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Feeling unseen and misunderstood in your closest relationship can be one of the loneliest experiences, even when surrounded by family and friends. It's not uncommon for couples to fall into patterns of projection, reactivity, and defensiveness, leaving genuine intimacy and deep connection feeling just out of reach. How do we move from these cycles of blame and distance towards the kind of secure, transformative partnership that brings true accompaniment, dignity, and joy?

In this episode, you are invited to slow down and explore new pathways to presence and connection. Through practical tools, guided reflection, and insights rooted in transformative couples therapy, you’ll discover ways to move beyond automatic reactivity and habitual defense, and instead cultivate curiosity, somatic awareness, and genuine intimacy. Whether you’re looking to strengthen trust, improve communication, or rekindle the spark in a long-term bond, this conversation offers powerful guidance for anyone seeking more clarity, care, and lasting growth in their relationships.

Since 2008, Dr. David Mars has been the developer of Transformative Couples Therapy® (TCT). He leads seminars and training programs internationally on TCT. Affective neuroscience and attachment research are central to this experiential, somatically attuned, and positivity-based method. Currently, Dr. Mars is also the leader of a three-year project to quantify the results of TCT in preparation to offer published research on outcomes of the method. He is the Director of the Transformative Couples Therapy® Institute.

Episode Highlights

03:39 The impact of curiosity and projections in long-term relationships.

08:32 How attachment styles form early in life and opportunities for change.

10:05 The importance of somatic awareness, attunement, and slowing down in relationships.

15:42 Gender, stress, and the emotional costs of disconnection.

17:48 Strategies for setting boundaries and cultivating safe communication.

23:14 Transformation and growth through the I-Thou relationship.

24:43 Daily practices and the seven channels of experience in couples therapy.

29:49 Awareness of energetic imprints and somatic patterns from early life.

31:15 Navigating and embracing partner differences in relationships.

34:43 The role of journaling, self-regulation, and reverence in relational health.

40:57 Somatic-based modalities, resources, and generativity in relationships.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

• Begin your conversations or sessions with your partner by sharing something you appreciate about each other to set a positive tone.
• Take a deep inhale and exhale together to ground yourselves and invite presence before important discussions.
• Communicate your feelings and needs using “I” statements to promote vulnerability and reduce defensiveness.
• Speak directly to your partner, not just about them or through a third party, to foster a genuine connection.
• Notice and share your body sensations (like a tight chest or warm hands) during emotional exchanges to heighten self-awareness and attunement.
• Approach your partner with genuine curiosity and try to witness their experience, rather than making assumptions or projecting your own perspective.
• If either partner feels overwhelmed or unresourced, honor the need to pause and agree on a time to revisit the conversation.
• Tune into the seven channels—sensation, emotion, energy, movement, auditory, visual, and imaginal—to enrich both your self-awareness and your communication with your partner.

Mentioned

Martin Buber (Britannica link) (biography)

I-Thou (*Britannica link)

The I-Thou Relationship and Unconditional Positive Regard (*Psychology Today)

Carl Rogers (*Wikipedia link) (article)

The 1957 Martin Buber-Carl Rogers Dialogue, as Dialogue (*Sage Journals) (study)

Beatrice Beebe (*Wikipedia link) (article)

*John Bowlby (*Wikipedia link) (article)

*John Beebe (*Wikipedia link) (article)

12 Relationship Principles to Strengthen Your Love (free relationship guide) (pdf)

Connect with David Mars

Websites: tctinstitute.org

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/transformative-couples-therapy

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Email: [email protected]

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Episode Transcript

David, thank you for joining us. 

Oh, you're welcome. I'm very glad to be here. 

Yes, I know we are privileged to have your time and all that you do and all that you've created. And I know we're going to be talking about a specific topic today and then also learning a little bit more about your work in the world. As we talk about the I-thou Relationship and practicing presence. I'm curious, for people just getting to know you, where would you like to start, around how this became of interest? And I know that could probably be many episodes to cover your background and your story, but what would you like people to know about how this fits with your work? 

Yeah, well, thank you for the question. You know, the “I Thou Relationship” is to be quite profound. A part of it is that I've been married. Come July, I'll be married 40 years. 

Congratulations. 

I'm the same person in the sense that we're both evolving. We're both going through molting periods of our lives, of course, different seasons of our Lives, different challenges. I find that the “I-Thou“ perspective is so helpful to stay alive, to stay present, to be ongoing curious about her internal world. And even though we've been together for so many years, 42 years in all,

We don't need to project and projections, of course, one of the areas that people can get lost in and begin to get into blame or a feeling of being devalued, not understood. And the seeing and being seen, knowing and being known are so profoundly important for human dignity and for the sense of being valued, the sense of feeling accompanied. 

And all of these, I think in couples, are so important because it's very possible to be very lonely in a one-to-one relationship, even with children, even with, you know, family, friends, or whatever. But the primary bond issue to me is so important for lifelong transformative opportunities. 

Absolutely. And in connection, we are wired up, I believe, our nervous systems, our emotional attuning to feel the difference of someone maybe having an assumption, a projection, an agenda, or just thinking they know and that is palpable versus the coming to that interaction from a place of wondering, interest, curiosity, aim to be in this place of witness, being seen as you're describing that. Would you agree? 

Oh, totally. It's so true. And I think that instinct to perceive being dismissed, perceive being minimized and shut out from being known by our own word, by our own hand, so to speak, to feel that we have a chance to be known by our partner is so essential to a sense of accompaniment and presence. But also, 

That is a devaluing position some people can get stuck in. 

Yes. And when you're describing the history that you and your wife have together. My husband and I are 19 years old, not married 19, but together 19. And he still will give me feedback that if I'm reflectively listening in an attempt to genuinely understand, but my perception is different than his experience, he will tell me that, depending on the circumstances, it could be as far as like, oh, you're twisting my words, to I didn't say that. Or that's not. And so it's really clear feedback. And I think couples are negotiating this. And one thing that seems really important is that it's difficult to slow this down because I think our protective strategies are so quick to intervene, or when we feel threatened. And how do you help people access the I-thou approach? 

I like the question for me, in couples therapy, every session starts with gratitude. So, I do a meditation that I lead from that's invented. It's. It's fresh every time. It's improvisational, about three minutes long. And it's based on the last sessions, commitments that the couples made to each other. And speaking of, what do you want with your partner?  

So one way is to have couples talk directly to each other. So every session, I'm asking the couple to speak to each other, not me. Some sparks for conversation, for deepening conversation as a couple. But I do want you to talk to each other, not me. 

And in the process of speaking to each other, see each other, hear each other, sense each other, and speak in somatically rich language. So I could say, okay, so what's that like to hear that George is really appreciating how attentive you've been, how calm you've been. And the partner says, That's nice. I said, What kind of nice? You tell, please tell George how kind of nice that is for you. And to be told if it touches my heart or I feel seen, or I feel known, or I feel grateful that you are remembering me. And that is so much deeper than that feels nice. When a couple gets that kind of a lively, embodied response back and forth at home between sessions, it allows them to keep on growing their neural networks, to become more fluent and the dimensions of being human. 

It's all of us on this planet who have been raised by humans who were imperfect beings in certain ways and had strengths and weaknesses. And what we know from Beatrice Baby's work, for example, is that by age four months already, it's possible to know the baby's attachment style, being just ambivalent or resistant or being avoidant or being securely attached or being disorganized attached at 16 weeks of age. And this, to me, is revolutionary, because what it tells me is that before we can remember consciously, we've already formed, already been formed for the environment, the mother, infant, relationship. And our equipment package for life is really set in place. And how do we change that? Because there's research that indicates that by age 27, about 70% of people will still be where they were at a year of age developmentally.

I don't mean that. I mean developmentally, I mean in their attachment style. Yes, pattern, but not in stone. Yes. If we're with a partner who is more securely attached than ourselves, lucky us, because we really do grow with that person. Another change factor that can really make a difference, going beyond the original insecure pattern or the level of security, is to keep growing through couples therapy. For example, particularly a somatically rich couples therapy where the early baby experience of being seen by the moment, hearing and being heard by the mom, not words but cries or laughter or a whimper or even a need to be given some space that the adult mind is still recrafting what was formed at 16 weeks of age. 

Yes, like the baby brain, a tremendous amount of learning opportunity and neuroplasticity. And I love for people who are just listening to the podcast here, when I'm observing your gesturing and just this exchange, this back and forth, and how alive this dynamic and that we are, that responsiveness, that attunement is so important. And as you're describing in a therapeutic setting, not only the tone that you're setting through the meditation and focus of gratitude, but the invitation to pay attention and slow down to the somatic or the body sensation, but to be in the experience of turning towards one another, looking at each other's microfacial expressions. I mean, not that they're fully aware of all those details, but they lived and the real imprint of responding to that real and being in a bit more clarity around what matters and deepening in the vulnerability of that the invitation to be really present to what I notice and how it matters to me? 

It's lovely. I really appreciate your language in this, and I feel, on the personal side, my wife and I are both therapists. She focuses more on individuals; I focus more on couples. We're both faculty. I'm a director of my own institute, the TCT Institute or Transformative Couples Therapy Institute. She is with the AEDP Institute. And we both have our pressures, we both have our demands to edit video, to teach, to be online, to travel and to do all that means we need to really work on our integrity of our relationship communication, the arrivals and the leavings and all the other elements that can lead to competitiveness or misunderstanding or one up, one down dynamics, which are so uncomfortable and to keep on being humble enough to notice. Am I really using I statements? 

Am I really authentically being vulnerable in my communication enough to say not just that's nice, but this is how I'm touched by you, or this is how I'm feeling, actually a little irritated, and it's my irritation? You didn't do it to me, but I'm having it. Can speak of it skillfully, and she can hear me. Then 

Absolutely. I mean, it's one of the ways, I imagine, I will say for my own practice with my husband that I have many practices that allow me to be in my own integrity, but relationally, that's of high value. And to be in that practice together allows me to exist differently when I'm in that flow or in contact. Because there's a lot of research around when we're disconnected or feeling that aloneness or feeling the conflict, and again, that disconnection has a great impact on us as social animals. 

Yes, it's so true. And especially about being female. I don't know if you know this, but you may know it circumstantially or by research; I'm not sure, but women are far more likely to become impaired in their autonomic nervous system and to get stress-related illnesses than men are. It's very sad to me, very sad that there's a certain vulnerability being female that is no doubt partly genetic but also partly due to the sensitization process of being a mother, perhaps having a female nervous system, and actually being more endowed with developmental characteristics that mature earlier than the male counterpart. The male counterpart. I, having come from a family with four brothers, felt sorry for my mom. She's got all these 10 energies running around. She never complained. She really enjoyed us. 

But the wear and tear of a male psyche or five male psyches, and six, including my father. Oh my gosh, that's a lot to bear for one nervous system and to be human and to be stressed, particularly in the area of loneliness, feeling misunderstood, feeling a lack of adequate justice and fairness and balance. I feel my sadness as I'm speaking because it is so common in the world, and the possibility of developing lupus or developing some issue to do with a thyroid or some issue to do with chronic fatigue or chronic pain is so heightened by being female perspective as well. 

Yeah, I mean, the thing that's coming up, I would agree. And also just evolutionarily, how often, whether or not this is partly supported by our environment, and also the genetic component of being a bit more tribal or networked, even in adolescence. I think there's research around that there's so much learning and shaping around prioritizing the relational connections in friend networks that they will actually suppress any of the conflicts because they're prioritizing those bonds. And so if we look at the priority of those bonds and how that is so connected to our sense of livelihood or well-being, these relational ruptures or disconnections can have a huge impact, especially in a. As you talk about the fast-paced modern living where we are. High demands, high distractions don't give us as many opportunities for this depth of connecting. 

And I noticed when you were speaking about if you're really not being heard and kind of having your hands over your heart, to be able to be selectively receptive is so precious.

And if our partner is in a mood to be able to say, wait, I don't want to go further talking about this now. 

I'm feeling agitation building in me, feeling some fatigue happening in me maybe, but I don't want to talk about it in the place I'm in right now, I don't feel resourced enough. Let's talk later. Let's definitely talk about this topic, but later. And I do want to make time with you to talk. If I can't do it, then I'm going to do it another time. But let's negotiate how to complete this conversation. 

Okay, so to that point, I'm interested in whether we're genderizing this a little bit and just the kind of evolutionary, cultural influences. I've often heard more of the male experience being a bit more physical, being physically a little bit more aware of surroundings, and being bonded together. And that perhaps there can be a little bit more conflict that's tolerated, and then just kind of we trust we're okay, and we can squash it and let it go. Is this the same care provided? 

Do you feel like, I mean, I think what you're talking about is a level of awareness around perhaps a system, whether or not it's gender or not, but just as one system that's sensitive to those relational cues, even if they can say, in my mind, I know you're upset and it's okay, but to care like, oh, I don't know That I have extra charge around this that I need to kind of really express. I want to be a little bit more resourced as I do this. Thoughts? 

What I want to say is that the ability to say not now is a freedom that can really calm the nervous system immensely. I had 22 years in my practice, my clinical practice in my office of using really sensitive biofeedback equipment and the biopynthic equipment measured heart rate, breathing rate, type and depth, neurosis of arousal based on sweat glands, changes in muscle tension, heart rate, variability related to breathing, and that rsa, the respiratory sinus arrhythmia, which is healthy when it's co varying with the heart, can be very disrupted by a feeling of unsafety. It's compressed, and there isn't that relaxation response in every out breath. My heart isn't getting too slow after every out breath that we end up becoming more compromised. How do I become free? I can be free by setting some limits. 

Sometimes I need to take care of myself. But also to say, 

Yes, because I'm likely to feel a little defensive. Even if I really am trying to understand you, it's really hard for me to maneuver against what feels like criticism or attack. Okay, this is so valuable and I'm just wanting to say for myself and listeners that I work with a lot of male clients individually around relational concerns and there is such a longing to have this connection and this way of relating with the integrity and the intentionality that you're describing and that perhaps their partner is expressing a lot of reactivity isn't necessarily practicing the things you're describing. Now, how do you help people? I know I already asked this question, but if they're in patterns of reactivity or not having this intentional safe space where they're taking responsibility using I statements. Is there anything you want to encourage around how to set this up? 

What I mean is, because you gave us a bit about gratitude and centering and meditation, and I guess one other thing to add, I know this is a lot, but the I-Thou. Is there a spiritual component to the “thou”? 

Well, it depends on how far you take it. Buber's intention in his 50 years and largely in Israel, writing as a kind of philosopher, religious philosopher, he deeply influenced humanistic psychology and existential psychology. Carl Rogers, among others. Yalom the I-thou perspective is profound because the alternative is I-it is instrumental. You do this, I do that. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, but it has no quality of depth. And that sense of reaching into oneself to know the other and to make space for the other to exist as they truly are. But even to be a partner that leaves room for the partner to discover himself or herself. How do I know myself? It's through knowing another. And the neural network experiences evolve our minds through interaction with another human, particularly a lifelong partner. 

And some people believe that it's not possible to have a partner, a lifelong partner, same sex or heterosexual, who is a friend who shares the mortgage, even a best friend who has a sexual life with as a partner. And is it possible to do this with one person? It's not possible. It's too much. But to me it's totally possible. But it is really a reach to build that and maintain that. It's like tending a garden. There's always something that needs watering or pruning or some way that. There's a kind of necessity to keep weeds and pests from invading the garden. Those are habits from past generations even or from circumstances that become very limiting about how much I can relax to be present in myself. So my sense is that intentionality is so hugely important. 

I want you to want to know me and…

Yes, David, I'm getting a sense as you're describing that what you're encouraging is expansive versus what we're a bit more habituated to. And there is some of the, I would say, just human tendency of automating for conserving energy that can work against this, but that can be contracted or reduced. And even as you said in the beginning with your wife, that there's been evolution in both of you individually, and then also in your relationship, I will raise my hand. And that's been my experience too. And that possibly even in this I thou I may learn or contact parts of myself that I wasn't fully aware of or living into if I'm being presenced in this very attentive way that I might not access either on my own or without that I thou connection. 

That's so true, and part of what I love about the long-term relationship perspective is that there are seasons of our lives that are difficult, there are those that are activating, and there are even alienating each other. And to have repair around them is so healing and so powerfully moving us into other dimensions of transformation. And what else are we on the planet for if not to grow and transform and be our greatest selves? We can be our greatest meaning, most coherent, most connected, most aware, and most able to bring peace. And particularly if we have children in our lives, see us being relationally integrous and naming our feelings, speaking who we are, and for the children to know. Mom likes Dad likes. 

You know, in sex same sex marriages as well that there's a liking of each other and a loving of each other that's essentially respectful. And the children thrive in this with very low anxiety because this is the dream of life. And the reality when people are really consciously attending to each other with respect. The “I” statements are part of that respect. 

Thank you. Do you find that if one is intending to relate from this, I-thou, that it would offer more capacity or call them into more skillfulness? 

I do, I do. And natural spontaneous growth of neural networks that have not been grown before. And what I find so compelling is that the possibility, even if a couple is not in psychotherapy, even though not in couples therapy, to meditation, for example, to meditate together. My wife and I, whenever we can, meditate in the morning together, even as briefly as 10 minutes. And I find that energetic bonding, even though we're not interacting during that meditation, is a wonderful way to start the day. It is a secure base beginning in each of us. And then we're going on to our days, each of us in a way that's fortified with consciousness and a sense of being humble, a sense of being present. And that longing for the well-being of others is really part of the meditation experience for me and for many people. 

And the longing for the other to be fully who they are can be so much nutritive to ourselves. It's like enlightened self-interest. 

Yes. And it sounds like a real acknowledgment. And not only is it the shared partnership, but also the real space for the expression of one another. 

Yeah. 

It is so rich and deep and dynamic. 

Yeah. An exciting way to live to me. Well, to add. One of the dimensions of transformative couples therapy is the seven channels of experience. Some couples therapies focus on emotion. That's the holy grail. Want to get to emotion. And in truth, from my point of view, we are not just emotional beings. We have sensation capacities. We have movement, awareness, and Capacities. We have auditory capacities. We have the capacity to be energetically aware of our environment. We have the capacity to be imaginal and to have very rich internal imaginal dreams, like waking dreaming. A way to conceive of what we want in life together. So sensation, emotion, energy, movement, auditory, visual, and imaginal. Seven channels. And if we grow these, we will naturally become more profoundly able to know ourselves vertically, to know our partners horizontally. In other words, from me to you in this space. 

But if I know myself and what my experience is, I can speak of it with authority. I don't mean domination authority, but I know what I'm talking about. This is how I feel in my gut or in my belly or in my heart. And I want you to know me. If I only know how to track emotion, I'm a little handicapped because maybe I'm not. That's not what I'm responding to. It's the energetic vibing I'm getting totally. 

And I think that when people are expressing themselves, some people speak in metaphor, like it reminds me of this. Or, you know, I think we naturally are living into these different channels. So I appreciate you laying this out. The more coherent or the clearer we can be in our contact or developing awareness in these seven different channels that we have a knowing of self, and also can express or send a clear signal to another. Is that right? 

Oh, yes. 

Okay. 

Well, what I particularly appreciate is that all of us have been crimped in certain ways by our life experiences. Crimped, meaning a reduction of awareness. For example, in many therapists that I train, half of my work is training therapists and developing training programs with therapists. We're a couple's therapist. The other half is seeing couples. In my direct practice, and even among psychotherapists, many of them have not really known the energetic channel. They've been so focused on emotion. But the truth is, the more the energetic channel opens in us as awareness, we can actually convey it. And so I'm in sessions, and often I'll get some sort of awe state experience. I'm having awe, having tingles in my body, and energetic flowering of movement of energy, chills, essentially goosebumps. And I say, is anybody else having this? 

Usually, one or the other or both will have that experience even though we're online, which is, to me, quite miraculous. It is normal and replicable. And yet if I don't ask the question, is anybody having this energetic experience? The question never gets answered because it's not something that's at the top of mind. 

What's your energy level? As we're describing that there could be something shared or connected around that, it allows for development if we're able to express and connect, and have resonance around. In my PhD program, I actually did my first. I don't think very many people know this. I was setting out to study energy psychology, and I got deterred big time from all of my professors and mentors, because it was too difficult to measure, it was too difficult to quantify, and thus did not continue that path. And I'm grateful. I mean, couples is such a love of mine, and it's something that perhaps we don't have as much support to have language around or access around. 

The paradox is that it can be thought to be too woo correct that too energy. And yet, without energy right now, I would be on the floor dead. 

And to be aware of, for example, one of the pieces I just love is this piece from Beatrice Beebe in research with infant-mother relationship, that when the mother overlooms over the baby and looming into the baby's space, not taking cues to back off, they can get frantic and need this energetic space. This is a baby who's never read a book, obviously, at 4 months of age, about energy. But they need that space to feel like they've got space enough to breathe and be present and be comfortable. 

And a securely attached mother will notice the baby averting his or her eyes or looking downward or pulling back, and just give room. Not pull back, also, but just being there, present, but not leaning over the crib, so to speak, in the baby's face. All that is such an imprint. For example, people who are more in a pattern of avoidant attachment often had a combination of rejection experiences, not being met in those first 16 weeks of life and beyond, but also being loomed over and being the pleaser of me. Like you, please me. 

Yeah. Intruded on or yes, and intruded upon. 

That partner later in life as an adult. In the saying, I hear exactly what you're saying with a hand up, like back off. I hear you, but I don't want this much energy directed to me now that you're up in my grill. I've heard before, like wow, that's a real cue that that imprint about energy, maybe being too much, is what a gift for the partner to know if I do back off and give some room, speak more slowly, with less intensity, with less emotionality perhaps, and just be less dramatic. But say this is what I'm trying to say, I just want you to hear me. And that humbleness of giving space can give the partners more tending toward avoidant attachment room to actually breathe, take in, respond, be collaborative, and suddenly they can be at peace. So there could have been a real missile response. 

Yes, yes. I mean, this has been something I've, you know, in the early phases of my relationship with my husband, negotiated. I use more words than he does. I am quicker in my pacing and am expressive and all the things. And so it could be easy without the information around what's on the insider to have that understanding of, oh, I am feeling overwhelmed, or this feels like a lot, and I'm wanting to respond. And yet the kind of hand gesture, you're getting to not interpret that as I don't care, not interested, don't want to do this. Those things that I typically did at the time. And yet if we're in service of connecting, ultimately I do want him to engage and to be sharing space that he's giving preference and weighing in around what supports his nervous system. 

I do care about that. I do wanna show up for that. And then we can get into more of this collaborative state. It was a bumpy road in the beginning. 

It was for us too. It's a lot to navigate and particularly because 

And yet in the alchemical process of it, if I can learn to tolerate my partner's differences, which still goes on today after 42 years of living together and being partners, that if I can tolerate our differences and even enjoy them and savor them, now that's a real talent. 

Like, okay, it's not for us to be matching, it's us to be understanding and making a kind of a tongue and groove, you might say, relationship that's flexible, not locked in, but is we actually fit together. Yeah. 

Oftentimes, if we're in this fast-paced life and we notice feelings of hurt feelings and we want to repair that, but we haven't slowed down to have an inquiry around what does this bring up for me? What am I feeling? And the seven channels of like, what am I noticing in my body? What do I feel energetically? These types of things that we might be in a more reactive state and try to approach or resolve that from the reactivity. And yet we could potentially offer so much more if we slow down and kind of find ourselves in those seven channels. 

There's a receptive space there that's provided if I'm prepared to interact and if I've actually consciously regulated myself. I think many people did not grow up with the perspective that I'm responsible for regulating my nervous system. I'm responsible for knowing myself and making room for you to know yourself in my presence. That's pretty high level. In fact, boys at kindergarten are well known in research to be looking for who's the top of the heap, who's the leader, who's the most important, who's the strongest, who has the most influence, while the girls are trying to get social connectivity, as you mentioned earlier. And that difference can be challenging to make room for. 

And in a life of heterosexual relating in that way of saying, well, I really do want to be communal with you, I do want to not dominate you, because that's not going to be good for either of us. And to feel like we can share power and share space is really good for the world and good for our children. 

And that has to be sometimes named perhaps that there is such a top or one-upping, one-downing that even if we're not intending to be competitive, that it can sometimes feel like we're fighting to get our way or our perspective to be heard or to be influenced. Like, that we're having influence over another when maybe both are true. Right? But we sometimes are so habituated or culturalized to think that there's only one. Right. And we might be primed for this more competitive stance. So I have two things that I'm thinking and I know we'll transition here. One is in the early stages. I actually would want my husband to be present while I process out loud. I am a little bit more of an extrovert, and he's more of an introvert. 

And I recognize somehow that, like, oh, okay, this is so much more productive if I can journal, and I don't need to do this anymore. But I did then, and really get all the layers and perhaps touch on some of these seven channels and give him a little bit more of the distilled. And he was so much more able to hear me and respond, rather than like going with me and all the different turns and corners. So it seems not that because I think even journaling can help regulate too, that I have found my ground a bit. 

What a gift to ourselves and our partner, and our children. Yeah. And our community. To have that self-knowledge doesn't require the other one to be with us. And all the little twists and turns of our processing. How generous to do that. 

No kidding. And perhaps that we can notice, oh, I'm feeling competitive right now, or I'm feeling like I really want to be right. That can be noticed and maybe even stated, and then we can revisit when we're in a place of being collaborative, and maybe we don't in a moment, and to kind of have the commitment that we're. I mean, there's a reverence, David, as you're describing this way of relating. There's a real reverence and caretaking for this relational space that we have such agency around. 

And I so agree with you. Well, I love your enthusiasm about it because of the experience, I think we have. I think you're about halfway to the 40-year point. 


No, I'm 50. 


I don't know. What I mean is 20 years together, is that correct? 


Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 


20 years together, am I right? 


Not quite, but 19. Yes. 


Yeah. The journey of it to me is so exciting because not only is it preparing me for someday passing on and hopefully passing away peacefully, but also for having grandchildren, hopefully. And being able to feel like the generativity of life is following on our highest intentions. That we can see our children interacting with each other and interacting with others or with their partners, because it gives us a sense of wow, what a joy to watch the next layer of life unfolding in front of us. 


It's so beautiful. Yes. Well, I want to give a little room here for you to share, and maybe you have been. But given that you developed and founded tct, you've mentioned a little bit. What would you like people to know about your modality? And just. I mean, I love the somatic and just what you're describing about having the information physiologically. There are so many aspects to. To what you're doing. 


Yeah. What I would love to invite people to do, and just came to me in our conversation, Jessica, is to go to the transformativecouplestherapy.com website and look at the videos on there. Look at the, you know, look at the education material about the work and about how to be. I love this one in particular. Getting older and getting better. To keep on growing ourselves toward retirement into retirement and to keep on feeling that our lives are not over when our children leave home, but that we are actually in a whole different growth spurt of life. And to recognize that's so powerful, particularly if we can maintain our relationship lovingly. The other thing is if you are a psychotherapist listening in or a couples therapist website, TCTinstitute.org, that you'll be able to see training programs and so on that are going on, and some of the effects of neuroscience spelled out there as papers and as podcasts on that website. Two websites could be visited. And the quality of being able to just learn what you want to learn is really exciting to me. Just to say I have a right to learn, I want to learn. And here's where I'm drawn. Sometimes it might go another way otherwise because the websites are quite developed and to feel like you've got that sense of resource. 


Yes. And this is where there's such an opportunity. And if, as you've so beautifully described the possibility, then you've done so much to lay the pathway and offer guidance that this doesn't have to be a mystery. 


I'm with you. I was just meeting earlier today with a group called a process group that I lead, and we were talking about the expression of the loving mother. I had a very loving mother, Molly. She passed away four months ago at 98. That Molly is such a loving being, still today in my heart. And this is really the conveyance of what I want to bring into the world is that loving energy that is so persistently durable right through her last day, her last hour of your loving nature feeling. This is really part of the gift I want to bring into the world that love, respect. My father of my father, of course, who's also passed on. 

But the dimension of the divine feminine is a loving, almost angelic presence of generosity so profound to have known and to want to be in the body, memory, and presence of. 


Yes. When you were describing your work in session, I felt as though you were connecting with that energy, if you will, to offer the container and the real intention that people can reference or model after or utilize, so that it means a bit of training wheels. Right. That we get that support to know that it's possible to get some experience looking at one another through that focused integrity and intention, that then can live into it outside a session. 


That's so true. Yeah. I mean, life is for living in the way that I have a hummingbird, two hummingbirds that come to the feeder outside here. And I'm so often aware of them and so grateful that I'm not a hummingbird. Their patterns are remarkably patterned, repetitive to me. That's my projection, I suppose. But 

No kidding. And the last thing I'll say here is that it feels, as you said, at any point in time that we can want this or be called or give room for this as a priority of growth, of having this loving relationship, and that we are wired up for it. Yes, we honor that you're offering a tremendous amount of guidance and support, and we can also access it. Okay, thanks so much. 

I'm so enjoying you, so appreciating your reflections and your presence, and so glad to be in the world with you. Jessica. 

Oh, thank you, David, and deeply honored for all that you're doing and the gift you've given the world and training others, and helping people again access your modality and everything you've shared here today. Thank you. 

Thanks so much.