September 7, 2025 • 30 mins
This isn’t just theory, it’s practical coaching you can apply in your next hard conversation.
Are you stuck in the same arguments with your partner? This episode of Honey, We Need to Chat reveals how one underrated skill, curiosity, can help you stop fighting and start connecting.
Amy walks through a real-life Reddit story about household chores and shows how judgment and defensiveness shut communication down, while curiosity opens the door to repair, empathy, and lasting connection.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why curiosity is the key to stop fighting with your partner
How your brain and body react differently when you’re reactive vs. curious
Practical sentence swaps to turn arguments into conversations
Tools for self-awareness so you can notice triggers before they escalate
If you want fewer fights and deeper connection, this episode will show you how to change the way you communicate for good.
👉 Free resources + coaching tools: honeyweneedtochat.com
how to stop fighting with your partner, relationship communication, marriage advice, conflict resolution, couples communication tools, self-awareness in relationships.
how to stop fighting with your partner, relationship communication, marriage conflict resolution, couples advice podcast, how to argue better with your spouse, relationship tools, emotional regulation in relationships, self awareness in marriage, curiosity in relationships, marriage advice, conflict resolution podcast, couples communication tools, Honey We Need to Chat
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You know those aha moments when you suddenly have an insight
into yourself that you didn't have before and you're left
wondering how did I get so far into my life and not realise
this one aspect of how I work? Well, I'm hoping that today's
episode will be one of those moments for all of us as we
spend some time reflecting on our own approaches in our
relationship. We need to chat.
(00:33):
Welcome back to Honey We Need toChat, the podcast all about
communication in relationships. We believe that when
communication dies, bad things happen.
And as you can tell, it is just me here today.
If you've been following along on our social media, you may
have seen Blair on his little journey.
He's had quite an adventure up to Queensland and he has left me
here alone. But we had an incredible
opportunity this week to be nominated for the CM AA Awards
(00:58):
as emerging talent and I am extremely excited to tell you
guys that we won in our category, so that is huge.
Blair had the opportunity to actually go up to Queensland and
be a part of that event. It's been a conference over the
last few days and he is on his way home now.
But because of that, we did not have an opportunity to record
together, hence me being here alone.
(01:20):
Now here's a few things. We have spoken about my coaching
content many, many times on the podcast.
I have done some coaching sessions and I've run us through
some of those resources also on our website at Honey we need to
chat.com. There are a number of coaching
relationship related resources available.
But if you've been around a while, you'll also know that
we've been mentioning some coaching specific content that
(01:41):
should be coming out very soon on the channels.
So we thought instead of rushingto try and get an episode
recorded together when he's home, we would take this
opportunity for me to run you guys through some coaching, some
more, more intentional reflection that you can do on
your own to start to work on your relationship and work on
yourself. We have just completed a
relationship Reset miniseries, and I thought this was a great
(02:03):
opportunity to kind of tie some of these things together and
bring some practical reflection through.
So we're going to be doing things a little bit differently
today. Today I want to take you on a
little bit of a journey as we step through a case study story
and work on how curiosity actually impacts relationships.
We're going to explore what goeson for you with curiosity.
We're going to put in some practical steps in terms of
(02:23):
helping you implement a curious attitude to your relationship.
Curiosity is one of the most underrated approaches you can
have in your relationship and one of the biggest game changers
when it comes to strengthening communication and tackling
conflict. It changes everything.
Curiosity softens the the way you see your partner.
It softens your approach to difficulties, to challenges.
It softens the way you see yourself, the way you approach
(02:46):
yourself. And without it, we slip into
judgement, we slip into assumptions, we slip into
damaging patterns like the Four Horsemen.
We've spoken about that on the podcast a lot.
That can really lead us down a difficult track to come back
from in our relationships. With curiosity, we open up.
Without it, we close and that's really the core of it.
So today we're going to explore curiosity more.
(03:08):
I want to give you more than just a theory.
I want to give you a practical example of this, and I want to
give you questions and things tochallenge yourself on to really
reflect on how curiosity plays out for yourself.
And I want you to notice while we're doing this episode, I
really want you to notice. That's the word I've got for
today is notice. Notice where these things sit in
your body. Notice how your body reacts to
some of the stuff we're going totalk about.
(03:28):
Notice what your default is, notice what's going on for
yourself, and notice what patterns you guys might be in in
your relationship as we tackle some of these examples.
So we're going to start with an example.
On this podcast, we sometimes read through Reddit stories, so
I found a Reddit story today to get us all on the same page.
I know all of us would have a number of examples we could
think about where curiosity has struggled within our own
(03:50):
relationships, but today I thought I'd start us out by
putting an example story out there that we can focus on for
this episode. Did you know that Honey We Need
a Chat is so much more than weekly podcast episodes?
Follow along our website for free resources you can apply to
your life today, to your relationship today.
Things to help you get unstuck and implement new creative ways
(04:12):
of working on a relationship. We have free resources available
to anybody who signs up on our website.
We also come out with weekly vlogs.
So if you're interested in more behind the scenes footage of
Honey, We Need a chat. Please make sure to check out
our weekly vlogs over on YouTubebecause we are really enjoying
giving a bit of a a behind the scenes glimpse into the real
life behind Honey. We need to chat.
Also, super excitingly, very soon we'll be having more
(04:34):
coaching content available on YouTube to help you process and
work through your own individualdevelopment.
If this is something you're interested to follow along, make
sure you subscribe, click the notification bell so that you
get updates every time we release content and follow along
for more impact and depth. We are not interested in
becoming just more noise out in the world.
We are passionate about providing practical real life
(04:56):
tools that you can implement into your life life and into
your relationship today. So please make sure you're
following along on our other platforms over on our website
and on YouTube for this extra content and extra depth.
Thanks so much guys. So bear with me as I read
through this story. My boyfriend and I have been
living together for a few monthsnow and cleaning has become a
(05:17):
huge issue. I do pretty much everything
around the apartment. He'll sometimes do the dishes,
he takes out the trash, and every now and then he sweeps,
usually only if I ask him to. To him, that's enough.
When I bought it up once, it turned into a fight because he
felt like he had already done plenty.
I tried to explain that yes, he does do those things sometimes,
(05:37):
but there's still laundry, bathrooms, mopping, wiping down
appliances, dusting, all of the things that actually keep the
place clean. He got defensive so I've avoided
bringing it up again. This morning while I was
working, he texted me asking if I could clean something even
though he was home with hours before work.
That pushed me over the edge. I stayed calm and asked if he
(05:59):
could at least do the thing I'd planned on cleaning during my
break since he wanted me to do something else.
When I checked on my break, it wasn't done.
The truth is, he often gets irrational or angry about small
things and sometimes takes it out on me with attitude or
meanness. So I've started avoiding
confrontation altogether. I know this isn't healthy, but I
don't know how to ask for help without it turning into another
(06:21):
fight. So before we go on, I want you
to just pause. You've heard this story.
I've just read it out to you. It's a classic story.
We've had many of these on the podcast before.
I want you to pause and get yourimmediate gut reaction to
hearing this story. What are the words, the first
words that pop into your mind? What's the verbal reaction you
would have if this was you in this situation?
(06:42):
If this was your partner, what would you say?
How would you say it? How would your body feel?
What kind of physical response would you have while you're
having this conversation? And like I said before, I just
want you to notice. I want you to notice what's
happening in your body as you put yourself in this, in the
shoes of this person writing thestory in, most of us are
probably in the same boat. We probably jumped to
(07:03):
frustration, annoyance, irritation, blame, and that's
OK. That's important for us to
notice. That's why I've read this story
out. I want us to have our first gut
instinct. And when I say gut instinct, I
want you to actually think the exact words or even say them out
loud if you're alone, that you would say if you were this
person writing this Reddit storyand your partner had done this
situation to you. Once you've got them, hold them
(07:25):
because we're going to come backto that.
So that's where I want us to start today in a very human,
very reactive headspace. So we're going to talk about
curiosity. Why is curiosity important?
If you've listened to any of ourepisodes, you would have heard
us say that word 500 million times.
It's a really common thing that we navigate here on the podcast
because curiosity is such a key to navigating difficulties
(07:48):
within relationships and helpingcommunication strengthen.
So why is it important though? There's not, It's not just
because it's nice or it's like aband aid answer.
There's actually a reason why a curious approach is so important
in relationships. Curiosity, the definition of it
is a genuine desire to know or learn something.
And so in your relationship context, that looks like
(08:10):
openness, humility, a willingness to discover more
about yourself and your partner,flexibility, softness,
listening. So This is why it matters when
we get triggered, when we react,like in that cleaning story, if
you're the person, if you're listening to the story and
you're frustrated by it, we're reacting.
So when we react, our brain tends to flip into survival
(08:33):
mode, threat mode. That's the amygdala, the fight
flight or freeze. We've talked about that a number
of times. And once you're in that fight
flight or freeze, your actual brain function is impacted.
Once you're in that state, defensiveness takes over.
You're defending yourself. If you go down to the the basics
of what that means, you're feeling threatened and now
(08:55):
you're defending yourself. We might go into blame sarcasm.
We shut down those 4 horsemen play out.
That's what happens when we are closed, when we feel threatened,
when we take something on as a threat.
That's what happens to our brains and that impacts our
physical body. That impacts how we navigate the
world around us. The flip side of that is if
(09:16):
we're curious, if we say open, it does something really
different. If we choose curiosity, we
actually keep the prefrontal cortex alive, awake,
functioning. This is the reflective problem
solving part of our brain. So this is the part that thinks
big picture, reflective. It is curious in its own way,
reflecting on what's going on, bigger picture problem solving,
(09:37):
helping us see through things, think with a more open mind.
So when we can stay curious and soft, we keep this part of our
brain functioning. So that's that's it at its core.
If we are shut down, reactive triggered, the part of our brain
that recognises threats comes tolife and it shuts down the
prefrontal cortex, our big picture problem solving the
other way around works as well. If we can keep ourselves open,
(10:00):
flexible, in a state that is calm to think and process, we
can keep this problem solving part of our brain functioning
and we don't resort to the fight, flight or freeze.
We do not react as if we are under threat.
So that's just what happens physically.
That's why it's important. That's why we talk about this
all the time because having thatpart of your brain functioning
is important for you to understand yourself and
(10:21):
understand what's going on in your relationship.
Doesn't mean things just become easy.
Doesn't mean that the problem itself resolves, but it does
mean that we are more equipped to navigate those things in a
constructive way that's going tobring us closer together.
This goes for everything. This is not just our
relationships. And obviously on this podcast,
we focus on relationships, but you can apply this across the
board. It's also not just the brain.
(10:41):
The brain effects our body. The brain effects how we
navigate the world around us. And so if we're in that state,
it actually physically effects how we're going to navigate
these things that are thrown ourway.
You might find yourself in thesemoments where you're tense,
feeling a certain kind of way, atightness in your chest, a
clenched jaw, heat rising, something in your gut.
And it's important, like I said before, for us to notice this,
(11:01):
for us to recognise these. Because once we have a clear
understanding of what goes on for us physically when this
happens, it is another trigger to help us recognise, oh, hang
on, I'm going into this state ofthreat.
I'm going into this, this reactive defensive mode and I, I
can feel it coming or I can feelmy, my jaw clenching, my, my
fist clenching, whatever it is that for you is your reaction
(11:22):
physically, that's a good trigger for us to recognise.
Oh, hang on, I'm sliding, I'm sliding down this path again.
Let's remember, let's try and bring ourselves out of that.
So notice what happens for you. Flip side is the same.
If you think about what's happening when you're triggered,
the flip side when you're not triggered, when you're open and
calm even in the face of a difficulty, is your body
(11:42):
softens, your jaw probably unclenches, your breathing
slows, you might lean in more. Curiosity can shift us from
tension to openness and can set us up for success in navigating
difficulties. Relationships will have
challenges. They will because you're two
people. You're 2 completely different
people. Even when you're super similar
personalities, you are two different people navigating the
(12:05):
world around you. And it's not even just you 2.
It's all the circumstances that come into play.
So you will have challenges and that's important and it's
necessary. It's an important and an OK part
of relationships. There's nothing wrong with that.
But if you can set yourself up with the softness, set yourself
up to succeed in the face of those challenges, that's how
you're going to see longevity. That's how you're going to have
(12:26):
constructive patterns playing out in your relationship.
Hence practising the curiosity. So curiosity is a skill we can
practise, we can hone. You may not be a naturally
curious person, you can become one and we've seen that play out
in our relationship. I am a very curious person.
I don't know if it's a natural thing or something I've just
learned from my upbringing. I am a very curious person in a
(12:48):
lot of different ways and when we got together, Blair and I
were not at the same level of curiosity.
I had other things that I reallystruggled with that he was a lot
more advanced in, but his curiosity level was something
that he had to start to implement more and more.
His self awareness and his willingness to learn were the
game changers there. The fact that he's been able to
challenge himself to do that andhe's recognising importance is
(13:09):
what's meant meant that he's developed that skill now and he
is so much more curious now justnaturally than he was 11 years
ago when we got together. So it's a skill you can learn.
You may not have it naturally. It's something you can learn.
It's not just something you can learn, it's something that you
should learn and that's why we're doing this today.
You are selfish, you only think about yourself and that is why
(13:29):
your relationship is struggling.When I said that just now, how
did you feel? What did you feel in your body?
Did your chest get tight? Did your shoulders come up?
Did you feel A rush of confusionand frustration?
Heat rising? Do you think that's not fair?
No, I'm not defensiveness. Did you want to turn the episode
off? I mean, I said that on purpose.
(13:50):
Hopefully that's clear. I said that on purpose because I
want you to notice when I come out the gate and I say something
provocative like that. Where are you feeling that?
What does that make you feel in your body?
You're selfish. You only think about yourself,
and that is why your relationship is struggling.
Where do you feel that? I want you to notice what
happens inside you when words come at you without curiosity.
(14:10):
They're sharp, they're heavy, they're threatening.
Your brain reacts and then your body reacts, and I want you to
notice that. Then we're going to take the
same idea and reframe it with curiosity.
I wonder if sometimes you get sofocused on protecting yourself
that you can't even really hear what your partner's trying to
say. Same thought, different.
Reframe. This one has curiosity.
(14:32):
I wonder if sometimes you're so focused on protecting yourself
that you can't even really hear what your partner is trying to
say. See the difference?
The difference? When words come at you with
curiosity or without it, your body softens.
You're able to hear the challenge that sits behind it,
not just the words that are said.
You're able to reflect more. It feels more like an
(14:53):
invitation, a conversation, thanan attack.
It's the same core thought, the same core challenge or statement
at a completely different impact.
And that is the power of curiosity.
And this is what's really interesting about this is it's
not just my words that changed, it's also your body reacting
differently. The first time your body took my
(15:15):
words at face value in a closed way, not with curiosity.
It braced, it defended. But imagine if you were
practised at curiosity. What would have happened to that
blunt judge mental comment? Maybe you would have paused,
been a bit confused, and thoughtAmy doesn't normally talk like
this. I wonder why she said that, and
I'm curious how many of you did find that.
(15:36):
Why did she say that? That is the power of curiosity.
It changes how we speak, but it also changes how we receive.
There are two roles that we playin relationships, the giving of
and the receiving of curiosity. There's two responsibilities
that sit with us, the way we give curiosity and the way we
receive with curiosity. And I, I want to focus on both
(15:57):
of those because it's one thing to navigate this topic when
you're working on only having curious statements, only having
curious attitudes and approachesto the things that are said.
It's a whole other thing when you're facing situations without
someone giving you that benefit of gentle curiosity.
You are still responsible in that circumstance to work on the
(16:17):
curiosity you've got going on inside yourself.
So let's come back to that Reddit story that we talked
about earlier, the one about theboyfriend who hardly does any of
the chores around the house, whogets angry when it's brought up,
and even texted his girlfriend when he wasn't working asking
her to do more cleaning. Let's come back to that story.
When we first heard it, we probably all mostly landed in
(16:37):
the same place with that story, which is this guy's super lazy.
He's super immature. Our gut response was probably
frustration, thinking about the words we would say.
But I want to step into his perspective for just a second
and work on this curiosity piece.
What might be happening under the surface for him?
Could it be that he grew up in ahousehold where chores were
always someone else's responsibility and so he
(16:59):
genuinely does not even see the gaps?
Could it be that his anger isn'tactually about the cleaning,
it's about feeling criticised and something in the way that
she's communicating or the way he's receiving it is making him
feel criticised and undervalued?Could it be that he's under
stress, overwhelmed or burnt outand he hasn't learned how to
communicate those things and irritation is his only language
(17:19):
now? None of these things excuse his
behaviour or his responses, and that's really important.
None of these things excuse it, and as we're navigating the
world around us and we're navigating our relationships,
the curiosity piece doesn't excuse someone for being
responsible for their own behaviour.
But what it does do is keep us soft to exploring what might be
happening behind that behaviour,and it gives us possibilities to
(17:41):
explore. It gives us a way forward.
It gives us hope in circumstances that don't feel
like they have much hope. If you think back to your first
gut reaction when we read through that story the first
time, the words that you would have said, the physical response
you would have had, think back to that and try and remember it.
If you were to just shift that now and respond again, but
differently this time with curiosity, how might it sound
(18:01):
different? What would be different this
time? Maybe instead of you're lazy,
you never help, or you're super immature.
Maybe it might have been like I'm feeling overwhelmed and I
need to know if you see this as a shared responsibility or when
you don't follow through. I feel unappreciated or even
just a simple when I ask you to do something like this, what
(18:21):
happens for you? What's going on?
I can see you're struggling withmy request.
What's happening for you in thatgentle, not passive aggressive
comments to explore what is happening for him?
Why is he so defensive when I'm asking him to help or even
exploring what's going on for you mentally?
What's feeling heavy right now? What's feeling heavy for you
right now? What's on your mind and seeing
(18:41):
if you can explore what's going on for him.
Potentially there's a reason that he's not doing more around
the house. Again, doesn't excuse that.
Potentially there's a reason he's so defensive when you've
asked him to do things. Again, doesn't excuse that.
But once we can start to explorethose things, there's a way
forward to strengthen the relationship.
Notice how those reframes can shift the conversation and can
(19:02):
open up a future. That's one.
One way of thinking of it too isthis curiosity opens up a future
judgement reactivity. It shuts down that future.
It doesn't have the forward thinking, the big picture
thinking. Curiosity opens that up.
If you're in a workplace and you're trying to navigate a
really difficult problem, you don't sit there and just think
about the problem in a group setting.
You don't have a meeting plan itand then just everybody like
(19:24):
whinges about the problem and you can't see pastor.
You're like talking about how bad this problem is, getting
frustrated and overwhelmed. That's not how we navigate those
things. What we do is we sit down and do
green lighting sessions. We bring someone in with a
different perspective, and that's the same thing here.
You have a problem, your reaction is to just ruminate on
the fact that this problem is there.
You're not going to see the future.
(19:46):
You have a problem. You sit down with a green
lighting session, you sit down with a different perspective.
All of a sudden you see ways forward.
And the same thing goes for him in return.
It's not just the woman that's writing in this story.
If he had been approaching her request with curiosity rather
than defensiveness, he would have been able to explore what's
going on one for himself there. Why am I so defensive every time
she asked me to clean? Like what's going on for me
(20:07):
there? Two, what's going on for her?
Like, what is she? What's her rate of this
situation that she feels like she has to keep asking me to do
stuff? Are the things I'm trying to
bring to the relationship, the things I'm trying to input into,
are they obvious to her? Am I making them clear my
efforts in the relationship? This kind of curiosity opens up
that conversation for her and for him, both about themselves
(20:27):
and about their partners. So this is exactly what plays
out in our own relationships. The Reddit story is a distant
example. It's not our story right now,
although it might have been relatable to some of us.
It's not our story, and that's why I wanted to do it.
Let's workshop this. But it's a distant example.
But we all have these moments where we struggle with
curiosity. We all have the ability to
(20:48):
strengthen that in our relationships, in our approaches
to our partners, and in our approaches to ourselves.
So just think about it. The difference between close
mindedness and curiosity. Close mindedness might say you
never listen. Curiosity might say what's
feeling heavy for you right now?Closed mindedness might say you
don't care about me at all. Curiosity might say when you
(21:10):
ignore this, it makes me feel really underappreciated.
Closed mindedness might say you're impossible to talk to.
Curiosity might say I notice youshut down when I bring up X.
What makes this feel so hard foryou to talk about?
The problem is still named, The thing is still tackled, but the
tone shifts and the approach shifts. 1 is an attack and the
other one's an invitation. 1 is a statement and the other one is
(21:33):
a conversation. But the other part, and I think
this is the most important part of it, is being curious about
our partner is a skill we can practise, and we do need to
practise it, but it's often easier to learn to be curious
about our partner and harder to learn to be curious about
ourselves. And I'll put this out there,
it's easier to excuse ourselves than it is to excuse our
(21:53):
partner. We talked about that the other
week, that we often excuse ourselves on our intentions and
we judge our partner off their impact.
So it is easier to excuse ourselves.
But I think it's harder to be curious about ourselves, staying
curious about what we are bringing to the table, about why
we are reacting, about how we might be seeing things in an
(22:15):
inaccurate way. Too often we excuse our
behaviour because we've got the context.
I was tired or I was stressed orwe spiral into shame.
We shut down and say I'm the worst, I'm awful.
I'll never change. I'll never get a handle of this.
But we don't sit down and be curious about what's going on
for ourselves. There's a lot of the reasons why
we'll struggle with internal curiosity or or self awareness.
(22:38):
You could put it. Sometimes it's trauma, family
backgrounds, patterns that are deeply, deeply entrenched.
Sometimes it's an overwhelm at the at the thought of how much
work would have to go into becoming aware of the stuff that
we're doing, habits, burnout, exhaustion, mental health
issues. There's a lot of the reasons why
we'll struggle to internally reflect and be curious about
ourselves and our own impacts, but it's an important thing.
(23:02):
So I want us to practise this right now.
I want you to think about what was the last moment you had with
somebody that you love, somebodyin your life that made you feel
really frustrated, really mad, really triggered?
What was happening under the surface for you physically or in
your mind? What happened in that moment?
Think about that example. What do you think, thinking
(23:22):
curiously now, holding loosely and openly to that thing?
What do you think might have been triggered for you in that
moment? What do you think might have
been pricked? What might have happened that
made you react the way you are reacting?
What need or value that you holdmight have been involved?
And if you could replay that moment, what might curiosity
have changed in that circumstance?
(23:44):
Even if it's just how you felt, how might how might that have
changed for you? And this is where the real
growth starts, having that approach of curiosity and
reflection using those examples so that we can learn, not being
frustrated at the examples that we've got.
Those are important for us to learn.
Don't be looking back at all these examples that just popped
into your head and think, look at me, I'm doing this again.
Those are important. We learn from those.
(24:06):
This moment right now is that moment to be curious and reflect
on those things. So if we're going back to that
Reddit story, how could it have ended?
How could it have panned out if we were implementing this
curiosity piece, if both people in that relationship had chosen
curiosity about themselves and about their partner instead of
the girlfriend bottling up her frustration and avoiding the
conversations, curiosity towardsherself might have been more
(24:27):
like, why am I hesitating to bring this up?
Why am I nervous to talk about this with him?
What am I afraid of? And that doesn't mean he's off
the hook sometimes that might highlight some really important,
significant issues you have to navigate.
What's making me nervous to bring this up?
What do I really need in this moment?
Do I need him to do the thing, or is there something else that
I need? And once she has that awareness
(24:48):
of what's going on for her, thatconversation with him could have
been a lot more soft. I'm starting to feel really
overwhelmed in the house and I want to figure out how we can
make this work better in a more sustainable way.
Instead of the boyfriend defaulting to anger and
defensiveness, curiosity towardshimself might have been like,
why am I getting so reactive when she asks me to do the
(25:09):
dishes? What's feeling threatened here?
Am I feeling criticised? Is there something in her tone
or is there something from my past that's connecting to this
and making me feel triggered? Why am I getting so angry and
irritated? Is it fair for me to be angry
and irritated? And with that curiosity, he
might have responded more with Ican hear you, but can you help
(25:29):
me understand what's going on for you in this conversation?
Or I can hear you and I just want to express that I'm not
used to this stuff and I need tolearn it.
I've never seen this played out in my life, and now I need to
learn how to do these things. Imagine the shift in tone.
It's the same problem. That problem hasn't gone away,
but that shift in tone makes it a conversation that brings them
closer together. Even if it's difficult and
(25:51):
uncomfortable, it brings them closer together.
They understand each other and themselves better and moves them
forward versus what's ended up happening here which has drifted
them apart and ended up with herriding into Reddit for advice.
And that's what I want you to hold onto.
Curiosity doesn't magically erase the issues.
Curiosity does not excuse people's behaviour.
But curiosity helps us to keep moving forward and helps us to
(26:14):
keep soft. And even if you're only doing
that for yourself and for your own mental health and your own
self awareness and your own progression, that is worth it.
So here are some practical ways you can continue to implement
self focused curiosity. We are so excited to share that
(26:35):
we won the CM AA Emerging TalentAward for the podcast.
Thank you so much for being hereguys.
You being here and following along has made that possible and
you're the reason that we're doing this.
So thank you so much to you guysfor your consistency over the
last year and thank you so much to CM AA for the honour of being
awarded Emerging Talent. For those of you following along
(26:56):
on YouTube, you can see our beautiful trophy reflecting the
outside here. Thank you so much again.
And Blair had such a blast up there with you guys last week
and we're excited to share more about that experience over on
this coming blog. So make sure you check that out
to see behind the scenes of his journey, behind the scenes of
winning. And thanks again so much for
your support over the last year.So here are some practical ways
(27:16):
you can continue to implement self focused curiosity.
Check your body first. Like I said before, if you feel
these triggers, notice what it is that plays out for you.
When you feel these triggers, ifyou start to feel them, if you
start to feel activated, ask yourself what is happening in my
body right now? Release those things.
So if it's clenched jaw, choose to release those things.
But also why is it happening? Then name the trigger instead of
(27:39):
what's going on. That it's not they made me
angry. It's I feel defensive, I feel
criticised about this thing. My kids don't make me angry, I
am angry because of the circumstances and my lack of
regulation. So changing, naming the trigger
rather than your reaction to it is a really powerful way of
(27:59):
reframing the situation that shifts you from blame, which
then takes you off the hook for having to think about it to self
awareness. Asking yourself, and this is
such an important one, what elsecould be true?
And this is again, not to not toignore the important things
going on or to excuse someone's behaviour, but what else could
be true? If your mind rushes to I'm being
(28:21):
disrespected right now, what else could be true?
Am I being disrespected or are they tired and they're not aware
of their tone? Am I being disrespected or have
have they had to repeat this to me too many times?
Or have I overlooked something that's hurt them?
What else could be true? Helps you expand your
perspective of what's happening and helps you see a way forward.
(28:42):
Again, separate the story from the fact what actually happened
versus what am I telling myself about what happened?
That is a really important way of calming your body down
because you're removing yourselfone step from that emotion and
you have then a clearer way to look forward and progress
forward and reframe yourself. Talk.
I'm, I'm awful, I'm bad at this thing.
(29:04):
I, I never get it right or even the victim side of that is like
they're always at me, they're always at me, they're always
criticising me. It's not my fault, it's not my
fault. Reframing that to I'm feeling
neglected or I'm feeling criticised, this is a value of
mine that's been pricked. So this week I want you to pick
one of these things. We've talked about checking your
body, naming the trigger, askingyourself what else could be
(29:27):
true, separating the story from fact and reframing yourself
talk. I want you to pick one of these
things and I want you to practise that, implement that.
Curiosity is not about excusing behaviour.
It's not about pretending everything's fine when it's not.
But what it is about is giving us a new way to tackle the
challenges that come up in our relationship, a new perspective
and a new way to keep us moving forward rather than keeping us
closed. So thank you for joining me
(29:47):
today for this different type ofhoney.
We need a chat and I hope that this is a nice way to wrap up
this relationship reset miniseries we've done having
time to reflect on what is goingon for yourself.
If this was helpful for you, please share it with somebody
that you think it might be helpful for.
We are all learning all the timeand every time, I say this all
the time, but every time I do anepisode, it's often for me.
(30:08):
So I'm taking things away from this today and I hope you guys
are too. We will chat to you soon.
Can't wait to see you next week.Thanks guys.
You know those aha moments when you suddenly have an insight
into yourself that you didn't have before and you're left
wondering how did I get so far into my life and not realise
this one aspect of how I work? Well, I'm hoping that today's
episode will be one of those moments for all of us as we
spend some time reflecting on our own approaches in our
relationship. We need to chat.
(00:33):
Welcome back to Honey We Need toChat, the podcast all about
communication in relationships. We believe that when
communication dies, bad things happen.
And as you can tell, it is just me here today.
If you've been following along on our social media, you may
have seen Blair on his little journey.
He's had quite an adventure up to Queensland and he has left me
here alone. But we had an incredible
opportunity this week to be nominated for the CM AA Awards
(00:58):
as emerging talent and I am extremely excited to tell you
guys that we won in our category, so that is huge.
Blair had the opportunity to actually go up to Queensland and
be a part of that event. It's been a conference over the
last few days and he is on his way home now.
But because of that, we did not have an opportunity to record
together, hence me being here alone.
(01:20):
Now here's a few things. We have spoken about my coaching
content many, many times on the podcast.
I have done some coaching sessions and I've run us through
some of those resources also on our website at Honey we need to
chat.com. There are a number of coaching
relationship related resources available.
But if you've been around a while, you'll also know that
we've been mentioning some coaching specific content that
(01:41):
should be coming out very soon on the channels.
So we thought instead of rushingto try and get an episode
recorded together when he's home, we would take this
opportunity for me to run you guys through some coaching, some
more, more intentional reflection that you can do on
your own to start to work on your relationship and work on
yourself. We have just completed a
relationship Reset miniseries, and I thought this was a great
(02:03):
opportunity to kind of tie some of these things together and
bring some practical reflection through.
So we're going to be doing things a little bit differently
today. Today I want to take you on a
little bit of a journey as we step through a case study story
and work on how curiosity actually impacts relationships.
We're going to explore what goeson for you with curiosity.
We're going to put in some practical steps in terms of
(02:23):
helping you implement a curious attitude to your relationship.
Curiosity is one of the most underrated approaches you can
have in your relationship and one of the biggest game changers
when it comes to strengthening communication and tackling
conflict. It changes everything.
Curiosity softens the the way you see your partner.
It softens your approach to difficulties, to challenges.
It softens the way you see yourself, the way you approach
(02:46):
yourself. And without it, we slip into
judgement, we slip into assumptions, we slip into
damaging patterns like the Four Horsemen.
We've spoken about that on the podcast a lot.
That can really lead us down a difficult track to come back
from in our relationships. With curiosity, we open up.
Without it, we close and that's really the core of it.
So today we're going to explore curiosity more.
(03:08):
I want to give you more than just a theory.
I want to give you a practical example of this, and I want to
give you questions and things tochallenge yourself on to really
reflect on how curiosity plays out for yourself.
And I want you to notice while we're doing this episode, I
really want you to notice. That's the word I've got for
today is notice. Notice where these things sit in
your body. Notice how your body reacts to
some of the stuff we're going totalk about.
(03:28):
Notice what your default is, notice what's going on for
yourself, and notice what patterns you guys might be in in
your relationship as we tackle some of these examples.
So we're going to start with an example.
On this podcast, we sometimes read through Reddit stories, so
I found a Reddit story today to get us all on the same page.
I know all of us would have a number of examples we could
think about where curiosity has struggled within our own
(03:50):
relationships, but today I thought I'd start us out by
putting an example story out there that we can focus on for
this episode. Did you know that Honey We Need
a Chat is so much more than weekly podcast episodes?
Follow along our website for free resources you can apply to
your life today, to your relationship today.
Things to help you get unstuck and implement new creative ways
(04:12):
of working on a relationship. We have free resources available
to anybody who signs up on our website.
We also come out with weekly vlogs.
So if you're interested in more behind the scenes footage of
Honey, We Need a chat. Please make sure to check out
our weekly vlogs over on YouTubebecause we are really enjoying
giving a bit of a a behind the scenes glimpse into the real
life behind Honey. We need to chat.
Also, super excitingly, very soon we'll be having more
(04:34):
coaching content available on YouTube to help you process and
work through your own individualdevelopment.
If this is something you're interested to follow along, make
sure you subscribe, click the notification bell so that you
get updates every time we release content and follow along
for more impact and depth. We are not interested in
becoming just more noise out in the world.
We are passionate about providing practical real life
(04:56):
tools that you can implement into your life life and into
your relationship today. So please make sure you're
following along on our other platforms over on our website
and on YouTube for this extra content and extra depth.
Thanks so much guys. So bear with me as I read
through this story. My boyfriend and I have been
living together for a few monthsnow and cleaning has become a
(05:17):
huge issue. I do pretty much everything
around the apartment. He'll sometimes do the dishes,
he takes out the trash, and every now and then he sweeps,
usually only if I ask him to. To him, that's enough.
When I bought it up once, it turned into a fight because he
felt like he had already done plenty.
I tried to explain that yes, he does do those things sometimes,
(05:37):
but there's still laundry, bathrooms, mopping, wiping down
appliances, dusting, all of the things that actually keep the
place clean. He got defensive so I've avoided
bringing it up again. This morning while I was
working, he texted me asking if I could clean something even
though he was home with hours before work.
That pushed me over the edge. I stayed calm and asked if he
(05:59):
could at least do the thing I'd planned on cleaning during my
break since he wanted me to do something else.
When I checked on my break, it wasn't done.
The truth is, he often gets irrational or angry about small
things and sometimes takes it out on me with attitude or
meanness. So I've started avoiding
confrontation altogether. I know this isn't healthy, but I
don't know how to ask for help without it turning into another
(06:21):
fight. So before we go on, I want you
to just pause. You've heard this story.
I've just read it out to you. It's a classic story.
We've had many of these on the podcast before.
I want you to pause and get yourimmediate gut reaction to
hearing this story. What are the words, the first
words that pop into your mind? What's the verbal reaction you
would have if this was you in this situation?
(06:42):
If this was your partner, what would you say?
How would you say it? How would your body feel?
What kind of physical response would you have while you're
having this conversation? And like I said before, I just
want you to notice. I want you to notice what's
happening in your body as you put yourself in this, in the
shoes of this person writing thestory in, most of us are
probably in the same boat. We probably jumped to
(07:03):
frustration, annoyance, irritation, blame, and that's
OK. That's important for us to
notice. That's why I've read this story
out. I want us to have our first gut
instinct. And when I say gut instinct, I
want you to actually think the exact words or even say them out
loud if you're alone, that you would say if you were this
person writing this Reddit storyand your partner had done this
situation to you. Once you've got them, hold them
(07:25):
because we're going to come backto that.
So that's where I want us to start today in a very human,
very reactive headspace. So we're going to talk about
curiosity. Why is curiosity important?
If you've listened to any of ourepisodes, you would have heard
us say that word 500 million times.
It's a really common thing that we navigate here on the podcast
because curiosity is such a key to navigating difficulties
(07:48):
within relationships and helpingcommunication strengthen.
So why is it important though? There's not, It's not just
because it's nice or it's like aband aid answer.
There's actually a reason why a curious approach is so important
in relationships. Curiosity, the definition of it
is a genuine desire to know or learn something.
And so in your relationship context, that looks like
(08:10):
openness, humility, a willingness to discover more
about yourself and your partner,flexibility, softness,
listening. So This is why it matters when
we get triggered, when we react,like in that cleaning story, if
you're the person, if you're listening to the story and
you're frustrated by it, we're reacting.
So when we react, our brain tends to flip into survival
(08:33):
mode, threat mode. That's the amygdala, the fight
flight or freeze. We've talked about that a number
of times. And once you're in that fight
flight or freeze, your actual brain function is impacted.
Once you're in that state, defensiveness takes over.
You're defending yourself. If you go down to the the basics
of what that means, you're feeling threatened and now
(08:55):
you're defending yourself. We might go into blame sarcasm.
We shut down those 4 horsemen play out.
That's what happens when we are closed, when we feel threatened,
when we take something on as a threat.
That's what happens to our brains and that impacts our
physical body. That impacts how we navigate the
world around us. The flip side of that is if
(09:16):
we're curious, if we say open, it does something really
different. If we choose curiosity, we
actually keep the prefrontal cortex alive, awake,
functioning. This is the reflective problem
solving part of our brain. So this is the part that thinks
big picture, reflective. It is curious in its own way,
reflecting on what's going on, bigger picture problem solving,
(09:37):
helping us see through things, think with a more open mind.
So when we can stay curious and soft, we keep this part of our
brain functioning. So that's that's it at its core.
If we are shut down, reactive triggered, the part of our brain
that recognises threats comes tolife and it shuts down the
prefrontal cortex, our big picture problem solving the
other way around works as well. If we can keep ourselves open,
(10:00):
flexible, in a state that is calm to think and process, we
can keep this problem solving part of our brain functioning
and we don't resort to the fight, flight or freeze.
We do not react as if we are under threat.
So that's just what happens physically.
That's why it's important. That's why we talk about this
all the time because having thatpart of your brain functioning
is important for you to understand yourself and
(10:21):
understand what's going on in your relationship.
Doesn't mean things just become easy.
Doesn't mean that the problem itself resolves, but it does
mean that we are more equipped to navigate those things in a
constructive way that's going tobring us closer together.
This goes for everything. This is not just our
relationships. And obviously on this podcast,
we focus on relationships, but you can apply this across the
board. It's also not just the brain.
(10:41):
The brain effects our body. The brain effects how we
navigate the world around us. And so if we're in that state,
it actually physically effects how we're going to navigate
these things that are thrown ourway.
You might find yourself in thesemoments where you're tense,
feeling a certain kind of way, atightness in your chest, a
clenched jaw, heat rising, something in your gut.
And it's important, like I said before, for us to notice this,
(11:01):
for us to recognise these. Because once we have a clear
understanding of what goes on for us physically when this
happens, it is another trigger to help us recognise, oh, hang
on, I'm going into this state ofthreat.
I'm going into this, this reactive defensive mode and I, I
can feel it coming or I can feelmy, my jaw clenching, my, my
fist clenching, whatever it is that for you is your reaction
(11:22):
physically, that's a good trigger for us to recognise.
Oh, hang on, I'm sliding, I'm sliding down this path again.
Let's remember, let's try and bring ourselves out of that.
So notice what happens for you. Flip side is the same.
If you think about what's happening when you're triggered,
the flip side when you're not triggered, when you're open and
calm even in the face of a difficulty, is your body
(11:42):
softens, your jaw probably unclenches, your breathing
slows, you might lean in more. Curiosity can shift us from
tension to openness and can set us up for success in navigating
difficulties. Relationships will have
challenges. They will because you're two
people. You're 2 completely different
people. Even when you're super similar
personalities, you are two different people navigating the
(12:05):
world around you. And it's not even just you 2.
It's all the circumstances that come into play.
So you will have challenges and that's important and it's
necessary. It's an important and an OK part
of relationships. There's nothing wrong with that.
But if you can set yourself up with the softness, set yourself
up to succeed in the face of those challenges, that's how
you're going to see longevity. That's how you're going to have
(12:26):
constructive patterns playing out in your relationship.
Hence practising the curiosity. So curiosity is a skill we can
practise, we can hone. You may not be a naturally
curious person, you can become one and we've seen that play out
in our relationship. I am a very curious person.
I don't know if it's a natural thing or something I've just
learned from my upbringing. I am a very curious person in a
(12:48):
lot of different ways and when we got together, Blair and I
were not at the same level of curiosity.
I had other things that I reallystruggled with that he was a lot
more advanced in, but his curiosity level was something
that he had to start to implement more and more.
His self awareness and his willingness to learn were the
game changers there. The fact that he's been able to
challenge himself to do that andhe's recognising importance is
(13:09):
what's meant meant that he's developed that skill now and he
is so much more curious now justnaturally than he was 11 years
ago when we got together. So it's a skill you can learn.
You may not have it naturally. It's something you can learn.
It's not just something you can learn, it's something that you
should learn and that's why we're doing this today.
You are selfish, you only think about yourself and that is why
(13:29):
your relationship is struggling.When I said that just now, how
did you feel? What did you feel in your body?
Did your chest get tight? Did your shoulders come up?
Did you feel A rush of confusionand frustration?
Heat rising? Do you think that's not fair?
No, I'm not defensiveness. Did you want to turn the episode
off? I mean, I said that on purpose.
(13:50):
Hopefully that's clear. I said that on purpose because I
want you to notice when I come out the gate and I say something
provocative like that. Where are you feeling that?
What does that make you feel in your body?
You're selfish. You only think about yourself,
and that is why your relationship is struggling.
Where do you feel that? I want you to notice what
happens inside you when words come at you without curiosity.
(14:10):
They're sharp, they're heavy, they're threatening.
Your brain reacts and then your body reacts, and I want you to
notice that. Then we're going to take the
same idea and reframe it with curiosity.
I wonder if sometimes you get sofocused on protecting yourself
that you can't even really hear what your partner's trying to
say. Same thought, different.
Reframe. This one has curiosity.
(14:32):
I wonder if sometimes you're so focused on protecting yourself
that you can't even really hear what your partner is trying to
say. See the difference?
The difference? When words come at you with
curiosity or without it, your body softens.
You're able to hear the challenge that sits behind it,
not just the words that are said.
You're able to reflect more. It feels more like an
(14:53):
invitation, a conversation, thanan attack.
It's the same core thought, the same core challenge or statement
at a completely different impact.
And that is the power of curiosity.
And this is what's really interesting about this is it's
not just my words that changed, it's also your body reacting
differently. The first time your body took my
(15:15):
words at face value in a closed way, not with curiosity.
It braced, it defended. But imagine if you were
practised at curiosity. What would have happened to that
blunt judge mental comment? Maybe you would have paused,
been a bit confused, and thoughtAmy doesn't normally talk like
this. I wonder why she said that, and
I'm curious how many of you did find that.
(15:36):
Why did she say that? That is the power of curiosity.
It changes how we speak, but it also changes how we receive.
There are two roles that we playin relationships, the giving of
and the receiving of curiosity. There's two responsibilities
that sit with us, the way we give curiosity and the way we
receive with curiosity. And I, I want to focus on both
(15:57):
of those because it's one thing to navigate this topic when
you're working on only having curious statements, only having
curious attitudes and approachesto the things that are said.
It's a whole other thing when you're facing situations without
someone giving you that benefit of gentle curiosity.
You are still responsible in that circumstance to work on the
(16:17):
curiosity you've got going on inside yourself.
So let's come back to that Reddit story that we talked
about earlier, the one about theboyfriend who hardly does any of
the chores around the house, whogets angry when it's brought up,
and even texted his girlfriend when he wasn't working asking
her to do more cleaning. Let's come back to that story.
When we first heard it, we probably all mostly landed in
(16:37):
the same place with that story, which is this guy's super lazy.
He's super immature. Our gut response was probably
frustration, thinking about the words we would say.
But I want to step into his perspective for just a second
and work on this curiosity piece.
What might be happening under the surface for him?
Could it be that he grew up in ahousehold where chores were
always someone else's responsibility and so he
(16:59):
genuinely does not even see the gaps?
Could it be that his anger isn'tactually about the cleaning,
it's about feeling criticised and something in the way that
she's communicating or the way he's receiving it is making him
feel criticised and undervalued?Could it be that he's under
stress, overwhelmed or burnt outand he hasn't learned how to
communicate those things and irritation is his only language
(17:19):
now? None of these things excuse his
behaviour or his responses, and that's really important.
None of these things excuse it, and as we're navigating the
world around us and we're navigating our relationships,
the curiosity piece doesn't excuse someone for being
responsible for their own behaviour.
But what it does do is keep us soft to exploring what might be
happening behind that behaviour,and it gives us possibilities to
(17:41):
explore. It gives us a way forward.
It gives us hope in circumstances that don't feel
like they have much hope. If you think back to your first
gut reaction when we read through that story the first
time, the words that you would have said, the physical response
you would have had, think back to that and try and remember it.
If you were to just shift that now and respond again, but
differently this time with curiosity, how might it sound
(18:01):
different? What would be different this
time? Maybe instead of you're lazy,
you never help, or you're super immature.
Maybe it might have been like I'm feeling overwhelmed and I
need to know if you see this as a shared responsibility or when
you don't follow through. I feel unappreciated or even
just a simple when I ask you to do something like this, what
(18:21):
happens for you? What's going on?
I can see you're struggling withmy request.
What's happening for you in thatgentle, not passive aggressive
comments to explore what is happening for him?
Why is he so defensive when I'm asking him to help or even
exploring what's going on for you mentally?
What's feeling heavy right now? What's feeling heavy for you
right now? What's on your mind and seeing
(18:41):
if you can explore what's going on for him.
Potentially there's a reason that he's not doing more around
the house. Again, doesn't excuse that.
Potentially there's a reason he's so defensive when you've
asked him to do things. Again, doesn't excuse that.
But once we can start to explorethose things, there's a way
forward to strengthen the relationship.
Notice how those reframes can shift the conversation and can
(19:02):
open up a future. That's one.
One way of thinking of it too isthis curiosity opens up a future
judgement reactivity. It shuts down that future.
It doesn't have the forward thinking, the big picture
thinking. Curiosity opens that up.
If you're in a workplace and you're trying to navigate a
really difficult problem, you don't sit there and just think
about the problem in a group setting.
You don't have a meeting plan itand then just everybody like
(19:24):
whinges about the problem and you can't see pastor.
You're like talking about how bad this problem is, getting
frustrated and overwhelmed. That's not how we navigate those
things. What we do is we sit down and do
green lighting sessions. We bring someone in with a
different perspective, and that's the same thing here.
You have a problem, your reaction is to just ruminate on
the fact that this problem is there.
You're not going to see the future.
(19:46):
You have a problem. You sit down with a green
lighting session, you sit down with a different perspective.
All of a sudden you see ways forward.
And the same thing goes for him in return.
It's not just the woman that's writing in this story.
If he had been approaching her request with curiosity rather
than defensiveness, he would have been able to explore what's
going on one for himself there. Why am I so defensive every time
she asked me to clean? Like what's going on for me
(20:07):
there? Two, what's going on for her?
Like, what is she? What's her rate of this
situation that she feels like she has to keep asking me to do
stuff? Are the things I'm trying to
bring to the relationship, the things I'm trying to input into,
are they obvious to her? Am I making them clear my
efforts in the relationship? This kind of curiosity opens up
that conversation for her and for him, both about themselves
(20:27):
and about their partners. So this is exactly what plays
out in our own relationships. The Reddit story is a distant
example. It's not our story right now,
although it might have been relatable to some of us.
It's not our story, and that's why I wanted to do it.
Let's workshop this. But it's a distant example.
But we all have these moments where we struggle with
curiosity. We all have the ability to
(20:48):
strengthen that in our relationships, in our approaches
to our partners, and in our approaches to ourselves.
So just think about it. The difference between close
mindedness and curiosity. Close mindedness might say you
never listen. Curiosity might say what's
feeling heavy for you right now?Closed mindedness might say you
don't care about me at all. Curiosity might say when you
(21:10):
ignore this, it makes me feel really underappreciated.
Closed mindedness might say you're impossible to talk to.
Curiosity might say I notice youshut down when I bring up X.
What makes this feel so hard foryou to talk about?
The problem is still named, The thing is still tackled, but the
tone shifts and the approach shifts. 1 is an attack and the
other one's an invitation. 1 is a statement and the other one is
(21:33):
a conversation. But the other part, and I think
this is the most important part of it, is being curious about
our partner is a skill we can practise, and we do need to
practise it, but it's often easier to learn to be curious
about our partner and harder to learn to be curious about
ourselves. And I'll put this out there,
it's easier to excuse ourselves than it is to excuse our
(21:53):
partner. We talked about that the other
week, that we often excuse ourselves on our intentions and
we judge our partner off their impact.
So it is easier to excuse ourselves.
But I think it's harder to be curious about ourselves, staying
curious about what we are bringing to the table, about why
we are reacting, about how we might be seeing things in an
(22:15):
inaccurate way. Too often we excuse our
behaviour because we've got the context.
I was tired or I was stressed orwe spiral into shame.
We shut down and say I'm the worst, I'm awful.
I'll never change. I'll never get a handle of this.
But we don't sit down and be curious about what's going on
for ourselves. There's a lot of the reasons why
we'll struggle with internal curiosity or or self awareness.
(22:38):
You could put it. Sometimes it's trauma, family
backgrounds, patterns that are deeply, deeply entrenched.
Sometimes it's an overwhelm at the at the thought of how much
work would have to go into becoming aware of the stuff that
we're doing, habits, burnout, exhaustion, mental health
issues. There's a lot of the reasons why
we'll struggle to internally reflect and be curious about
ourselves and our own impacts, but it's an important thing.
(23:02):
So I want us to practise this right now.
I want you to think about what was the last moment you had with
somebody that you love, somebodyin your life that made you feel
really frustrated, really mad, really triggered?
What was happening under the surface for you physically or in
your mind? What happened in that moment?
Think about that example. What do you think, thinking
(23:22):
curiously now, holding loosely and openly to that thing?
What do you think might have been triggered for you in that
moment? What do you think might have
been pricked? What might have happened that
made you react the way you are reacting?
What need or value that you holdmight have been involved?
And if you could replay that moment, what might curiosity
have changed in that circumstance?
(23:44):
Even if it's just how you felt, how might how might that have
changed for you? And this is where the real
growth starts, having that approach of curiosity and
reflection using those examples so that we can learn, not being
frustrated at the examples that we've got.
Those are important for us to learn.
Don't be looking back at all these examples that just popped
into your head and think, look at me, I'm doing this again.
Those are important. We learn from those.
(24:06):
This moment right now is that moment to be curious and reflect
on those things. So if we're going back to that
Reddit story, how could it have ended?
How could it have panned out if we were implementing this
curiosity piece, if both people in that relationship had chosen
curiosity about themselves and about their partner instead of
the girlfriend bottling up her frustration and avoiding the
conversations, curiosity towardsherself might have been more
(24:27):
like, why am I hesitating to bring this up?
Why am I nervous to talk about this with him?
What am I afraid of? And that doesn't mean he's off
the hook sometimes that might highlight some really important,
significant issues you have to navigate.
What's making me nervous to bring this up?
What do I really need in this moment?
Do I need him to do the thing, or is there something else that
I need? And once she has that awareness
(24:48):
of what's going on for her, thatconversation with him could have
been a lot more soft. I'm starting to feel really
overwhelmed in the house and I want to figure out how we can
make this work better in a more sustainable way.
Instead of the boyfriend defaulting to anger and
defensiveness, curiosity towardshimself might have been like,
why am I getting so reactive when she asks me to do the
(25:09):
dishes? What's feeling threatened here?
Am I feeling criticised? Is there something in her tone
or is there something from my past that's connecting to this
and making me feel triggered? Why am I getting so angry and
irritated? Is it fair for me to be angry
and irritated? And with that curiosity, he
might have responded more with Ican hear you, but can you help
(25:29):
me understand what's going on for you in this conversation?
Or I can hear you and I just want to express that I'm not
used to this stuff and I need tolearn it.
I've never seen this played out in my life, and now I need to
learn how to do these things. Imagine the shift in tone.
It's the same problem. That problem hasn't gone away,
but that shift in tone makes it a conversation that brings them
closer together. Even if it's difficult and
(25:51):
uncomfortable, it brings them closer together.
They understand each other and themselves better and moves them
forward versus what's ended up happening here which has drifted
them apart and ended up with herriding into Reddit for advice.
And that's what I want you to hold onto.
Curiosity doesn't magically erase the issues.
Curiosity does not excuse people's behaviour.
But curiosity helps us to keep moving forward and helps us to
(26:14):
keep soft. And even if you're only doing
that for yourself and for your own mental health and your own
self awareness and your own progression, that is worth it.
So here are some practical ways you can continue to implement
self focused curiosity. We are so excited to share that
(26:35):
we won the CM AA Emerging TalentAward for the podcast.
Thank you so much for being hereguys.
You being here and following along has made that possible and
you're the reason that we're doing this.
So thank you so much to you guysfor your consistency over the
last year and thank you so much to CM AA for the honour of being
awarded Emerging Talent. For those of you following along
(26:56):
on YouTube, you can see our beautiful trophy reflecting the
outside here. Thank you so much again.
And Blair had such a blast up there with you guys last week
and we're excited to share more about that experience over on
this coming blog. So make sure you check that out
to see behind the scenes of his journey, behind the scenes of
winning. And thanks again so much for
your support over the last year.So here are some practical ways
(27:16):
you can continue to implement self focused curiosity.
Check your body first. Like I said before, if you feel
these triggers, notice what it is that plays out for you.
When you feel these triggers, ifyou start to feel them, if you
start to feel activated, ask yourself what is happening in my
body right now? Release those things.
So if it's clenched jaw, choose to release those things.
But also why is it happening? Then name the trigger instead of
(27:39):
what's going on. That it's not they made me
angry. It's I feel defensive, I feel
criticised about this thing. My kids don't make me angry, I
am angry because of the circumstances and my lack of
regulation. So changing, naming the trigger
rather than your reaction to it is a really powerful way of
(27:59):
reframing the situation that shifts you from blame, which
then takes you off the hook for having to think about it to self
awareness. Asking yourself, and this is
such an important one, what elsecould be true?
And this is again, not to not toignore the important things
going on or to excuse someone's behaviour, but what else could
be true? If your mind rushes to I'm being
(28:21):
disrespected right now, what else could be true?
Am I being disrespected or are they tired and they're not aware
of their tone? Am I being disrespected or have
have they had to repeat this to me too many times?
Or have I overlooked something that's hurt them?
What else could be true? Helps you expand your
perspective of what's happening and helps you see a way forward.
(28:42):
Again, separate the story from the fact what actually happened
versus what am I telling myself about what happened?
That is a really important way of calming your body down
because you're removing yourselfone step from that emotion and
you have then a clearer way to look forward and progress
forward and reframe yourself. Talk.
I'm, I'm awful, I'm bad at this thing.
(29:04):
I, I never get it right or even the victim side of that is like
they're always at me, they're always at me, they're always
criticising me. It's not my fault, it's not my
fault. Reframing that to I'm feeling
neglected or I'm feeling criticised, this is a value of
mine that's been pricked. So this week I want you to pick
one of these things. We've talked about checking your
body, naming the trigger, askingyourself what else could be
(29:27):
true, separating the story from fact and reframing yourself
talk. I want you to pick one of these
things and I want you to practise that, implement that.
Curiosity is not about excusing behaviour.
It's not about pretending everything's fine when it's not.
But what it is about is giving us a new way to tackle the
challenges that come up in our relationship, a new perspective
and a new way to keep us moving forward rather than keeping us
closed. So thank you for joining me
(29:47):
today for this different type ofhoney.
We need a chat and I hope that this is a nice way to wrap up
this relationship reset miniseries we've done having
time to reflect on what is goingon for yourself.
If this was helpful for you, please share it with somebody
that you think it might be helpful for.
We are all learning all the timeand every time, I say this all
the time, but every time I do anepisode, it's often for me.
(30:08):
So I'm taking things away from this today and I hope you guys
are too. We will chat to you soon.
Can't wait to see you next week.Thanks guys.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
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.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.