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Hi! Welcome to Sex.Love.Power. I'm your host, Michele Lisenbury Christensen. I'm a relationship and sex coach who has worked for 24 years with executives and business founders. And by popular demand, I focused on their intimate relationships for the past dozen or so years, as they sought my coaching to push the envelope on how good they could have it in life and in love and sex. My extraordinary, high performance clients have blessed me with a wealth of knowledge about how to create relationships that aren't just successful, but truly great. This podcast is where I can beam the conversations about love and sex we need to have to help you create those same world class results in your relationships. Now, if you listen to my last episode, you know that I went through the five losing communication strategies that people often resort to in their relationships. I promised then to detail the antidotes, The Five Winning Relationship Strategies, that really help us overcome our learned dysfunctional patterns of relating and create healthy adult connections with our partners. It's a practice. Nobody's perfect at it, least of all me. But these five strategies, as a direction, are like a compass, pointing due North, showing us where to turn, when we want deeper connection, when we want to be kind, when we want our partners to meet us and when we want to give and receive abundant love and turn on. If you find yourself listening to this episode saying I do these things, but my partner...
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then this might be a good episode to share with them, but here's how I want you to do it. Ask them to listen to it with you and then ask them to tell you the one strategy, they wish you would practice more and at what times. What would that provide for them? What would they feel if you did that? And after you've heard them well on that, ask if they're open to hearing your answers to the same questions, what you'd love for them to practice and when, what that would provide for you and how you'd feel. But do not, (because this is a losing strategy right here) Do not go to your partner and say, "Man, Michele recorded this episode, and you really need to hear it. You gotta start employing these strategies and clean up your act." Please, bring some humility and some recognition that you have blind spots, too and that, by their nature, you can't see what your blind spots are as well as your partner can. That's why they're called blind spots, right? Okay, so that said, we're going to dive in now to the strategies. I'm going to share the Five Winning Strategies that can replace the losing strategies that we sometimes reach for that create pain in our relationships. But first, we'll do a quick review of last week's episode, because I talked about the Five Losing Strategies in relationship and then we'll dig into the Five Winning Strategies. So we talked about One, being right. Two, controlling your partner. Three, unbridled self expression. Four, retaliation, and Five, withdrawal. And now, lest we leave you hanging in those losing strategies, which if you're like many of us, were abundantly modeled for you by your own family growing up. Here are the Five Winning Strategies that provide the antidote to those losing strategies and give your relationship a really solid foundation. I'll list them first, and then we're going to dive in further to each one. Winning Strategy number one, go for what you want, rather than complaining. Winning Strategy number two, speak to repair with love and respect. Strategy number three, listen with compassion. Strategy four, empower your partner to succeed with you. And strategy number five, that works every time, cherish yourself and cherish your partner. So now let's look closely at the first winning strategy. One, go for what you want rather than complaining. Request, don't complain and never lose sight of what you really want. So first, this is about what we're not going to do: not complaining, not telling our partner what they're doing wrong, not telling them all about how unhappy we are, or what their behavior costs us or how long they've been off base. I know those things are tempting. I love to grind that axe myself- in my head, with friends, but really, taking those things to our partner never works. It never motivated anybody and it only creates negativity between you. The winning approach is to wait to talk to your partner about something until you can be really rooted in a positive vision of what you desire, where you're inviting them into something beautiful. The second key here is to make your requests specific, behavioral and reasonable. There's a receptive, submissive way to do this and a dominant directive way. They both work, but you have to be congruent in how you deliver each one. A mashup of the two is going to be a Frankenstein request, and it's going to backfire entirely. So first, the receptive approach. Here you put your attention on your own feelings and desires and you convey those to your partner with your attention held on your vision and your sensations. Their most powerful three words in relationship are not, "I love you", but they very well might be, "would you please". To deliver a desire in this way,
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it's often helpful to start not with the request itself, but with the need and what it would provide to have the need met. In nonviolent communication, they talk a lot about saying, "I feel this way when you do that, because I need blank, so, would you please," and then you make the request. I like to say, "if I had blank, I would be able to blank or would make it possible for this, it would open up the potential for," and I talk about what might be able to happen if I had that, and then make the request, so would you please be really specific with your partner. So here are four examples. "Would you please bring me tea, when you make your coffee in the morning, even if I'm not up yet? It would make me feel so loved to wake up to a cup of tea, and I don't care if it's not hot anymore when I get to it." Or "I feel so connected to you and you reach out to me when we're not together. That helps me be relaxed and loving and productive during the day and then it's really easy to connect with you at night because I've got a running start. So, would you please call me or text me during the day to let me know you're thinking of me? Once before noon and again before three? I would love that." Here's another request: "Would you please kiss my neck and shoulders and touch my waist and hips and touch my face, at times when you're not proposing that we have sex? So I can feel your attraction to me and stroke my own attraction to you. I feel to that it'll really help me get on a moving train, when we do want to move toward being more sexual with each other. Thank you." Or, "I feel scared when you're in a bad mood and speaking harshly to me and slamming things around. I need to feel secure that you're not blaming me for things that are unrelated to me, but are hard on you. So when you're grumpy, would you please give me a clear signal that it's not about me and that you know that? Like maybe saying, 'Babe, I'm having a hard time right now but it's so not about you. I love you. I'll feel better later and we'll be able to connect more then.'" Those are the kinds of requests that you can make if you're focusing on requests rather than complaints, and that's the first winning strategy. The Second Winning Strategy is Speak to repair with love and respect. So, this is a quick tutorial in how to have a conversation that cleans up something that's been painful between the two of you. When you've had a rough interaction that's either been difficult in words or difficult in the energetics of it, or someone has done or not done something and the other one of you is upset about that, take the time to soothe yourselves with breath, touch, a walk outside, a conversation with a skillful friend, a nap, an orgasm, whatever is helpful for you. Just settle down on your own first. And then, and only then, once you're grounded and centered can good come from talking with one another. When you're both centered, create an agreement with your partner to have a 10 minute dialogue or repair conversation. Only 10 minutes? Yes, once Kurt and I learned that these conversations could be quick, he was far less resistant to having them. Before we figured out how to be disciplined and respectful, our fights in those first few years that we were together could go on and on into the night, we'd be running from room to room, yelling and crying. I never wanted to let it end until we had it resolved because I felt so insecure if it wasn't and we would wind up being as sleep deprived and hung over and regretful as if we'd been bingeing on booze and cocaine instead of drama and codependence. So learning that we can have a repairing conversation in a finite amount of time was a miracle. So just this part is really important, even before we get to the part of how to create repair: the preparation. The skill set here and the important strategy is that we learn to calm ourselves down and not speak from that riled up place. The other side of the coin is that we don't avoid the conversation if we are calm, we have to not fear or withdraw from connecting with our partner around the difficulties that we've been having. Okay? So do you see the sweet spot we're going for? I call this the 33 degree rule. We're not hot with upset anymore but we haven't cooled off so much that the subject has frozen over. 33 degrees, right? Just above freezing. That's the first key to this winning strategy. And the second key to these repairing conversations is that once we're there at that 33 degrees sweet spot, we center ourselves in our love. I remind myself: I love this man. He loves me. We've had 24 years together and I pray for 76 more. This rough edge here is just one of the rough places in us both that our relationship is smoothing off for us. This is a miracle in the works. I trust that all will be well. Sharing my truth with love is my part of making it so. So may I speak truth with love, may I listen open heartedly. I center in love. Then, the third key is to use what Terry calls "the feedback wheel". This is just one way of thinking of the four things you need to share. In the next winning strategy. We're going to talk about how to listen well, but in this strategy, we just look at how you're going to talk to your partner, in this kind
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of repair conversation. We'll get to the listening in just a minute. You're going to tell them four things. The feedback wheel has four parts. First: what I saw and heard. This is like what a video camera would capture, right? Just the Facts, ma'am. Second, what I made up about it. This is the meaning that I assigned to it. We might feel really convicted that this is the meaning but what we're doing here is taking ownership of this is just what I made up about it, recognizing we really do make the meaning that we give to things. Third, how I feel about it: the feelings that I'm having as a result of the meaning that I made. And fourth, what I'd like: what I want to have be different. So an example from a recent conflict that we had here, Kurt said, "I wanted more time with you today and I heard you say it was too late tonight for us to do our practice", he went to the second spot on the wheel and he said, "I made up that you don't really want to do it but you really want me to want to do it. So," and now he's going to the third spot on the wheel, his feelings. "So I'm sad and I'm scared that you're going to come back at me later and say that we're not connected, and I'm not available enough to you. I want you to do the practice with me or to remember that you were the one who didn't want to do it." By using the feedback wheel, he made it easy for me to hear him, to hear the bind that he felt like he was in. Before we go on to talk about how I listened to Kurt and responded to what he said, I want to give you one more key to this strategy of communicating to repair. The fourth key is to let go of the outcome. As with anything else in life, our best results and our best experience come when we have passionate- non-attachment. We give the conversation are all but we don't get hung up on whether or how quickly we get the precise results we're asking for. We're married to the process, not to getting what we wanted post-haste. If we need to have another conversation, we will. We'll go around the wheel again. And you know what? That's pretty likely, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can go back and tell your partner, "You know, we had that conversation last Sunday and then I saw and heard XYZ around that same area. I made up that," tell them the meaning you assigned to it. "I feel," tell them how you're feeling, "I'd like us to," tell them what you want. Okay? So, we don't share from our heart and then expect flawless delivery on our wishes. We learn to observe what's happening, we report those concrete facts of what we're noticing, we take full ownership of the meaning that we, ourselves, are assigning. We do not have the market cornered on the gospel truth of the universe. It's just the meaning we're assigning. And I love that part. I'm making up that this means blank, we get to share the ache in our heart, no holds barred, but without pretending that our interpretations are facts. We share the feelings in our hearts- not how they are making us feel, but how we are making us feel through the interpretations we're making, as we just shared. Having been that profoundly self responsible for our own feelings, we can ask our partner for what we need without abdicating our own responsibility to ourselves. So we do. We say, "I'd like" and then we're not attached to getting it. So when your partner is sharing all this with you, what's the winning strategy for you to take as the recipient of this feedback, as the listener? Well, that brings us to the third winning strategy, which is to listen with compassion. There are three keys for you as the listener when your partner is speaking to repair. The first key is to listen with the intent to understand, not to check out whether you agree or not. Just like if you're watching a biopic about a notorious character. You wouldn't be looking to emulate their strategies or to go to meet them in the maximum strength penitentiary where they live, right? You just be watching, to get some insights into how this person thought what made them tick and where they'd come from. Same here, except hopefully with the bonus that your partner is not a cold-blooded killer, or a venal corporate raider or anything, but you're just curious. Just trying on the world from their viewpoint for a minute. You're not abandoning your own vantage forever, and you're not putting on a hair shirt to repent for being capital T, capital W, The Worst. Just because they were hurt after the exchange the two of you had. You're not absolving them of what they did that angered you in turn, all you're doing is listening with compassion. You know, you're listening for agreement instead, if you think or say, "Okay, but.." or you say, "Well, that's not entirely accurate," or you think, "That makes no sense" or "But you do that to me all the time." If you notice thoughts like these arising while you're trying to listen with compassion, just set them aside. You don't need to voice them. That would be unbridled self expression, which we talked about in the last episode. You can just brush past them like you do with the cans of soup that are in the cabinet, when what you're reaching into grab is a jar of artichoke hearts. What you'll say instead will bring you to the second key: acknowledge anything and everything you can. This means that after you've listened to understand, you'll try to be as generous as possible in your response. You'll use phrases like "I get that, you felt like" and you'll say how it sounded like they felt or you'll say, "Oh, so when I did this and such the meaning of that for you was this". Or you'll say, "Oh, I see why you're so angry.
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Because after x happened, it seemed to you that this," AAnd you'll just say just say, like, "Oh, if they thought that it meant this thing, then of course, they would feel the way they felt." That's all you have to do is just acknowledge, oh, someone who made that meaning out of it would naturally feel that way. Your partner makes sense, what they're saying from their vantage makes sense, you don't have to agree with it. And you're going to cop to the things that they are owning, they might have entirely fabricated that are, in fact, partly or wholly accurate. So they're saying, "I might have made this up." And if part of what they're admitting they might be making up does sound accurate, you do agree, then you're going to cop to it. You're going to admit it. So the third key is to give your partner whatever you can in terms of service or concession. So the second key was about that kind of giving in the abstract, acknowledging whatever part of what they said they made up might actually be true for you. "Yeah, I was being selfish," or "Yeah, I did hide that fact from you, because I didn't want to deal with you on it in the immediate term. And it makes sense that that would have made you angry eventually." In that second key you were giving acknowledgement and perhaps amends this key, though, is about giving in the concrete sense. This is where you do whatever you can to support your partner. Show up as much as you're able without distorting yourself or over giving. And that gives us a great segue to the fourth winning strategy: empower your partner to succeed with you. Remember the movie Jerry Maguire, where Tom Cruise and Cuba Gooding Jr. are in the locker room, and Cuba's character Rod Tidwell is wrapped in a towel, and he's kind of grooming himself in the mirror as they discuss what Jerry needs Rod to do. So Jerry can get the contract conditions he wants. Jerry says, "I'm out here for you. You do not know what it's like to be me out here for you. It is an up at dawn pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about. Okay." Jerry writhes around in frustration and agony and cries "God helped me," his voice cracking and the way that only Tom Cruise can do. He says, "Help me Rod, help me!" Jerry drops to his knees. He pleads as Rod turns his head and narrows his eyes. Jerry says "Help me, help you. Help me, help you." And Rod laughs at Jerry's desperation. Eventually, Jerry walks out saying, "I'll see you in Los Angeles." But following him a ways, having dropped his towel, Rod calls after Jerry, "See, that's the difference between us- you think we're fighting and I think we're finally talking."
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I think they were finally talking, too. Jerry was saying, "I can go to the mat for you, but I need your help." And Rod heard him. And that's the place we need to learn to come from with our partners: I want to help you. I want to be in that up at dawn pride swallowing siege for you. And I don't want to tell you all about how hard it is for me, but I need you to help me, help you. I need you to not make it harder on me. And, conversely, I want you to meet my needs or to do what I want on this thing. And I know that for you to do that, I need to help you help me. So what can I do? How can I facilitate your showing up in the way that I most want you to? What can I stop doing that makes it harder for you to be with me the way I want you to? What can I do that makes me getting what I want more likely, or makes it easier for you to provide it. I'm on your team, not just standing here with my arms crossed, demanding that you deliver while I put my foot out to trip you. I'm on your side. Help them, help you. Help them, help you. So the first key to helping them help you is to acknowledge the gifts your partner has offered you. The second key to empowering your partner to succeed with you is to ask them what you can do to help them deliver on what they've offered. So once they've agreed to do something in particular, you say, "How can I help with that? What would make that easier?" Or, "What do you anticipate I might do that might make that harder?" And then third is going to be key to follow through. So first you acknowledge what they said they would do. Then you empower them to succeed with you by asking how you can help. And third, you focus on where you are getting even parts of what you want. Catch them getting it right and celebrate it and do your part to help them. Acknowledge any positive contributions or offers you see them make and give whatever flexibility, support, contribution and credit you can. Do this with your attitude with your actions. And by using your own internal boundaries to stop yourself from jumping in to criticize or to note how they just did it once or they did it but not quite right or doing anything else to torpedo their efforts. In time, the flowers that you water will grow. Pull out the weeds in your own heart when you feel critical of your partner's efforts and turn your attention to how you can create conditions inside yourself and around you that will facilitate your receiving what you desire and that will support them and feeling empowered and supported to offer it. So that's the fourth winning strategy: empowering your partner to give you what you want. And the fifth winning strategy is to cherish your partner and, even more importantly, cherish yourself. So the first key to cherishing is appreciating. Every single day, find ways to express appreciation, gratitude, and specific positive feedback. For example, say things like, "I love it when you do that," or, "Those eggs were delicious, thank you," or, "You texted me from work I know that took real effort to pull your attention away from your meetings and your to do is to reach out to me, I felt the love in that. Thank you." Or, "Oh, those kisses on the neck, they really, like, stir something in my body and my heart and it turns me on when you do that." And say those kinds of things to yourself, too. "You look amazing today," or, "Wow, this body is such a miracle." Give yourself the same appreciation, gratitude, and specific positive feedback that you would love to hear from someone else. Tune up the relationship with you. The second key to cherishing yourself and your partner is to nourish yourself and the relationship with time and energy. When you're really cherishing yourself, you pay attention to your own energy and to how full you pack your schedule. I could speak for hours just on this topic alone, because so many people I coach find that this is a long-term ever unfolding discovery process: all the ways we keep ourselves too busy, too stressed, too distracted, to really be present, to love to turn on to our partners needs. And we can think that it's all essential stuff that we're packing in. But really none of it is as important as the relationships that we cherish most. And when we're not nourishing ourselves and taking care of our relationships to time and energy, the ironic thing is that we start resenting our partners and their demands, quote, unquote, for our time and energy. It's like our partner is the straw that broke the camel's back. They're the one they're at the end of the day wanting our attention, wanting care, or romance, or simply empathy for how busy and tired they are. But it feels like one more frickin' demand on us and we resent them for it. It's so sad. I've been there. And I know the irony. They are what matters most to us, our partners are,
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and we can put our kids in here too. But these also important people can feel like burdens. And we can think, "If you had any empathy at all, for everything I'm carrying, you wouldn't ask me for anything right now." But the truth is, our partners are offering us intimacy, offering a chance to connect with them and see and hear them and be seen and heard by them. So we need to nourish ourselves in our relationships with time and with energy. And the third key to cherishing is to practice smart generosity. We're intelligently generous when we just get really practical, and we say, "Hey, no big deal" about what our partner is asking us for. What do they need? "Oh, okay, that wouldn't cost me much to give. I'll cheerfully show up and give them that. Easy. Done." Smart generosity means you figure out a way to do what's low cost to you and high value for them putting, "Text my spouse" into an alarm in your phone that rings at 10:30 every weekday, and then sending a little, "Thinking of you" or, "You looked great this morning," or, "Can't wait for our weekend together!" when that alarm goes off. That's 30 seconds of effort for filling their heart with delight and love. Now, presuming that's something your partner has said would be valuable to them. I know it sure is for me. Other things that are easy enough to give but would probably mean a lot to your partner include remembering the anniversaries of special dates in your history together, tracking deadlines for things like taxes, or kids camp registrations, or concert tickets that are going on sale, taking note of their favorite things or their preferred options for food or drinks or clothes, admitting when you were wrong, copping to it and making amends when you've been neglectful or unkind. I mean, we all do it. A great relationship is what's created when we have the humility and generosity to set it right after each mistake we make. Another thing might be offering to pick up anything else they might need while you're out or while you're going to the store for yourself, or changing how you go about something to doing it their way, because they like that better. Okay? So, as I tell my kids, find your "Okey dokey." Dig down and search up a "no big deal" attitude. And let these little things be little things for you as you carry out the actions and watch how they're like sunflower seeds- tiny things that you plant that grow into something really big and bright and beautiful between you. And that brings us to the final key of the final strategy. Key four to cherishing is to give back to the world. Legacy love means creating such a beautiful love that it builds on the positive aspects of the legacy that were handed down by your families of origin and by your cultures, and it heals the painful legacies you were given. And, ultimately, legacy love means that the teacup of your love overflows into the saucer and beyond, spilling the love and joy and peace and abundance that flow within each of you and between you out onto all of those around you and the world at large. As the two of you care for yourselves and each other and feel the benefits of that, start to raise your sights. Start to look for where your love can be of service to others. Is there another couple who would benefit from your mentoring? Is there a way that you can be of service
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in your community? Are there injustices that you would like to set right? Are there people in need or causes you can contribute to? That's how we start to give back to the world from the abundance of our love. And it's a beautiful way to cherish ourselves and each other. So there you have it. We looked at all five of the winning relationship strategies. And if you missed the last episode, which details the five losing strategies that really trip people up in love, go back and check that one out. Just to recap here, the five winning strategies are: One: go for what you want, rather than complaining. Two: speak to repair with love and respect. Three: listen with compassion. Four: empower your partner to succeed with you. Five: cherish yourself and your partner. I really hope that between these two episodes, you find good guardrails for your relating, and some great visions to help you raise your sights for what's possible. That's how these guidelines have served me and my husband. Not to mention our kids and hundreds of other couples in my private coaching since Kurt and I learned them from our mentor, Terry Real. So please reflect back on what you've heard here and pull out the single most useful distinction or idea or message for yourself, and go apply it in your own relationship. I'd love to hear what you're taking away and what questions you have. My free Conscious Couples Circle is the place to continue the conversation. You can share your experiences, ask questions and get more actionable ideas for creating the love and sex you deeply desire in ways that involve you both. It's all happening at society.lisebury.com. That link is in the show notes at lisebury.com/episode/035. If you've enjoyed this or other episodes, please leave a review because reviews really help others get a sense of the podcast like this one from Cindy Whitesides, entitled "Brilliantly insightful." Cindy writes, "This podcast gives me new insights to chew on each week, a whole new way of thinking about sex, love and power." Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. That's what I and the team are here for: actionable insights in every episode, and an entire rewrite of the old stories about sex and love and power that have robbed us of so much of our aliveness. The deadening effects of stunted relationships and the intergenerational transmission of those painful patterns stops right here with us. Other people need to hear what you're taking away, too. So please go leave your own review right now with a few words about what the show gives you. I would so appreciate it. And, hey, have you subscribed to the podcast? You'll want to so you never miss an episode. Please go to the app where you listen and hit that subscribe button so you always get notifications of new episodes each week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Michele Lisenbury Christensen. This has been Sex.Love.Power. I'll be back soon with the next episode. And until then, may the light within you illuminate the world around you.