us don't do this
in the middle of a fight,in a big escalation. I've been there
myself, so I can understand.But what we need to do is we
need to press the pause button.After we've taken a breath. In this
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space, the pause space, wecan choose our reaction. We can be
proactive rather than reactive. Now,generally something happens, there's an event that
takes place, and there's our reactionon the other side. But in the
middle, is this beautiful button causea pause button that more of us need
to be able to press. Iknow it's difficult because we're so emotional,
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especially in that heated moment. Sopress the pause button, step back,
and then you're going to say thesewords to your partner. And remember you've
agreed to do this, so theyknow that when they hear this phrase that
they're going to stop whatever is goingon. They have a role in this
to de escalate. Also, you'regoing to say, let's table this.
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As Anita said, let's table this, because sometimes people will say to me,
well, I don't know what tosay, I don't know what to
do. Give me a phrase.So that's the phrase, let's table this.
Now, as soon as your partnerhears those words, they're also going
to do the same thing. Breathe, take a step back. Pause.
Now, after both of you havegone to your corners, you've cooled off,
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You're going to come back. Thisis a very important part of this
tabling method. You're going to comeback and you're going to say, within
twenty four hours, we are goingto come back to this and we are
going to talk about it. Thetwenty four hour rule to me is vital
and really important. And people willsay, well, I can't do it
within twenty four hours. I gotthis going on, I got that going
on. Prioritize, make it apriority. If you have to push it,
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push it to forty eight, butno more than twenty four hours,
because in my experience, twenty fourhours is enough time for the very emotional
person to become more rational, andthe rational person to empathize a little bit
more with the other person's emotions,and it is still fresh in both your
minds and your hearts, and you'renot just going to shove it away and
(22:59):
stead o twenty four hours. Thingskind of look no, no, no,
twenty four hour hour rule. Andthen within that framework, you're going
to decide where that conversation is goingto happen and at what time. This
also serves as a security blanket fora person like myself who wants to resolve
things right away, and i'd probablyand I probably have been in the dynamic
(23:21):
where I will chase my partner.I used to it. I don't do
it anymore. I don't chase anybody. I need to resolve this. Talk
to me. Why are you nottalking to me? Knowing that there's a
time and a place within twenty fourhours where I can bring these emotions to
will lessen the anxiety that I havethat this is never going to be resolved.
My husband never wants to talk aboutthese things, and we are just
(23:42):
going to pretend. No. Thetwenty four hour rule is vital. Having
a space and having a time totalk about it is vital. The other
part, very important, is you'renot going to exceed one hour because people
will say, okay, we wentto the table, and oh my god,
on and on and on. AfterI was done, nothing constructive,
(24:03):
constructive was taking place. One houryou're done. If you have to come
back to it, come back toit again, but one hour you're done.
I guarantee you if you follow thismethod the way that I've described it
and the way that it is describedalso in my book Unbleep Your Life in
Relationships, available on Amazon and Simonin Shusto in more detail. You will
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have less escalations, you will learnto talk to your partner and deal with
these situations in a much more healthymanner. And of course the next question
will be, well, once Iget to the table, what do I
do? Because now I have toactually look at my partner. Now I
have to talk. Yes, youdo. You can actively listen to your
partner. You're gonna effectively communicate toyour partner, and you're not going to
(24:48):
leave the table until you feel you'vecome to a middle ground, not until
you feel you've won something. BecauseI'll tell you something, If you walk
away from that table feeling like you'vewon something, it's a long term and
loss for you, because that meansyour partner is probably feeling that they've lost
something. We don't want that.Do you really want to be living in
a house with somebody who feels likethey've lost something to you and you're walking
(25:10):
around feeling like you've wont something.It's a long term loss. We want
to leave the table like we've cometo a middle ground. Sometimes that's actually
I'm going to agree to disagree.But we've talked about it, We've talked,
I've listened to you. You've sharednow some of the things I've just
talked about. I did a podcaston this last week, a couple of
weeks ago. It's also in mybook in terms of active listening what that
(25:33):
is, effective, speaking what thatis, and doing those things when you're
at the table. I'm not goingto repeat them all today, but when
you practice those things at the tablewith your partner and walk away leaving like,
Okay, this has been really healthyfor our relationship, that box is
gone, it's off your table.And then when the other one comes on
there, there is for sure goingto be another one. You're going to
(25:56):
do the exactly the same thing,and guess what, over time, you're
not going to have these massive,big fights because you are going to learn
over time to deal with conflict asit comes into your life in a healthy
manner. That is the goal.So when people will say I neither,
that's so mechanical. Yes, itis mechanical, but eventually it becomes natural.
(26:17):
Just like when I first became atherapist, a lot of the things
I was learning, I was like, oh my god, this is so
technical, this is so mechanical,but it's such a human process. It
actually was until I was able tofly with it until I owned it.
I internalize all this stuff, andyou guys will do that too when you
followed these steps, When you usethis method the way that it's intended,
you will eventually have a healthy relationshipand learn how to fight in a healthy
(26:41):
manner. So you were so you'resaying, oh, we got to table
this, and we're going to talkabout this at a certain time, and
you give yourself an hour basically,well twenty four hours is important. You're
going to talk about it for anhour. You're going to use some of
the skills I've talked about in thebook in prior podcasts. The other thing
that I'm just reminded of what you'renot gonna do. You're not going to
bring up what you what you've puton the table, what you're going to
(27:03):
talk about later during that time,because people do that too. I told
my husband we're going to talk aboutit. We agreed Wednesday at five o'clock,
but all during the day yesterday hewas like, you know, talking
about it intermittently. No, that'sa no. Because we have a time
and a place we've agreed that's whenwe're going to talk about it. It's
on the table. It's not gonnaYou're not gonna throw little jabs at me,
(27:26):
Diggs. No, if you needto do that, get a journal,
write that stuff down. We cantalk about it at the table,
but we have an agreement. Abideby that agreement. Table it. Put
it on your emotional bookshelf. Thesethings are really important. Okay, guys,
So moving on. You know,today we have a first time caller.
(27:49):
She is going to be discussing someof her issues with her. And
again I tell you, guys,this is not therapy. This is me
sharing my expert advice, expert opinions, and also just my own life experiences.
So please send me your comments,your questions on my Instagram. It's
ask Ania Aslei. That's the socialmedia platform I'm most active on. And
(28:11):
if you want to send me anemail, my website is also up askwww
dot ask anita Asley dot com andif you're looking to come in to get
some help, you can also sendme an email on that via my website.
Also, I am working with newpatients and as usual, I love
to do media stuff, but Ialso still love helping people in my office.
(28:33):
Anyway, let's get to our callertoday and let's see how I can
help her unbleep her life and relationships. Grad you got this and that's coming
up on News Talk eleven thirty.Wiset back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships
on News Talk eleven thirty WYSA.Welcome back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships.
(28:56):
I'm your host, Anita Ashley.Today we have been talking about conflict
fighting and how to de escalate anescalating situation. I just shared my tabling
method with you. If you aregoing to implement this or remember what I
said, you got to talk toyour partner first. They've got to be
on board and follow it step bystep. It does work. I helped
(29:18):
people de escalating their escalating situation foryears. Now we are going to get
to our first time caller. Wehave a first time caller in our show
who has some questions and hopefully Ican help you unbleep some of the stuff
you're struggling with. Welcome to ourshow, first time caller, Thank you,
Anita. I'm your Jenna Barbara,California. Thank you so much for
having me. You're welcome. It'sso exciting to have you on board.
(29:41):
So what's going on in your lifethat I can help you. Unbleep.
Remember it's not therapy, just mesharing some of my expert opinions with you.
Sure, I'm in a relationship andI'm just very afraid of conflicts.
So how do I even get startedwhen addressing that conflict. Well, I'm
going to ask you the number onething, what are you afraid of?
I am afraid of losing this person, of abandonment, I'm afraid of ruffling
(30:07):
feathers. I'm afraid walking on I'mjust walking on eggshells. I'm steel so
afraid. Now is this a romanticrelationship. We're talking about a frantic Yes,
romantic relationship. Okay, Well,I'm going to say to you,
you know, in the fear ofnot confronting them, you are creating all
kinds of issues in not only justin your relationship, but within yourself.
(30:29):
Now, you are afraid of losingthe relationship. But I'll tell you something,
Catherine, in the midst of allof this, you are going to
lose your self. Now, Iwill ask you to think about what it
is that conflict means to you.You don't have to answer this today,
but what I would want you tothink about what does conflict mean to you?
And that what does it trigger insideof you when you get into a
(30:52):
situation that's romantic, like with thisperson, and where does it take you
in your childhood? Now, weall learn to have a relationship with conflict
from our parents, our family oforigin. Again I've said this is not
to blame our parents, but it'skind of looking back to say, Okay,
when I had an issue growing up, how did they deal with it?
(31:12):
And then have I been dealing withit in that manner in our in
my relationships? Have you been doingthat? And does that make any sense
to you? Makes a lot ofsense. I know that all these defective
characters them from my childhood and Iwould like to get rid of them.
But when I go into conflict,when I think about conflicts, I go
straight into fear, Straight straight intofear. Okay, but think about what
(31:33):
it does to you. What doesfear do to us? Now? Most
of us, It keeps us stuckrepressed, It allows other people to speak
for us. It doesn't allow ourtrue voice to come out, and then
you end up feeling depressed and anxious, and mostly you end up feeling unhappy
in this relationship. Tell me,How could you feel fulfilled in this relationship
when you're not able to be yourself? Because if you're not able to address
(31:56):
conflict, how can be How canyou be? You? Aren't you just
being of version of yourself and justsaying to the person what they think and
what they like so you don't havea conflict, because that's the only way
to avoid conflict is to not reallybe yourself. I lose the sense of
myself when when when this happens?And when I lose I lose my voice
before before I even challenge myself tobring it up. What does that mean?
(32:20):
You lose your voice? It's likeI just get stuck. Let let
the romantic partner take over. Ican't even I almost still be dilicated.
You feel paralyzed, right, Andwhere does the think back to? When
did you feel like that in yourchildhood? Growing up? Did you feel
paralyzed? I bet you did.Yes. I was definitely very much a
(32:40):
people pleaser. All I wanted wasmy parents to be happy. I felt
like if I was happy and Ijust made my feelings and they would be
okay. And you know, theseare very complicated issues and I don't mean
to simplify them by you know,I don't have a ten step thing to
help you today, but what Iwill say to you congratulations that you know
that you need to not do thisin your relationships. You know that you
(33:02):
need to confront conflict in order toget to the other side. But mostly
you need to find your voice inthis relationship. And the way to do
that again, how do I dothis? Anita? You need to stake
a step back and ask yourself wheredid I learn to do this? And
I said this before, probably inyour family of origin? And how can
I continue to do this as anadult? Because yeah, as a little
(33:24):
girl you didn't have a choice,but as an adult you have the power
to find your voice. Now.I know it's not as easy as that.
And again we have to step back. We have to reflect with intention
and purpose, and right now todayyour purpose and your intention for reflection is
(33:44):
to figure out Okay, wait aminute, what happened that even at this
age you seem like what you arein your forties? How old are you
about would you say that I shouldtalk to my inner child. You need
to reflect back on your child interms of where did you learn to first
do this? Because all of thatstuff belongs in your childhood. It doesn't
(34:05):
belong in the adult relationships that you'rein today. But this is the only
way you know how to do it. So you're doing what you know,
but you know it's not working foryou because you end up feeling like you
cannot use your voice. And allof us we want to use our voice
because our voice represents who we are, but it sounds like your voice is
underneath all the layers and layers andlayers of other people's voices. Right,
(34:30):
do you recommend like a time thatI should approach the conflict? Try I
s fit the person down? ShouldI write it down first? Like?
Should I practice with the dialogue?Or how do you? Because you know
sometimes I fester, fester, fester, and it all get just stirs up
in me and I tend to lashout. Yeah, and that's exactly what
we were talking about. Festering,festering, festering. Your emotional table is
overloaded, and it's in your fearthat it's going to collapse and it's going
(34:52):
to be out of control again.I would say, you need to have
this, You need to take ajournal, write this stuff down for yourself
first pair for this conversation with theother person, and you need to use
eye language, share with her howyou feel, not necessarily what she's doing
to you to make you feel thisway. Talk about yourself, talk about
(35:12):
what it's doing to you, anddon't be afraid to talk about the fear
itself. Like I would say tomy friend, listen, I really value
this relationship and I want to bein this friendship with you, but not
at the cost of losing myself.And for me to even get to this
point of wanting to share with you, I was scared. That is going
to invite a very different reaction thanif you sat down and said, O,
listen, you make me feel thisway, you dismiss me, you
(35:35):
don't listen to me, you makeme feel scared. Right, Yeah,
I currently have a friendship that I'mkind of working on because she's all about
herself and I haven't been able toaddress it because she's going through so much,
so I don't want to add onemore layer to her, to her,
I would guess I'll call it illness. Sickness. It's not really physical,
but it's emotional, just a lotof things going on. I can
just I just feel myself just boilingup because I can't listen anymore. So
(36:00):
I'm afraid I'm going to say youdon't make decisions, you don't do this,
and so instead I want to reframeit like you're making me feel used
in the views that's not even agood word, but I'm afraid that's the
way I'm going to come out.Yeah, and I would go one step
further, and I would I encourageyou to take that you out, you
know, when you're talking about howyou're feeling and what you're thinking. Again,
use I that is not accusatory andinvites engagement rather than invite a defensive
(36:25):
reaction. Anytime we're going to sayyou didn't do this, and you do
this and blah blah blah, theother person is going to shut down and
they're not going to not going toengage in a conversation. And when you
tell me that she's going through allthis stuff, but then you're feeling this,
you're again you're putting her at herstuff is more important than yours.
You're allowed to have needs and expectationsin a relationship, in a friendship,
(36:46):
you're allowed to and you're allowed tosay, hey, yeah, I know
you got all this stuff going on, but do you have time? I
want to talk to you about somethingthat's really important to me. We have
to ask ourselves how important is thisrelationship in our life? And if it's
really important to us, they shouldalso be there for us. And I
know that sometimes one person has morestuff going on and than the other,
(37:07):
but it sounds like you're feeling like, wait a minute, there's no room
in this relationship for my emotional stuff. Is that correct? Yeah, it
doesn't feel like it's reciprocated, andall relationships need reciprocity. So I would
say to you again, you justquestioning that. To me, it's like,
again, you're not prioritizing your needsand your wants, and you're allowing
this person not to create help letyou have that space, but create the
(37:30):
space, command the space, demandthat space. You are worthy in a
friendship to ask for that. That'swhat friendship is about. It's not supposed
to be one way it's supposed tobe two way street. And if it's
not a two way street, thenyou got to ask yourself what am I
getting from this friendship? Is thisreally a friendship? Or am I just
kind of pseudotherapist? Right? Ilike the way that you're inviting me to
(37:52):
feel my feelings. That's always allvery helpful to me. I did have
a romantic relationship and I kept feelingthis smiss you know. I was like,
I'm going through movies, I'm doingthis, and there was no check
in like what are you going todo? You know, how does that
make you feel? And finally,after a month went by, I remember
this incident and finally I just said, are you upset with me? And
I said, well, I feelI feel very dismissed, and he said,
(38:14):
I apologize. It's really hard towringle a bunch of people on Christmas
Day and it just was. Itwas fine. I was like, oh
wow, I just was able toexpress myself and I didn't get hurt.
Well, I'm glad that you expressedyourself. And yeah, when somebody is
just making unilateral decisions in a relationshipor romantic, well, any kind of
relationship, that's said not a healthyrelationship because that is all about them.
(38:37):
If I'm in a relationship with yourfriendship or romantic, I'd want to know
what you want to do. Hey, Saturday, y, what do you
want to do? Do you wantto see this movie? And even if
it's seeing the movie. Do youwant to see this particular movie or are
you open to something else? That'scalled the conversation. I'm not just leading
into whatever it is that I wantto do. But also you ask yourself
what your role in this? Right? If you're allowing this person to do
(38:59):
this to you, then what's goingon with you that you're not valuing yourself
enough? Because you just talked aboutyour voice. It's getting in touch with
your internal voice and empowering yourself touse it. And you have needs and
expectations and you're allowed to express themand you're allowed to want them to be
fulfilled in a friendship and in aromantic relationship, also in familiar relationship.
(39:22):
Somewhere along the line, it soundslike you took on that role very easily.
But now it's time to unbleep it, own your voice, own your
power. I know it's easier saidthan done, but we have to start
somewhere, and you're already there becauseyou know all the stuff that's happening to
you. Your body and mind issaying this is not cool, stop it,
do something about it. Absolutely yes, I can. You know,
(39:44):
they say, trust your gut andThat's where it stems from just not making
the action when I'm feeling something,not going with my feelings, and that's
what gets me the trouble. Yes, and I'm glad to hear that you
are now owning your feelings. Thenext step is to do something with them,
some action. I want to thankyou for calling in. That's all
the time that we have for today. And again, own your voice,
(40:06):
and I know it's a difficult process. The first step is to become aware
of the fact that you're not owningyour voice. But once you're able to
do that with some intentional, purposefulself awareness, you will get there.
Anyway, Thank you for calling inand good luck and keep you know,
call us back and let us knowwhat's going on with that friendship because that
is totally not cool and friendships needreciprocity to be healthy. Thank you all
(40:30):
right, take care, Thank you, Thank you everyone for joining us tonight.
It's been an interesting evening and Ilove that people are calling in or
we're going to have more callers comingup. I hope that today you're going
to have an emotional bookshelf and you'regoing to be looking at your emotional table
in a healthy manner. We wantto put the things on there with intention,
(40:52):
with consciousness to unbleep them anyway.Guys, when I'm not in studio,
you can find me on Instagram askAnita Asley. It is the platform
that I'm most active on. Andif you're interested in learning more about this
stuff, you can buy my bookon Amazon and Simon and Schuster Unbleep your
Life and Relationships and you gotta onestep further and listen to a much more
(41:13):
unfiltered podcast. It's Unbleep your Lifeand Relationships on Apple, Spotify and so
forth, or just google me.I'm there, but don't forget this week
to press the pause button
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial, are complicated and can be downright
MESSI bringing out the best and worstin all of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's on BleepYour Life and Relationships with host Anita Aslak,
(00:22):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.I'm your host, Anita Astley. I'm
a licensed marriage, family and Individualtherapist in Wisconsin and I have been doing
this for like twenty five years.I can over twenty five years. I
think wow, time flies when you'rehaving fun. I recently published a book
(00:46):
called Unbleep Your Life and Relationships.It is available on Amazon and the Simon
and Schuster website. So I don'tknow about you, guys, but relationships
are complicated. They're complex because weare complex gated as human beings. And
then I have tried to help otherpeople and bleep some of that stuff on
this show. My goal is alwaysfor you to have some concrete takeaways on
(01:10):
how can you can improve your relationships? As always, from the inside out
starting with ourselves. We've covered topicslike emotional intimacy, physical intimacy, getting
our needs and expectations met. Alot of these things I do talk about
in my book. If you're interestedin more detail. Today we are going
to be talking about fighting. Fighting. People are afraid to fight. And
(01:34):
when people say to me, oh, we're pretty we're doing pretty good,
Aneda, we never fight, andI'm thinking, oh, wait a minute,
this is a right flag. Ofcourse, we all fight because we
are not mirror images of the otherperson. Now, think about what a
fight really is between people, andgenerally doesn't happen at the beginning of a
(01:55):
relationship. It happens kind of whenwe start to feel like we can really
be ourselves, putting the best footforward. It's not really real and it
doesn't last. If this relationship isgoing to be something that's intimate that you
want to get closer to the otherperson. Think of what a conflict is.
What is a fight, Well,it's generally when I'm able to say
(02:17):
what I really think and feel abouta situation, and so is the other
person. Because at the beginning,we're all kind of nice. Yeah,
sure I'll do that, Yeah,I love that restaurant. Yeah, those
shoes look really good on you,but that is fleeting that only lasts a
little bit, and then we getto the real crux of our issues with
another person if the relationship is somethingthat's meaningful to us. So fighting is
(02:42):
normal, Fighting is healthy, andit's okay to fight, and yeah,
sometimes you just need a good fightto get all of that stuff out to
get to some type of resolution.If we don't fight, we're not going
to get to a resolution. Soit's not the fighting that's the issue.
It's usually how people fight. AndGreg is here studio with me as always
the producer. What are you saying. I'm sure you've had a lot of
(03:04):
fights. You've been married by I'msure you fight about the silliest things.
Sometimes sometimes it can be a toughone too. So the resolution is the
big thing. The resolution is thebig thing. And you know, part
of my goal with this show isto talk about these complicated things we're going
to and I always want to say, Okay, this is the what,
this is the why, and thisis the how. If I can help
(03:27):
you with some of those things,then I feel like the show has been
successful. So the what today isde escalating and escalating situation. What does
that really mean. It's not thoselittle fights, but it's when you have
the boom and we've all been inthat situation where we're having a big fight
and it's just getting out of control. Nobody is with well, some people
(03:50):
might withdraw. It depends on therole that you're taking in the fight.
We're going to talk about that alittle bit later, but it is the
big fight. If you haven't beenthere yourself, you're probably holding back.
But I'm sure you've talked to yourfriends. We're like, oh my god,
I gotta call you up because Ihad this big fight with my wife,
big fight with my brother. We'vebeen there. Now people will say,
(04:10):
well, why do I need todeal with this? Why can't I
just kind of let these bomb bigfights happen once years every six months,
Because it's not healthy. It meanswe are not actually dealing and resolving anything
in our relationship, and we're notdealing with what I call the mini fights
that happen along the way. Thereason we're having this big, massive fight
(04:31):
is because we haven't dealt with someof the smaller things that are going on
in our relationship that add up tothat big fight. The boom. The
boom just doesn't happen out of nowhere. The boom happens because there's a lot
of little things you haven't dealt with. Now, we're also going to get
to the how. The how isreally important part of this show. It
is me sharing with you some ofthe things that I know clinically, but
(04:56):
also some of the things I knowis just being a human being and being
a and bleeped up relationships and I'mbleeping them myself. So the how this
week is going to be my tablingmethod. I'm going to share this with
you, and I've come across andI've developed this, not come across,
I've developed this method myself after workingwith people for twenty five years, couples,
couples, couples, we've all beenin that coupleship, families, families,
(05:20):
families, we're all in family ships, and we have friendships. So
this can also be used. Thesetechniques I talk about, by the way,
are not just for romantic relationships.They can be used all across our
relationships. Again, guys, wehave to think differently about relationships. Relationships
are not limited to romantic ones.I know, I got a lot of
(05:42):
relationships going on in my life,the one I have with myself, the
one I talk to all the time, my neighbors, your colleagues, peers.
We are all in some kind ofrelationship or not. But the tabling
method is really used in relationships thatwe get into that big boom, that
big fight with Now. I callit the tabling method because I think we
have all and conceptualize what a tableis. Right. Sure, there's the
(06:08):
top, there's legs, and weknow the utility of a table. What
do we use the table for?We put all kinds of junk on it,
sometimes junk sometimes We all know whatit is. And I like for
you guys today to internalize these twoconcepts of anything else a table, our
emotional table, I call it,and the emotional bookshelf. There are very
(06:29):
different things. And you might bethinking, oh my god, she's getting
all psychobab, but I am.The emotional bookshelf for me is very different
to what the emotional table is.Guys, think of it. You got
stuff going on in your head.Where do you put that stuff? Greg?
Where do you put it? Repressit? Under your pillows? Yes,
somewhere, And you're trying to avoidit the emotional bookshelf. If you
(06:54):
don't have one today, I'm goingto give you one. Guys, imagine
an emotional bookshop side of your head. We know, sorry, my allergies
are really bad today, so ifmy voice sounds funny, I apologize.
The emotional bookshelf is where you're goingto put stuff that you don't need to
resolve immediately, but you need toget to. So it's not a form
(07:15):
of avoidance, but it really isa safe place that you can put your
stuff. I have stuff I wantto talk to you, you know,
my friend about something that happened acouple of months ago. It's not really
urgent. It's not going to betoday, it's not going to be tomorrow,
but it's going to be there.I don't want to avoid it because
it's important, but I'm going toput it there for when I'm ready to
talk about it. There is asafe place. It's a holding place.
(07:38):
We all need an emotional bookshelf.Get one. It's not even from Ikia,
it's for free. I'm giving itto you today. The second one
is the emotional table. We allknow, like I said, what a
table looks like. Now, thisone, I believe we have one,
and we unintentionally and unconsciously put stuffon the emotional bookshelf. Every time there's
(08:01):
a fight that we don't deal with, I believe we wrap it up in
a little box and we put iton our emotional bookshelf. It's unintentional.
It's the stuff that we're trying toavoid. But guess what. That stuff
doesn't disappear gone into space. Itgoes somewhere and it goes on your emotional
table. It's unintentional, and it'sunconscious, all the stuff you don't want
(08:24):
to deal with, all the stuffwe are trying to avoid. But guys,
you know that doesn't work because thatwhole blow up that I just talked
about that most of us I shouldn'tsay most of us, some of us
get into at some point in ourlife, in our relationship. When all
that stuff blows up, it iscalled the emotional collapse of your emotional table.
I mean, think about a table. If we overload a table,
(08:46):
what happens to a table? Itcollapses And then when it collapses, all
the stuff can I say? Isay, it falls onto the ground and
then it's all over the place,and all the box ins of the box
were all mixed up one with theother. We don't know what came first.
And then when people find say,well, we had this massify and
then she brought something up that happenedfive years ago. I don't know why
(09:09):
she brought up has nothing to dowith what we were having this big fight
about. So I don't know whatto tell you, Anita, And I
will say to you, well,it's because you never resolved it. All
you did was put it on youremotional table, hoping that it would disappear.
But it hasn't disappeared, because it'scome back in this big, massive
blowout that you've had. I don'tknow that's happened to me where I've been,
(09:30):
and I have been a very passionate, expressive person in my younger years,
when I was much more volatile andsensitive, I wouldn't resolve those issues
because again in my family of origin, we couldnfront in each other, but
we never resolved anything. So allthat stuff and my emotional table got piled
up all the time, it collapsedall the time, it was mixed up
(09:52):
all over the floor, and inthe fight, I couldn't really, you
know, say what I was reallyfighting about at that time, because I
was fighting about everything that had andwe're resolved in the micro the little fights
that we had all along, Sothat's when the stuff comes up. We
are going to continue this conversation afterthis commercial break, and I'm going to
teach you how to unpack that emotionaltable and deload it. Everyone strives for
(10:16):
healthier relationships. Here's more of UnbleepYour Life and Relationships on News Talk.
Ele wisn Welcome back to Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host,
Anita Asley. Today we are talkingabout de escalating an escalating situation, and
I just talked about the emotional tableand the emotional bookshelf. We all need
(10:41):
both and they serve very different functionsand they also are something that we can
get for free. Visualize it.It's inside of your set yourself. You
don't need to go and buy itfrom rank you a different color. I
pick whatever color you want, butdon't pick red. Red is heated and
hot. Right, we're trying toescalate here, okay, so let me
(11:01):
just differentiate very quickly. The emotionalbookshelf is something is something that you need
to have internally within yourself, andyou put stuff on there that is not
urgent. You want to deal withit at a later date, but it's
not avoiding it. It's there.You can take it off when you're ready
and deal with it. The emotionaltable is something that's there that we unconsciously,
unintentionally put stuff on that we don'twant to resolve. We want to
(11:24):
avoid because we don't want to havethe big fight. But what I'll say
to you guys, whether you wantit or not, that big fight is
coming. If you're not working outyour issues now, think about the last
time you had to fight that bigfight. Think about it, what happened.
We generally think about what happened,what was the story, what did
(11:45):
you say? What is? Butwe rarely think about the process. How
did we fight? Do you greg? How did you fight? What role
did you take on? This isvery important. I remember in my training
as a therapist, my professor sayingto me Anita, to all the students,
we have to learn to differentiate betweenthe content and the process. And
(12:07):
I was like, what does thatmean? Of course the content is important.
We want to know what they're fightingabout, don't we Isn't that what
we're trying to fix here? Yes? And no, So think about that,
guys for a minute, the contentand the process. Think about your
last fight. The process is importantbecause generally when we get into a fight,
a big one with our partner,we fight in a very similar fashion,
(12:31):
meaning we take on the same roles. What are these roles? Well,
I mean, think about your lastfight. Were you the one chasing
your partner around to say, wegot to talk about this, listen to
me, sit down and they werejust kind of sitting there thinking, oh
my god, how can I runaway from this? And the more they
did that, the more you're like, no, no, no, come
back, come back, yelling,screaming, whatever it is. The other
(12:52):
might be that you're both yelling andyou're both going kind of crazy, and
then you both get tired and youretreat. The other one is you both
kind of withdraw. Nobody wants tosay anything, and then you know,
but nothing gets resolved. These arethree styles that most of us have been
involved in, and there are threethat I've observed and help people with.
(13:13):
So number one is both partners yellat each other, Ah, nothing gets
solved. One yells and the otherone withdraws. And then the other one,
of course, is both people withdrawall three are very unhealthy ways of
dealing with conflict because nothing constructive isgoing to happen in that moment. And
in all three dynamics, we're tryingto resolve something in that moment. Even
(13:35):
the ones that are withdrawing, we'regiving a message. Remember I've said to
you guys before, one cannot notcommunicate the roles that we take on,
even while, especially during a bigfight like this, we are saying something
to our partner. Now, allof this has to stop if we want
to build healthy relationships, not onlywith ourselves but with our partner. These
(13:58):
kinds of dynamics only serve to keepunhealthy patterns alive. And one of the
things we want to break out of, and I'm sure you guys can relate
to this. I help people dothis all the time, is the attack
defense dynamic. You might be thinkingwhat is that? And you might be
think it was not never my fault, it's always my partner, even if
(14:18):
you're the one that's feeling attacked.You keep it alive by becoming defensive.
The more you attack, the moredefensive the other person becomes, and the
more defensive that other person becomes.The more you attack, we get stuck
in the circular argument. I callit a dance. It's the circular dance,
all of which is very unhealthy.We want to get unstuck, so
(14:41):
let me help you do this.We want to prevent the collapse our emotional
table. What we want to dois we don't want to have an empty
table either, because we're all goingto have fights and that's normal and that's
healthy. What we want to dois keep those boxes rotating off the table
up there. Another one will comeon, but make sure that box is
(15:03):
taken off so you don't have anemotional collapse. And you're gonna say,
okay, Anita, well are wegonna get to the how? Now that
you've told me what the problem is, can we get to the how?
Yes? Absolutely, we're gonna getto the how, because if you don't
do this, you're gonna have arelational cancer in your relationship. We talked
about the malignancy of it, andGreg is looking at like, hey,
I don't want that. Is itcontagious? Well if we don't for that,
(15:26):
I don't know, but maybe weshould create one. Now. Most
of us, when we've engaged thesein these three unhealthy styles, generally we
wake up the next morning, andI can relate to this. I've been
in there, and I'm sure allyou guys have been there at some point
in your relationships. You get upand you're like trying to read the other
person. Okay, is she okay? See okay? Seems to be having
(15:48):
coffee and sitting next to me.So I guess we're all good. And
nobody wants to bring up what justhappened yesterday, that whole big mess.
So we go on our merry littleway thinking everything is okay, but it
is not okay. You're avoiding whyyou should have been confronting ages ago and
stopped. It's time to stop doingthat. We need to wake up,
(16:10):
and we need to get out ofthis unhealthy dance because what it ultimately does.
And I speak about this all thetime, and you guys are gonna
think, ah, she's repeating herself. I am. If you continue to
do this, you're gonna wake upfive years, ten years, fifteen years
feeling very disconnected from the person that'ssupposed to be the most important person in
your life. Emotional intimacy erodes whenwe keep avoiding conflict and we keep not
(16:36):
wanting to have these massive explanation escalations. Sorry, nobody wants to have that,
but they are going to continue tohappen. And if your emotional intimacy
erodes in the relationship, everything elsealso will be compromised. So all that
stuff you might be thinking, ohmy god, is there any hope?
Of course there is hope. Ifyou learn to do this, you will
(16:59):
have better relationship. You will feellistened to, you will feel validated emotionally,
and mostly you will feel respected withregards to your needs and expectations.
Because, again, guys, fightingis a way of trying to connect with
your partner. It is a wayto reveal your authentic self, your true
self. And again go back towhat I said earlier, what is a
(17:21):
fight? It is two opposing opinionscoming together to come to hopefully a common
ground. All right, are youready, guys, let's get to the
how how to unbleep this unhealthy dynamic? Here it is, and I've come
to this over twenty five years,as I said before, of helping people
do this. Now, people sometimesthey're like, well, Anita didn't work
(17:42):
for me. I've tried it afew times, and this method sucks.
You don't know what you're talking aboutwell, I said, okay, well
tell me what happened. Let's talkabout this. They failed at the first
step, which was actually to gettheir partner on board. It is not
going to work for you if youhaven't sat down and said, hey,
I need to say, you know, maybe we should try her tabling method,
not maybe she actually said we should, because otherwise we're going to be
(18:03):
really bleeped up. You have toagree with your partner. You have to
make an understanding that you're going todo this, and they'll say, well,
in the middle of an escalation,how do I do this? You
don't do it in the middle ofan escalation. You sit down and you
have a meeting, just like inmy office, I have sessions and I
say, hey, this is theagreement we're going to make. You're going
to agree to use the tabling methodthe next time you sense this fight is
(18:27):
going to escalate to the point whereit's going to be the big man.
You have to agree to that.Once you've agreed to it, you have
to understand how it works. Andonce you understand how it works, then
you're going to do it. Andif you have any questions, you're going
to ask each other rather than doingduring the fight. So that's the most
important thing to have an agreement thatyou're going to do this step number one
(18:51):
right. It makes sense. Right, because you can't do it and your
partner's not on board, it's goingto fail. So, like I say,
it's not going to fail, andit is one hundred percent proof if
we both agree to do it andwe implement it the correct way. Okay,
let's get to it. What isthis tabling method? What is it
all about the next time you're ina big fight or you no, let
me take a step back. Thenext time you have this sense that this
(19:15):
is going to be a doozy it'sgetting out of hand. I'm going to
give you the words on what tosay. But before you out of the
words, you're going to take astep back. You're going to breathe.
Well, yeah, let's lean in. Breathe. You know something that we
(19:36):
do voluntarily, But in the middleof a fight, our breathing is all
out of whack. And I'm nota hookey pooky therapist where I say,
here, breathe, do this andeverything will be better. Absolutely not.
But when we are in control ofour breathing, our body and mind are
impacted. Think of it when Iget nervous and I'm in a fight.
Sometimes even doing this radiosh on mybreathing. What don't I start talking loud
because I'm out out of whack.Stop, take a deep breath, step
(20:00):
back, and we're going Because whenyou control our breathing, what I meant
to say is our physiology calms down, our body and our mind calm down.
And that is exactly what we needto do when the situation is escalating.
Step back, take a deep breath, press the pause. But press
(20:22):
the pause. But what does thatmean? I'm going to continue this conversation
after we take a little break.We'll be back with Unbleep Your Life and
Relationships. Anita Ashley has more adviceon how to unbleep your Life and relationships
on news Talk eleven thirty wys Welcomeback to Unbleep your Life and Relationships.
(20:45):
I'm your host, Anita Asley.We were just talking about pausing. Okay,
what is it when we pause?And most of us don't do this
in the middle of a fight,in a big escalation. I've been there
myself, so I can understand.But what we need to do is we
need to press the pause button.After we've taken a breath. In this
(21:06):
space, the pause space, wecan choose our reaction. We can be
proactive rather than reactive. Now,generally something happens, there's an event that
takes place, and there's our reactionon the other side. But in the
middle, is this beautiful button causea pause button that more of us need
to be able to press. Iknow it's difficult because we're so emotional,
(21:30):
especially in that heated moment. Sopress the pause button, step back,
and then you're going to say thesewords to your partner. And remember you've
agreed to do this, so theyknow that when they hear this phrase that
they're going to stop whatever is goingon. They have a role in this
to de escalate. Also, you'regoing to say, let's table this.
(21:52):
As Anita said, let's table this, because sometimes people will say to me,
well, I don't know what tosay, I don't know what to
do. Give me a phrase.So that's the phrase, let's table this.
Now, as soon as your partnerhears those words, they're also going
to do the same thing. Breathe, take a step back. Pause.
Now, after both of you havegone to your corners, you've cooled off,
(22:15):
You're going to come back. Thisis a very important part of this
tabling method. You're going to comeback and you're going to say, within
twenty four hours, we are goingto come back to this and we are
going to talk about it. Thetwenty four hour rule to me is vital
and really important. And people willsay, well, I can't do it
within twenty four hours. I gotthis going on, I got that going
on. Prioritize, make it apriority. If you have to push it,
(22:38):
push it to forty eight, butno more than twenty four hours,
because in my experience, twenty fourhours is enough time for the very emotional
person to become more rational, andthe rational person to empathize a little bit
more with the other person's emotions,and it is still fresh in both your
minds and your hearts, and you'renot just going to shove it away and
(22:59):
stead o twenty four hours. Thingskind of look no, no, no,
twenty four hour hour rule. Andthen within that framework, you're going
to decide where that conversation is goingto happen and at what time. This
also serves as a security blanket fora person like myself who wants to resolve
things right away, and i'd probablyand I probably have been in the dynamic
(23:21):
where I will chase my partner.I used to it. I don't do
it anymore. I don't chase anybody. I need to resolve this. Talk
to me. Why are you nottalking to me? Knowing that there's a
time and a place within twenty fourhours where I can bring these emotions to
will lessen the anxiety that I havethat this is never going to be resolved.
My husband never wants to talk aboutthese things, and we are just
(23:42):
going to pretend. No. Thetwenty four hour rule is vital. Having
a space and having a time totalk about it is vital. The other
part, very important, is you'renot going to exceed one hour because people
will say, okay, we wentto the table, and oh my god,
on and on and on. AfterI was done, nothing constructive,
(24:03):
constructive was taking place. One houryou're done. If you have to come
back to it, come back toit again, but one hour you're done.
I guarantee you if you follow thismethod the way that I've described it
and the way that it is describedalso in my book Unbleep Your Life in
Relationships, available on Amazon and Simonin Shusto in more detail. You will
(24:25):
have less escalations, you will learnto talk to your partner and deal with
these situations in a much more healthymanner. And of course the next question
will be, well, once Iget to the table, what do I
do? Because now I have toactually look at my partner. Now I
have to talk. Yes, youdo. You can actively listen to your
partner. You're gonna effectively communicate toyour partner, and you're not going to
(24:48):
leave the table until you feel you'vecome to a middle ground, not until
you feel you've won something. BecauseI'll tell you something, If you walk
away from that table feeling like you'vewon something, it's a long term and
loss for you, because that meansyour partner is probably feeling that they've lost
something. We don't want that.Do you really want to be living in
a house with somebody who feels likethey've lost something to you and you're walking
(25:10):
around feeling like you've wont something.It's a long term loss. We want
to leave the table like we've cometo a middle ground. Sometimes that's actually
I'm going to agree to disagree.But we've talked about it, We've talked,
I've listened to you. You've sharednow some of the things I've just
talked about. I did a podcaston this last week, a couple of
weeks ago. It's also in mybook in terms of active listening what that
(25:33):
is, effective, speaking what thatis, and doing those things when you're
at the table. I'm not goingto repeat them all today, but when
you practice those things at the tablewith your partner and walk away leaving like,
Okay, this has been really healthyfor our relationship, that box is
gone, it's off your table.And then when the other one comes on
there, there is for sure goingto be another one. You're going to
(25:56):
do the exactly the same thing,and guess what, over time, you're
not going to have these massive,big fights because you are going to learn
over time to deal with conflict asit comes into your life in a healthy
manner. That is the goal.So when people will say I neither,
that's so mechanical. Yes, itis mechanical, but eventually it becomes natural.
(26:17):
Just like when I first became atherapist, a lot of the things
I was learning, I was like, oh my god, this is so
technical, this is so mechanical,but it's such a human process. It
actually was until I was able tofly with it until I owned it.
I internalize all this stuff, andyou guys will do that too when you
followed these steps, When you usethis method the way that it's intended,
you will eventually have a healthy relationshipand learn how to fight in a healthy
(26:41):
manner. So you were so you'resaying, oh, we got to table
this, and we're going to talkabout this at a certain time, and
you give yourself an hour basically,well twenty four hours is important. You're
going to talk about it for anhour. You're going to use some of
the skills I've talked about in thebook in prior podcasts. The other thing
that I'm just reminded of what you'renot gonna do. You're not going to
bring up what you what you've puton the table, what you're going to
(27:03):
talk about later during that time,because people do that too. I told
my husband we're going to talk aboutit. We agreed Wednesday at five o'clock,
but all during the day yesterday hewas like, you know, talking
about it intermittently. No, that'sa no. Because we have a time
and a place we've agreed that's whenwe're going to talk about it. It's
on the table. It's not gonnaYou're not gonna throw little jabs at me,
(27:26):
Diggs. No, if you needto do that, get a journal,
write that stuff down. We cantalk about it at the table,
but we have an agreement. Abideby that agreement. Table it. Put
it on your emotional bookshelf. Thesethings are really important. Okay, guys,
So moving on. You know,today we have a first time caller.
(27:49):
She is going to be discussing someof her issues with her. And
again I tell you, guys,this is not therapy. This is me
sharing my expert advice, expert opinions, and also just my own life experiences.
So please send me your comments,your questions on my Instagram. It's
ask Ania Aslei. That's the socialmedia platform I'm most active on. And
(28:11):
if you want to send me anemail, my website is also up askwww
dot ask anita Asley dot com andif you're looking to come in to get
some help, you can also sendme an email on that via my website.
Also, I am working with newpatients and as usual, I love
to do media stuff, but Ialso still love helping people in my office.
(28:33):
Anyway, let's get to our callertoday and let's see how I can
help her unbleep her life and relationships. Grad you got this and that's coming
up on News Talk eleven thirty.Wiset back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships
on News Talk eleven thirty WYSA.Welcome back to Unbleep your Life and Relationships.
(28:56):
I'm your host, Anita Ashley.Today we have been talking about conflict
fighting and how to de escalate anescalating situation. I just shared my tabling
method with you. If you aregoing to implement this or remember what I
said, you got to talk toyour partner first. They've got to be
on board and follow it step bystep. It does work. I helped
(29:18):
people de escalating their escalating situation foryears. Now we are going to get
to our first time caller. Wehave a first time caller in our show
who has some questions and hopefully Ican help you unbleep some of the stuff
you're struggling with. Welcome to ourshow, first time caller, Thank you,
Anita. I'm your Jenna Barbara,California. Thank you so much for
having me. You're welcome. It'sso exciting to have you on board.
(29:41):
So what's going on in your lifethat I can help you. Unbleep.
Remember it's not therapy, just mesharing some of my expert opinions with you.
Sure, I'm in a relationship andI'm just very afraid of conflicts.
So how do I even get startedwhen addressing that conflict. Well, I'm
going to ask you the number onething, what are you afraid of?
I am afraid of losing this person, of abandonment, I'm afraid of ruffling
(30:07):
feathers. I'm afraid walking on I'mjust walking on eggshells. I'm steel so
afraid. Now is this a romanticrelationship. We're talking about a frantic Yes,
romantic relationship. Okay, Well,I'm going to say to you,
you know, in the fear ofnot confronting them, you are creating all
kinds of issues in not only justin your relationship, but within yourself.
(30:29):
Now, you are afraid of losingthe relationship. But I'll tell you something,
Catherine, in the midst of allof this, you are going to
lose your self. Now, Iwill ask you to think about what it
is that conflict means to you.You don't have to answer this today,
but what I would want you tothink about what does conflict mean to you?
And that what does it trigger insideof you when you get into a
(30:52):
situation that's romantic, like with thisperson, and where does it take you
in your childhood? Now, weall learn to have a relationship with conflict
from our parents, our family oforigin. Again I've said this is not
to blame our parents, but it'skind of looking back to say, Okay,
when I had an issue growing up, how did they deal with it?
(31:12):
And then have I been dealing withit in that manner in our in
my relationships? Have you been doingthat? And does that make any sense
to you? Makes a lot ofsense. I know that all these defective
characters them from my childhood and Iwould like to get rid of them.
But when I go into conflict,when I think about conflicts, I go
straight into fear, Straight straight intofear. Okay, but think about what
(31:33):
it does to you. What doesfear do to us? Now? Most
of us, It keeps us stuckrepressed, It allows other people to speak
for us. It doesn't allow ourtrue voice to come out, and then
you end up feeling depressed and anxious, and mostly you end up feeling unhappy
in this relationship. Tell me,How could you feel fulfilled in this relationship
when you're not able to be yourself? Because if you're not able to address
(31:56):
conflict, how can be How canyou be? You? Aren't you just
being of version of yourself and justsaying to the person what they think and
what they like so you don't havea conflict, because that's the only way
to avoid conflict is to not reallybe yourself. I lose the sense of
myself when when when this happens?And when I lose I lose my voice
before before I even challenge myself tobring it up. What does that mean?
(32:20):
You lose your voice? It's likeI just get stuck. Let let
the romantic partner take over. Ican't even I almost still be dilicated.
You feel paralyzed, right, Andwhere does the think back to? When
did you feel like that in yourchildhood? Growing up? Did you feel
paralyzed? I bet you did.Yes. I was definitely very much a
(32:40):
people pleaser. All I wanted wasmy parents to be happy. I felt
like if I was happy and Ijust made my feelings and they would be
okay. And you know, theseare very complicated issues and I don't mean
to simplify them by you know,I don't have a ten step thing to
help you today, but what Iwill say to you congratulations that you know
that you need to not do thisin your relationships. You know that you
(33:02):
need to confront conflict in order toget to the other side. But mostly
you need to find your voice inthis relationship. And the way to do
that again, how do I dothis? Anita? You need to stake
a step back and ask yourself wheredid I learn to do this? And
I said this before, probably inyour family of origin? And how can
I continue to do this as anadult? Because yeah, as a little
(33:24):
girl you didn't have a choice,but as an adult you have the power
to find your voice. Now.I know it's not as easy as that.
And again we have to step back. We have to reflect with intention
and purpose, and right now todayyour purpose and your intention for reflection is
(33:44):
to figure out Okay, wait aminute, what happened that even at this
age you seem like what you arein your forties? How old are you
about would you say that I shouldtalk to my inner child. You need
to reflect back on your child interms of where did you learn to first
do this? Because all of thatstuff belongs in your childhood. It doesn't
(34:05):
belong in the adult relationships that you'rein today. But this is the only
way you know how to do it. So you're doing what you know,
but you know it's not working foryou because you end up feeling like you
cannot use your voice. And allof us we want to use our voice
because our voice represents who we are, but it sounds like your voice is
underneath all the layers and layers andlayers of other people's voices. Right,
(34:30):
do you recommend like a time thatI should approach the conflict? Try I
s fit the person down? ShouldI write it down first? Like?
Should I practice with the dialogue?Or how do you? Because you know
sometimes I fester, fester, fester, and it all get just stirs up
in me and I tend to lashout. Yeah, and that's exactly what
we were talking about. Festering,festering, festering. Your emotional table is
overloaded, and it's in your fearthat it's going to collapse and it's going
(34:52):
to be out of control again.I would say, you need to have
this, You need to take ajournal, write this stuff down for yourself
first pair for this conversation with theother person, and you need to use
eye language, share with her howyou feel, not necessarily what she's doing
to you to make you feel thisway. Talk about yourself, talk about
(35:12):
what it's doing to you, anddon't be afraid to talk about the fear
itself. Like I would say tomy friend, listen, I really value
this relationship and I want to bein this friendship with you, but not
at the cost of losing myself.And for me to even get to this
point of wanting to share with you, I was scared. That is going
to invite a very different reaction thanif you sat down and said, O,
listen, you make me feel thisway, you dismiss me, you
(35:35):
don't listen to me, you makeme feel scared. Right, Yeah,
I currently have a friendship that I'mkind of working on because she's all about
herself and I haven't been able toaddress it because she's going through so much,
so I don't want to add onemore layer to her, to her,
I would guess I'll call it illness. Sickness. It's not really physical,
but it's emotional, just a lotof things going on. I can
just I just feel myself just boilingup because I can't listen anymore. So
(36:00):
I'm afraid I'm going to say youdon't make decisions, you don't do this,
and so instead I want to reframeit like you're making me feel used
in the views that's not even agood word, but I'm afraid that's the
way I'm going to come out.Yeah, and I would go one step
further, and I would I encourageyou to take that you out, you
know, when you're talking about howyou're feeling and what you're thinking. Again,
use I that is not accusatory andinvites engagement rather than invite a defensive
(36:25):
reaction. Anytime we're going to sayyou didn't do this, and you do
this and blah blah blah, theother person is going to shut down and
they're not going to not going toengage in a conversation. And when you
tell me that she's going through allthis stuff, but then you're feeling this,
you're again you're putting her at herstuff is more important than yours.
You're allowed to have needs and expectationsin a relationship, in a friendship,
(36:46):
you're allowed to and you're allowed tosay, hey, yeah, I know
you got all this stuff going on, but do you have time? I
want to talk to you about somethingthat's really important to me. We have
to ask ourselves how important is thisrelationship in our life? And if it's
really important to us, they shouldalso be there for us. And I
know that sometimes one person has morestuff going on and than the other,
(37:07):
but it sounds like you're feeling like, wait a minute, there's no room
in this relationship for my emotional stuff. Is that correct? Yeah, it
doesn't feel like it's reciprocated, andall relationships need reciprocity. So I would
say to you again, you justquestioning that. To me, it's like,
again, you're not prioritizing your needsand your wants, and you're allowing
this person not to create help letyou have that space, but create the
(37:30):
space, command the space, demandthat space. You are worthy in a
friendship to ask for that. That'swhat friendship is about. It's not supposed
to be one way it's supposed tobe two way street. And if it's
not a two way street, thenyou got to ask yourself what am I
getting from this friendship? Is thisreally a friendship? Or am I just
kind of pseudotherapist? Right? Ilike the way that you're inviting me to
(37:52):
feel my feelings. That's always allvery helpful to me. I did have
a romantic relationship and I kept feelingthis smiss you know. I was like,
I'm going through movies, I'm doingthis, and there was no check
in like what are you going todo? You know, how does that
make you feel? And finally,after a month went by, I remember
this incident and finally I just said, are you upset with me? And
I said, well, I feelI feel very dismissed, and he said,
(38:14):
I apologize. It's really hard towringle a bunch of people on Christmas
Day and it just was. Itwas fine. I was like, oh
wow, I just was able toexpress myself and I didn't get hurt.
Well, I'm glad that you expressedyourself. And yeah, when somebody is
just making unilateral decisions in a relationshipor romantic, well, any kind of
relationship, that's said not a healthyrelationship because that is all about them.
(38:37):
If I'm in a relationship with yourfriendship or romantic, I'd want to know
what you want to do. Hey, Saturday, y, what do you
want to do? Do you wantto see this movie? And even if
it's seeing the movie. Do youwant to see this particular movie or are
you open to something else? That'scalled the conversation. I'm not just leading
into whatever it is that I wantto do. But also you ask yourself
what your role in this? Right? If you're allowing this person to do
(38:59):
this to you, then what's goingon with you that you're not valuing yourself
enough? Because you just talked aboutyour voice. It's getting in touch with
your internal voice and empowering yourself touse it. And you have needs and
expectations and you're allowed to express themand you're allowed to want them to be
fulfilled in a friendship and in aromantic relationship, also in familiar relationship.
(39:22):
Somewhere along the line, it soundslike you took on that role very easily.
But now it's time to unbleep it, own your voice, own your
power. I know it's easier saidthan done, but we have to start
somewhere, and you're already there becauseyou know all the stuff that's happening to
you. Your body and mind issaying this is not cool, stop it,
do something about it. Absolutely yes, I can. You know,
(39:44):
they say, trust your gut andThat's where it stems from just not making
the action when I'm feeling something,not going with my feelings, and that's
what gets me the trouble. Yes, and I'm glad to hear that you
are now owning your feelings. Thenext step is to do something with them,
some action. I want to thankyou for calling in. That's all
the time that we have for today. And again, own your voice,
(40:06):
and I know it's a difficult process. The first step is to become aware
of the fact that you're not owningyour voice. But once you're able to
do that with some intentional, purposefulself awareness, you will get there.
Anyway, Thank you for calling inand good luck and keep you know,
call us back and let us knowwhat's going on with that friendship because that
is totally not cool and friendships needreciprocity to be healthy. Thank you all
(40:30):
right, take care, Thank you, Thank you everyone for joining us tonight.
It's been an interesting evening and Ilove that people are calling in or
we're going to have more callers comingup. I hope that today you're going
to have an emotional bookshelf and you'regoing to be looking at your emotional table
in a healthy manner. We wantto put the things on there with intention,
(40:52):
with consciousness to unbleep them anyway.Guys, when I'm not in studio,
you can find me on Instagram askAnita Asley. It is the platform
that I'm most active on. Andif you're interested in learning more about this
stuff, you can buy my bookon Amazon and Simon and Schuster Unbleep your
Life and Relationships and you gotta onestep further and listen to a much more
(41:13):
unfiltered podcast. It's Unbleep your Lifeand Relationships on Apple, Spotify and so
forth, or just google me.I'm there, but don't forget this week
to press the pause button
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com