Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: RSS

Vulnerability is a key aspect in connecting with your partner. It makes you feel seen and provides a sense of belonging. However, the longing to feel known and the fear of letting down our guard are two competing human needs that must be understood with compassion. 

In many cases, our own protective strategies helped us survive trauma and pain in the past. However, many years later, these same strategies prevent us from becoming seen, validated, and known. Today’s episode discusses some of the most common protective strategies and what you can do to turn it around and increase intimacy in relationship.

In this Episode 

• 05:25 Vulnerability cultivates connection. Disconnect happens when there is a block between the call of one partner and the response of the other.
• 10:02 Being vulnerable is difficult. The desire for intimacy is there but an inner conflict based on fear holds us back from allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. 
• 14:42 Having a safe container for vulnerability is paramount. This is rooted in biology via the polyvagal system which requires us to have reciprocal and safe interactions with our closest connections. 
• 18:42 The most successful couples respond to each other’s “bids” or calls and responses. This allows couples to feel validated and seen.
• 22:14 Unsuccessful attempts at vulnerability are caused by “blocks” or personal protective strategies. It has been proven that humans choose safety and familiarity over intimacy and vulnerability during critical moments.
• 29:15 The desire to be known and to protect against hurt are two competing human needs. Being in a threatened state makes it impossible to access vulnerability and have constructive conversations.
• 31:13 Examples of protective tendencies that get in the way vulnerability include people-pleasing, intellectualizing/explaining/defending, numbing out, getting angry/reacting, hiding, being resistant, denial, being stressed/tired, and independent stance.
• 38:02 Tips to cultivate vulnerability and increase intimacy in your relationship.

Your Check List of Actions to Take

• Take 20 minutes before having an intimate and constructive conversation. This can mean taking a walk, breathing, journaling, or even dancing.
• Get support. Protective strategies make sense to us so getting support allows that safety to work through those fears and the disconnect patterns in relationship.
• Getting support creates safety by reprocessing what people have experience in feeling safe and seen with another. It is experiential.
• Create safety in the relationship. Being in a fight or flight state will likely make you misunderstand the physiological state of someone else which could mean misinterpreting their facial reactions and voice.
• Prioritize the call and response. Relationships can be successful when we can respond and have a good rate of response.
• Practice. Responding is not a one-and-done deal. It is a percentage of responding throughout the life of the relationship.

Mentioned

ERP 233: How to Deal with Fears of Intimacy – Part One

ERP 234: How to Deal with Fears of Intimacy – Part Two

ERP 247: How to Turn Towards Your Partner to Strengthen Your Love

ERP 261: How to Strengthen Your Relationship from a Polyvagal Perspective – an Interview with Dr. Stephen Porges

ERP 220: How to Reconnect Emotionally with your Significant Other

Connect with Dr. Jessica Higgins

Facebook: facebook.com/EmpoweredRelationship 

Instagram: instagram.com/drjessicahiggins 

Podcast: drjessicahiggins.com/podcasts/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/EmpowerRelation 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

Twitter: @DrJessHiggins 

Website: drjessicahiggins.com  

Email: [email protected]

About Today’s Show

Hi! Thank you for joining the Empowered Relationship Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, licensed psychologist and relationship coach.

Today’s episode is #273 – How to Handle the Concern of Vulnerability Not Working in Relationship. You can find today’s show notes on DrJessicaHiggins.com. Click on “Podcast”. It’s there in that top navigation bar and you’ll have access to the podcast page. Again, all of the episodes are listed there. Today’s episode is #273.

I want to alert you too. There’s a new way that the show notes are being published. I’m working with a new company and they’re doing a fantastic job. As I’ve mentioned in last week’s episode, they’re offering a summary of the show. They’re offering timestamped key points of the episode. And then what I really love is some practical takeaways. So, they’re giving us some actionable steps to consider to really implement what is discussed on the show. I think that just takes it one step further. I really encourage you to check that out.

The other really wonderful thing is they’re offering a really visually appealing transcript. In the past, the transcripts that I’ve offered are just heavy text. And while this is a transcript and heavy text, they are breaking it up and making it that much more user-friendly by highlighting and offering some photos and captions of quotes. It just makes it that much more engaging. I hope that you enjoy that. Again, you can find that on DrJessicaHiggins.com.

Before we get started, as I typically do, I want to invite you to just bring your focus inward. Perhaps taking a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And as you take a couple thrusts, perhaps even just rolling out your neck in a really gentle way or perhaps stretching side to side, or even rolling out your shoulders. As you bring breath and awareness more to the physical body, it brings access to the present and brings more consciousness to the moment. This is where we have choice, and the more that we can respond versus react.

On the Empowered Relationship Podcast, as we discuss relationship principles, practices, research, tips, tools for you to consider, it’s all with the intention of helping you gain more awareness, perhaps even gain some more consciousness to your tendencies to how you show up to what’s going on inside you. The more that we gain awareness to our experience, again, the more choice we have and the more intentional we can be about what we’re co-creating in relationship.

As discussed on this show, the goal is really to help you feel better prepared as we navigate the landscape of intimacy. I say “we” because I’m on this path with you. As we listen to the Empowered Relationship Podcast, we are typically valuing relationship and the endeavor of co-creating lasting, secure, happy, fulfilling partnership. And as I said, this is quite an endeavor and much easier said than done. And again, we are really looking at how to be more skillful how to turn towards the difficulty knowing there’s an opportunity for growth in ourselves as well as in the relationship dynamic if we’re feeling some conflict, tension or difficulty with our significant other.

My hope is that the conversations that happen on the Empowered Relationship Podcast, give you insight to what it looks like to work through some of these challenges, as well as helps you feel not alone and validated when you are confronting difficulty. It is incredibly painful and scary. We’re going to talk a little bit about this today to turn towards the vulnerability and to work with our fears and manage our threats and create safety in relationship. This can be really difficult if we’ve known pain, trauma, injury in the past by way of previous romantic relationships or even in our upbringing growing up.

Let’s get started in today’s episode.

Today’s topic is focused on when we have the experience of vulnerability not working in relationship or perhaps feeling unsuccessful in cultivating more vulnerability in partnership.

In past episodes, I remember doing a series on vulnerability. I’ll make sure to put those links on today’s episode. And then, even throughout many episodes, if you’ve been a long-term listener, you’ve heard me talk about several aspects of vulnerability. However, I don’t know that I’ve done as much to really feature this difficulty. I really wanted to spend some time on this today.

When we can really feel vulnerability in another, typically, there’s an inclination to want to turn towards. And so, that’s the thing I’ve mentioned in the past but I want to caveat that because there can be many, many things that get in the way of responding to that vulnerability, as well as even accessing the vulnerability within ourselves so that we can really send that clear signal.

Vulnerability is really steeped in research. I love that the EFT model, which I reference and I utilize in my coaching work, and that’s the Emotionally Focused Therapy. That’s largely developed by Dr. Susan Johnson, who I’ve mentioned many times on the show. And that in this therapeutic model, the trained professional is helping couples reprocess, have a different experience, a corrective experience in processing emotion.

Typically, when we have felt disconnect, it’s an emotional disconnect. And so, as we create safety, work with the blocks of accessing vulnerability, as well as the blocks of responding to vulnerability, then there’s that clear channel, the call and response, the signal and response. Because at the end of the day, this is where relationship fundamentally is happening. Where, let’s say, one person is hurt. They might say, “Ouch, that really hurts”. And again, this sounds like it might be easier as it relates to like, “I just drop something on my toe.” And our partner says, “Oh, my goodness. Are you okay? How can I help?” Right? That’s the call. That’s the response.

Or perhaps, let’s say, one partner is elated and excited and are like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m so excited. I’m so happy.” And the other one is like, “Oh, tell me. What happened? I’m so interested.” Right? There’s just this call and response. Some of these are easier than others. This is where we get stuck or go off track is when we are not responding. There are things getting in the way and it makes sense. The “make sense” is what I want to talk about today.

I just want to make a couple more notes on the research in that the EFT therapeutic modality has the highest efficacy rate for couple’s therapeutic work. And that also, Bernie Brown has done a ton, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. Or if you haven’t watched her TED talks or read any of her books, I do really recommend. She actually has her own podcast where you can check her out and she does reference her research where she really set out to study love and belonging, and really came across vulnerability and shame. And so, vulnerability being such an important aspect in connecting.

Okay. Let’s turn towards the question, “What makes cultivating vulnerability in relationship hard?” There’s a few elements that I really want to talk about. And then, I really want to get into this question because there’s one essential point that I want to drive home. I’ll share that with you in a moment.

The first element that I want to just name that I have already focused on in this show and that is, accessing core vulnerability is difficult. It is not easy. I can just say from my own work with this, there’s so many times where I have felt that I’ve been vulnerable and I’m sharing my opinion or my interpretation of the scenario.

It’s a real qualitative difference when I can feel inside of myself that vulnerability. And look, there are layers of vulnerability. Sometimes it’s important to start with the smaller light layers. This helps create safety. We’re going to talk about that in the next element that I want to mention about having a safe container.

When we start to look at our ability to access the deeper layers or the underbelly, so to speak of what’s going on and the vulnerability around that. This is tricky territory because there are competing needs. It’s like an internal conflict of, “I want to feel close to you. I want to feel intimate and known by you. I perhaps have fear that makes sense, given my experience in relationship.”

I did a podcast on this. I did a two-part series. It was Episode #233 and #234 with the title of How to Deal with Fears of Intimacy. In this series, I talked about the human need. This human need of safety, protection, survival that is so human, as well as the human need of that bonding, of that closeness, of that connection. We are wired up for both.

And again, this poses a challenge that we might not have felt in any other arena of our life. So, it might surprise us that when we enter into a love committed relationship that the risks and the stakes are higher. Perhaps we might feel that fear or that hesitation. And what we can also see here is sometimes this fear and hesitation has been unconscious to us. We have not been aware of it because typically when something’s painful, we want to avoid it or turn away from it or suppress it or deny it. Right? And so, when we enter into this love relationship, it calls us into a deeper way of loving and relating that will activate those fears.

So, if you’re interested in checking that out, I’ll make sure to have that on today’s show notes. Because I go through common fears that are really important to look at if we’re noticing some difficulty with opening up or feeling comfortable with that territory.

And that if we can work with that directly, we actually have an opportunity to support that healing in ourselves, as well as participating and cultivating a safer more secure bond with another. To just think that it will happen or that we can ignore our fear and just hope that it’ll work out, our nervous system is so sophisticated, we cannot override that. And our partner is likely going to be responding to our nonverbals, our nervous system.

If you’re interested in checking out an episode that I did about co-regulation, which I’m going to talk about in a moment, I encourage you to check that out too on today’s show notes. I am referencing previous podcasts, where I’ve talked about elements of this vulnerability and where it gets difficult. I just want to reference those as foundation for our conversation today. So, if you haven’t listened to those, I encourage you to check that out.

The second element is really looking at the importance of a safe container. This is the episode that I was talking about around how to understand co-regulation and the importance of safety in relationship. And that it’s critical to have safety to be in the ventral vagal system. That’s the system where we can engage socially and we can experience intimacy. If we’re not in that sense of safety, we are going to be trying to manage the threats through fight, flight, or freeze.

And so, I really encourage you to check that out because it is critical. As much as we think that we are super savvy and that we’re conveying accurate cues to our partner, even if we’re saying all the right things or even doing all the right things, they are picking up on our micro facial expressions, the tone of our voice, our posture, and also our heart rate. We actually have a capacity to pick up on some level these frequencies and this is that co-regulation. We’re always harmonizing with the nervous systems around us. We’re wired up for this social connection.

And so, as we choose partnership, if we are feeling threatened, not feeling safe, then it’s going to be extremely difficult to access the social engagement where we can relax, where we can be intimate. And this is where we can take these greater risks around revealing and letting someone see our insides. Our inside parts that are so special, that are so sacred. Or even parts of ourselves that we aren’t sure are lovable, but the tenderness. And in order to reveal that and take those risks, the safety is paramount.

Another podcast episode I want to bring your attention to is the interview with Dr. Steven Porges, who is the scientist, creator of the polyvagal theory. That interview is #261 – How to Strengthen Your Relationship from a Polyvagal Perspective.

He really emphasizes from a biological nervous system standpoint, that we need to have reciprocal, safe, engaged interactions with the people closest to us. And we really hone in on romantic relationships and all that can get convoluted in that. I encourage you to check that out because one of the things that I really heard him say as a takeaway, that when we fall in love, and the neuro chemicals that fuel that, the oxytocin, the dopamine, the just feel-good hormones, that we can feel passion for someone and not actually like them or feel that safe with them, which can be really confusing and really set up a territory for a major conflict. He’s essentially saying we have some work to do.

That is very, very common.And so, part of what we want to do is establish this call and response that we’re talking about today. And the avenue of re-harmonizing when we get off track or we perceive something in another. And so, I give some personal examples too in that episode. I think a lot of episodes, I give personal examples. I want to invite you to check that out.

The third element is the clear signal and response. I’ve already mentioned today, just the fundamental process of a bid as John Gottman would talk about. And if you want to check out that episode where I talk about how to turn towards your partner to strengthen your love. And it really covers heavily this responding to bids. That’s Episode #247 in what it means to turn towards your partner and that these small interactions lead to an overall sentiment in the relationship. This can be positive or it can be negative. It’s a negative when we don’t respond to each other. He’s really a mathematician, so he’s looking at percentages. And from the research and all their studies with the love lab, they’ve been able to help us understand what successful couples do and what as he would call disaster couples do.

And so, one of the things he’s really highlighting for us to know is really, he calls them asters, the successful couples, they respond to each other’s bids 86% of the time. That’s a high percentage. Whereas the disasters respond only about 33% of the time. And again, we can really on just basic level look at relating as this call and response.

Again, if you’re interested in exploring what a bid is, what it looks like, examples, how to increase your responsiveness rate, and the damage of dismissing bids, and the negative outcomes of that, I want to encourage you to check out that episode.

When we look at call and response, it’s really being known, being seen, and being really validated from our significant other. This is the person that matters most to us, that we want to feel safest with. A sense of refuge, a safe haven with. And that the world can be difficult and even scary or challenging at times and that we have a place that we can feel comforted and soothed within.

Last week, an article piqued my attention as it really, I think, echoes this call and response. Feeling validated, feeling safe and seen. It’s an article about Oprah. The title says, “Oprah says that everyone she interviews, including Beyonce, asked her the same three-word question.” And the subtitle is, “It turns out, we’re not all that different after all.”

I think this is notable because as most of you know, Oprah has interviewed a lot of people. Celebrities, billionaires, and even royalty, right? And the question, the three-word question after the cameras turned off, they asked, “Was that okay?” This really points to this call and response, this bid for attention to be seen, to be recognized, to be validated. It’s so human of us. No matter what our stature, level of success and experiences, we are not void of this need of this call and response.

Let’s turn directly now to the question of being unsuccessful with vulnerability in relationship. As I mentioned already, there’s an inner conflict at hand, right? We want to feel this bonded closeness with another, and yet it can feel so threatening when we’ve had previous injury and pain and perhaps even trauma.

As human beings, we typically don’t do what hasn’t worked in the past. As I’ve already mentioned, we will protect ourselves. If you caught the interview with Dr. Robert Glover addressing the Nice Guy Syndrome, I’ve gotten a lot of really great feedback on that episode, it stood out to me that he said, “In my experience, when push comes to shove, people will choose their protective strategies over closeness and intimacy.” So, when we have these two competing needs that are both extremely human and needed, like it’s a human wired up need.

And when we look at these protective strategies, and this is where a really skilled support person will become incredibly useful to navigate this territory and unpack this in a sensitive, empathetic, supportive, kind way to reveal and make this explicit that it makes sense. And to look at, “Oh, you’re protecting yourself.” or “Oh, I get it now. This has been you hurting. I didn’t know that.”

I was working with a couple yesterday. It was such powerful work. I feel like there was five or six really beautiful, as we would call in the EFT world, enactments. I remember the wife said at one point, “It feels as though the veil has dropped.” And they were both weeping. It was just this seeing her husband and what’s been behind his frustration or even his explaining that she wasn’t able to see. And even in her own protective strategies, wasn’t able to get beyond the wall of her own protection. There was a comment made about this being a whole new chapter in their marriage. I think they’ve been married for 22 years. So, this is not a new relationship.

I commented. I said, “I feel like the DNA is changing and it was just so powerful.” And so, I bring this up to illustrate how important it is to understand the protective mechanisms at hand and how they will block intimacy. That’s my biggest point I want to make today is when we look at all of these protective strategies, if we understood the history and where these strategies were developed and the environment that they were developed in, it would make sense. And we would have compassion and understanding for that experience. If we could have accessed the ability to see all of the parts and the process when I feel scared or when you turn away and I don’t know where you went, I feel panic. I feel scared. It hurts. And then, what I tend to do is I get frustrated, I get angry, and I come to you to try to explain or describe the situation. And all that’s visible is that frustration, anger and explaining. So, it would make sense that those deeper parts were not seen. So, when we can have access to this, that starts to open up a whole new and this is where the reprocessing comes into play, a whole new way of experiencing and relating with the emotion that’s on the inside.

Okay. I just want to say. Even as I’m describing this, I’m catching myself. The way that I’m describing it sounds like it just happens, right? And so, it can be really deceptive to listen to this description and think, “Oh, right. It’s just about getting vulnerable and about dropping the veil and showing the insides and then it just happens.” Well, I also want to say that in any given session, I’ll get blocked. Meaning, there are protection strategies, whether or not it’s by the person that’s talking about their own experience or whether or not it’s in responding to their partner. “I don’t trust you. That doesn’t line up with what I experienced.” Or, “I can’t trust that. I’m scared to trust that. It’s been so different for me. I’m scared to let my guard down.” Or even just the accessing the vulnerability, right? There’s been so much patterning that’s disconnected and it doesn’t feel safe.

I could get blocked multiple times. Like, 15-20 times in one session. And so, part of this is just really staying with the process and knowing that those protections, again, make sense, those survival strategies. And that when we protect what’s underneath, it’s so tender and so sensitive, and we would want that to be protected. Especially when we look at the history, the pain, and the trauma, and the upset, and the injury, and the betrayal. Yeah, like we do protect ourselves. And so, it’s like, how do we start to lay our swords down so we can really meet in the safe place and really see each other. Lots of unpacking and taking risks and building trust and building safety. Also, one other huge point I want to make. It’s also being regulated and finding our balance.

I am super excited to be able to share an interview that’s going to be coming up very soon with Deb Dana, who is also one of the great contributors in the field of polyvagal work. She is known to be the translator for Dr. Steven Porges because he is such a scientific, academic research- based mind that she really helps a lot of this material be super accessible.

One of the things that she’s talking about in our interview is it is extremely, if not impossible, that once we’re in that threatened state to access the vulnerability to have a constructive conversation where we can be intimate and really reveal. Those are, again, grossly competing needs that there’s no way to access that. So, the real goal would be at least 20 minutes to calm the system whether or not that’s going for a walk or breathing or journaling or dancing or going for a run. Whatever it is to really calm the system down.

In the process of doing this work of being able to look at the patterns of disconnect in the relationship, when we start to look at the moves that we make, or our protective tendencies or strategies, or our protesting, right, these are the things that we do, our tendencies, our behaviors, and also how we interpret our partner, right? This all is a dance that happens. We really want it to be a connection dance versus a disconnect dance. But when we look at these protective moves, this is what survival looks like. This is all the times that it wasn’t safe. This is the practice lewd experience being visible.

We just really want to bring consciousness and awareness to this because so often people in partnership think that their significant other is making a choice or is being a jerk or doesn’t care. I’m going to give some examples, and I will try to move through this quickly because I know we don’t have a ton of time because I do want to give you just some bullet point things to think about as we’re looking at how accessing and cultivating vulnerability is difficult in relationship.

Some of the protective tendencies perhaps are people pleasing. And oftentimes, clients that struggle with this were in an environment where their needs were not considered as much. Whether or not the parent had their own mental health stuff that they were dealing with, perhaps even alcoholic or had big emotions. And the child right now, as we fast forward, the adult, learned to take care of the parent, or people please. Right? So, if I can keep everyone else taken care of then that will make the world safer. Makes perfect sense.

And there could be a lot more that contributes to this. This can be infused with the environment of various levels of abuse, of neglect, of pain and hardship on any level of any spectrum here. So, I just want to say that this is not pure. I’m just giving you some things to think about as we’re naming some of these protective strategies. Again, make sense. Right?

Another one would be numbing out. So, this could be really feeling overwhelmed when invited into connection, or feeling attraction and feeling the opportunity for bonding. I have a client that comes to mind. She’s talked a lot about not really having in her upbringing this sense of being seen and valued and validated. She was always told to go to her room, go deal with it on yourself. She was almost even blamed. “You’re too sensitive. You’re too emotional.” There’s a lot around this but she’s learned to kind of separate herself and dole down her emotion. And that if she pretends that she doesn’t care, then it’s safer. Makes sense.

Even getting angry and reacting is a protective strategy. And again, sometimes what’s underneath that is immense fear or pain. Many people have this fear of abandonment. We’re always on this brink of, “I might lose you” and that threat. And so, we react. We protest. We can get loud and really try to get some level of engagement. But again, this can block the vulnerability.

Hiding is another one. Again, emotions were not seen. I was told to go to my room. I learned to hide. I learned to manipulate. I wasn’t supported. I wasn’t seen. I learned to turn inwards. Nobody was really for me. I learned to rely on myself.

We can get resistant. And that’s another form of blocking vulnerability. Maybe this is a mistrust, right? “I’ve tried to be vulnerable in the past with you and you’ve disregarded it or you’ve made it less than or dismissed it.” “You’re being ridiculous.” Or, “It’s not that big of a deal.” This can be extremely painful when we try to take a risk or we’ve experienced somebody being preoccupied or distracted and not really taking that time to give that response.

Another way that we might protect, and thus block the vulnerability process. Again, for the sense of survival and safety, we might deny. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t have feelings.” And they might change the subject or just talk about all the content of the situation without real regard of their position or their pain.

I’ve had many people will claim, “I don’t really do emotions.” or “I’m not that emotional.” And yes, true to be said that there are people who move more through the world through their emotional self over people who move more through their intellect and to be claiming void of emotion. Very much usually, this is a protective strategy.

And again, sometimes in this stance, we’ve learned whether or not again, it’s from very difficult circumstances, having an alcoholic family, or having to really absorb and negotiate a lot of toxicity. We don’t really matter. I didn’t know if we’ve been just surviving. It’s tremendous.

And being stressed, busy, tired. Those are all ways that we can protect against this vulnerability. It reminds me of Orit’s episode just recently about dance therapy. She is talking about a client who would have this tendency with her significant other, I think her husband, and they would be carving out time to make love and have sexual intimacy together. She would start talking a lot and being super chitty chatty that would really disrupt her ability to land. There was some trauma. So, Orit was really talking about working through trauma and being able to process so that there can be healing and then more capacity to open up to intimacy.

Another last one I want to mention. There are many but this is just a couple that I work with and are common is this independent stance that I have not known people to be reliable for many reasons. The internal meaning is that people aren’t really available. “They’re not really there for me. I have to rely on myself.” That’s where I know that I can have my own back and I won’t be disappointed.

As you can see and as we’re discussing how human it is for us to protect and how this gets in the way of accessing vulnerability and being responding to another’s vulnerability. There’s a lot of things that can get really in the way. I want to leave you with a few things to consider if you’re having difficulty and feeling unsuccessful in cultivating vulnerability in your relationship.

Number one is to get support. As I mentioned, our protective strategies make sense. Oftentimes, we are not fully conscious of them, which makes it difficult to work with. And so, getting support will allow that safety to work with those fears, those protection strategies both individually for both partners, as well as look at the disconnect pattern, the pattern of protection that creates a disconnect in the relationship. That’s just as important as the individual process of working with those blocks, so to speak.

What this also does is it helps create safety by reprocessing people have an experience of feeling safe and seen with another. It’s experiential. Hence, it’s giving an experience of safe relating that people can then replicate. The more iteration and the more we practice, the more we get this in our physiological, again experiential selves, and we can start to feel safe and rely on it and practice it.

The second point I want to mention which I’ve already talked about is just the process of accessing vulnerability underneath. And again, this can come from working with a trained professional. It can also work with really doing some self-discovery deep dive work around fears and noticing protection and also being gentle and kind around how it makes sense. Again, this person when we look at relationship means a lot to you. The relationship likely means a lot. And so, the capacity to get hurt or feel injured or betrayed or experience loss, it’s huge. Again, so those protection strategies make sense.

Number three is to create safety in the relationship. There’s so much that I could still say about this. I know I’ve done other podcasts around the importance of safety and how to create that. I actually don’t have any to reference offhand but if you do a search on my website, I’m certain you will come up with several. In Steven Porges’ interview, he’s helping us understand that when we are in an arousal state, which is the fight or flight, and we’re trying to work with a threat, that we will likely misunderstand the physiological state of someone else. Their facial expressions and their voice, we might misinterpret.

I participated in a couple’s conference over this last weekend. Stan Tacton was one of the keynote speakers who’s been on the show, the Impaired Relationship Podcast. He was really helping as clinicians really recognize the importance of how false and incorrect our memory is when it comes to relationship and reconstructing what actually happened. I think I’m going to invite him back to the show and maybe he could do a whole piece to really help us really unpack and lay out how this works, because so often, we think we’re right and we’re not. And again, just see with the safety and relationship is the importance of getting regulated, and that the skills will not work when we’re activated.

So again, that’s where getting some really great support will really help with all of these. Unpacking and accessing vulnerability, creating safety, and the fourth is prioritizing the call and response.

The call, the response. When those are happening and its reciprocal, likely the relationship is going to be successful.

Again, when emotions get high or there’s hurt feelings, or there’s triggers, we start to protect ourselves. And those signals get interrupted. Whether or not we interrupt them by trying to hide or again, how we might protect our own vulnerability, or how those signals get interrupted when the receiver is protecting. So, it can happen on both ends. Again, check out that podcast on Gottman’s bids. Because we’re really looking at is there any part of me, even if I feel defensive or I feel threatened, is there any part of me that can respond or can take this in?

I’ll also put another podcast. I don’t want to overwhelm you. It feels like I’m giving homework or something. That’s not my intention. I just want you to have all the information and support that would help you in this territory because it is immense. I will also put a link to Episode #220 – How to Reconnect Emotionally with Your Significant Other. This is really that process of reconnecting when we’ve gotten off track emotionally.

The fifth and last point that I really want to iterate again is this practice that we don’t just respond once. It’s this percentage of responding. That’s for the life of the relationship that we’re nurturing a bond. We don’t stop eating food because we ate one meal. We need to eat and nourish our body with nutrients on a consistent basis. The health and the wellness of our relationship depends on this responsiveness. We want to just really recommend that it’s a forever consistent process, which I get can be inconvenient, can feel difficult at times, or feel like we don’t really want to. It’s not 100% but if we’re looking at nurturing the person that matters the most to us and our relationship mattering so much to us, that this is really where it’s at.

This feels a little cliche to bring up so I apologize and it is in my heart and it’s in my mind, so I’m going to mention it. It might be just that my husband is so heavily focused on supporting people in the process of grief. That’s just so much of the world that he’s in. I often am hearing him talk about different aspects of his work and supporting people through grief companioning. When we look at our life, or perhaps that we are confronting death and look at our life as it’s been, most people and I believe that there’s research to support this, wish that they would have spent more time appreciating, attending, and participating in the bonds that matter the most – the relationships. As well as expressing their feelings, their true feelings.

And again, I have the utmost respect for how this is difficult, scary, and painful. Again, if you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com. Click on podcast and you can find today’s episode. Again, #273 – How to Handle the Concern of Vulnerability Not Working in Relationship.

If this episode has been helpful, would you be willing to write a rating and review, a couple sentences around your experience with this podcast. It would help grow the show. It would help support the show. And it would mean so much to hear from you.

If you have any questions on how to leave a rating and review, you can access the contact page. Again, DrJessicaHiggins.com. Reach out to me or Kavita, she’s my assistant. We will help support you on how to leave a rating and review.

Thank you for listening. And until next time. I hope you take great care.

Signing Off

If you have a topic you would like me to discuss, please contact me by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon, if you purchase the book from this link.