ERP 189: How Being Selfish May Be The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Relationship, an Interview with Dr. Laura Dabney
Welcome to The Empowered Relationship Podcast, helping you turn relationship challenges into opportunities and setting you up for relationship success. Your host, Dr. Jessica Higgins, is a licensed psychologist and relationship coach who shares valuable tips, tools and resources for you to dramatically improve your relationship.
This podcast is 100% ad-free. To support this show, please subscribe and write a review today. Here is your host.
* * *
Hi, thank you for joining today’s podcast episode. Today’s episode is 189, “How being selfish may be the best thing you can do for your relationship”, an interview with Dr. Laura Dabney.
If you have been a consistent listener or the Empowered Relationship podcast, I’d love to hear from you around how these interviews are working for you. I realize up until about two months ago I have been the main person delivering the content on these episodes, and as of late, I have been having these conversations, interviewing other experts in the field; these are people that have reached out and wanted to be a guest on this show… And I’m just curious how it’s working for you. So you can email me directly, [email protected].
Before we get started in today’s episode, I’d love to ground with you in the intention of increasing the quality of our connection and our relationship, our significant partnership… Again, protecting that bond and doing what we can do to contribute to cultivating a deeper level of intimacy… And that requires us showing up more fully. And us showing up more fully does require a level of self-awareness, and we’re gonna be talking about that today with Dr. Laura Dabney.
I realize developing more self-awareness might be a new idea, or really cultivating that deeper understanding and emotional intelligence about our experience is something we haven’t put a lot of energy into… And yet still, more and more we’re learning how profound and important and critical it is to relationship, and ultimately sets us up to being more fully seen, and met, and understood, and helped by our significant other.
At the same time, I recognize that when we’re up against something that feels painful, threatening, scary, that this is hard… And I wanna say that I am in this with you, that I do my very, very best to practice these principles, integrate them, and walk the talk. And yes, at times I am scared. My knees are shaking, my chest is tight and my jaw is clenched, if I don’t wanna face something that feels painful, embarrassing, or that I’m ashamed of, or feel is unlovable.
I also am deeply, deeply committed to the transformational process of leaning in. I’ve done this enough to know that it works, and that the results are worth it, and that the hiding and withholding is not at all what I wanna cultivate… So today’s conversation is in support of this.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com click on Podcast, and you can find all of the episodes there. Again, today’s episode is 189, “How being selfish may be the best thing you can do for your relationship”, an interview with Dr. Laura Dabney. Let’s get started with today’s interview.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Dr. Laura Dabney has been a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach, VA for almost 20 years, and has treated patients in more than a dozen cities across Virginia. Her psychiatric expertise has been featured on radio podcasts, websites and in print media. She received her MD from Eastern Virginia Medical School, and has been board-certified in psychiatry. She has made a career of taking on psychiatry’s toughest challenges, all while ensuring the absolute privacy of powerful, high-profile clients.
Dr. Laura Dabney, thank you for joining us today!
Dr. Laura Dabney: I’m so glad to be here, thank you for asking me.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, it’s such a privilege to meet with other experts in the field of couples work, and it’s really unique that you’re a psychiatrist… And I just love that we have a different voice on the show. Can you give us a little bit about your perspective as a psychiatrist looking at couples, and couples’ issues, so to speak?
Dr. Laura Dabney: I’m kind of laughing, because it’s hard for me to describe myself on my websites and other places, because as you know, I’m sure your audience gets a little confused – psychologists typically do therapy, and psychiatrists typically prescribe medications… But I’m a psychiatrist who does mostly therapy. People are like “Well, you’re a psychiatrist, you give medication…” I do prescribe medications, but more in the context of therapy, sort of adjunct, or – for lack of a better word – Band-Aid… But I’ve also because of this context been known as the psychiatrist who takes people off medications.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Ooh, okay…!
Dr. Laura Dabney: So that’s interesting, yeah. As psychiatrists, we have four years of residency training after med school, and that’s where I learned all the different aspects of mental health – of course, medications, but also therapy. I just happen to be drawn to that more, and I just happen to find that more interesting.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, so it sounds like you happen to be a psychiatrist, which informs your perspective for sure in your training and in your expertise. So you can offer medication when you feel like it’s appropriate, or you feel like it’s very warranted… Although the primary bulk of your work is really therapeutic as far as the counseling aspect. Is that right?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, I also have a more body-oriented or somatic bent compared to psychologists, but I did rotate through all the different areas of medicine… So sometimes I can diagnose a thyroid problem as opposed to emotional problem, because they can overlap. So my first assessment is a little different than a psychologist, where I’m looking for anything that could possibly be a physiological contribution to the problem.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, I think that’s such a wealth of knowledge that people have with you, that not only do you have the training to assist in a more mental, emotional, behavioral realms, but also really having that deep, deep understanding of the physiological/medical perspective. It’s such a great blend, and it sounds like you’re able to catch things that maybe a psychologist or a counselor wouldn’t. That’s just a big bonus and huge gift that you can bring in your work.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, let’s pivot towards couples. How did you get interested in working with couples?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, that’s another funny story… I don’t realize how many ironies are in my work until I start talking to people, but — I really don’t work with couples; I actually help couples by working with individuals. What I say is I do couples therapy without the couple.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Gotcha.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Because people started coming in — I started by working without insurance companies; I don’t work with any insurance companies. So my first — going way back to the year 2000 when I opened my practice, in order to get word out, I had this amazing advertiser write up this ad in the newspaper… I’m dating myself terribly there, but in the newspaper there’s an ad that ran, and instead of saying “I don’t take insurance”, I said “Dedicated to patient privacy. I’ll never factor information off to a third-party etc.” All of a sudden I got all these executive professional men in my office.
Somehow, that privacy piece was really – especially back then – still very important to them. And what they were telling me about is they had these relationship problems, either with a spouse or significant other, but also with several adult children or teenage children. And because they were these golden boys, and could solve anything, and they were just “perfect” in their fields, they were just so embarrassed, terribly embarrassed that they couldn’t solve these relationship problems. It should be easy.
So this embarrassment and guilt that they weren’t able to figure out what to do with these people in their lives who they loved – this privacy piece really spoke to them. So I sort of developed this niche where these people come in and I help them figure out how to better their relationships.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that. It wasn’t even planned, it just organically arrived by your really choosing to not go through the insurance route, and do private pay, that people really saw that as an opportunity to work on some relational things that have been really nagging at them, that maybe they didn’t feel comfortable or didn’t feel like it was appropriate to go the insurance route and with a more traditional practitioner…
So what have you found? It sounds like there’s been an evolution with relationship concerns; is there something that you have found as being really common?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, the really moving part to me was that they were so embarrassed about not being able to get a grasp on this. They couldn’t even say to their spouses “We have a problem. We need to go into–” They didn’t wanna admit they had a problem at all. But what I was finding is either they were causing a problem they didn’t realize, or they weren’t effectively stopping a problem from their significant other or their child.
So in that realm, they’re able to solve the problem themselves. Either they’ve got to learn to cut back or decrease this problem that they’re causing, or that they need to put up effective boundaries against what the people were doing. So that led to this whole — that their approach was to either try to change the other person, or just ignore it and almost be like a slave. “I’ll just do whatever they want. If I do whatever they want, they’ll be happy. If I change them, then they’ll be happy and I’ll be happy.” But what they weren’t doing is focusing on themselves. They weren’t able to even say what their emotion was about the problem.
Here’s an example of one of my couples – he came in and said wife was no longer intimate with him, and he kept telling her “You need to go to the doctor. There’s something wrong with you.” He would set up doctor’s appointments for her, and he couldn’t understand why this wasn’t working, but “Only if she got help for this, then she would be happy, and he would be happy.” I said “Well, how do you feel about the fact that she is not intimate with you anymore?” “Well, I think she’s wrong. I think she’s frigid. I think she’s this, I think she’s that.” I had to literally walk him through and give him feeling words to pick from: sad, angry… He finally picked “sad.” Okay, so “How is the discussion going with your wife about this sadness?” “Well, I can’t tell her.” There’s this whole other part, where “Well, why can’t you tell her? How is she going to know if you don’t tell her?” “She’ll be so hurt. She does so much for our children. She’s so busy.”
I’m simplifying it greatly, but this whole retraining of a) being able to name their emotion, and b) being able to effectively communicate that. So then she’ll know he’s hurt/sad, and that will motivate her to make some changes. But that’s the whole thing in a nutshell, and that’s where the whole selfish thing — I would say you need to focus on you, and they’d go “Well, that’s selfish.” Well, yes, it is. What’s wrong with that? And that’s where we go down that path.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Such a great breakdown of this — I get that it’s much more complex, and we’re simplifying it for this purpose of being able to talk about some of the principles here in this show… So just to back up, do you find that most of the people that reach out to you are men, or men and women in these more executive roles, and are they more traditionally in these higher-level positions?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, it’s funny – marketers tell me to niche down, and everything, and I say “Well, I happen to have a niche.” I had a hard time believing that I would — because I like working with anybody that has an emotional problem. So I do get people coming, men and women who come, from all walks of life… Although 75% of my practice are men.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Okay, that’s helpful.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah, so men and women – all people can have this problem. It starts with naming the emotion. So many people have created this problem where they can’t admit to — the three top emotions that I’ve found people have trouble with are anger, sadness and neediness. And I call them enemy emotions. They think they have to hide, bury stuff; they can’t admit to them. They just have this tremendous sense that they’re wrong, and have to be eliminated, which is, of course, impossible. So with anybody who comes in my door, we almost always start there.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So, so helpful. So if I can just reflect — because I recognize this in my work as well, and I’m fully resonating with what you’re describing… Yeah, predominantly it sounds like the majority of the people that you work with happen to be men, but that you also see this showing up in women, and we all can run this pattern of ignoring, suppressing or denying our emotional experience, and that that is what you’re really focusing on. And it sounds like there’s a bit of a paradigm shift, that you’re helping people recognize the real human tendency is to look at what’s the problem, and trying to identify the problem.
It’s so funny, with the internet and our access of just all the information – it’s so easy to start plugging in issues, and then getting things, and we go down this rabbit hole of diagnosing our partner, or identifying the problem… It sounds like that can lead us really astray, and the invitation you’re really recommending here is what if we just pause, what if we just explore “Okay, how does that feel for me? What happens when my wife doesn’t wanna be intimate with me?” And that takes sometimes safe space, and some support, and maybe even facilitation to start to get some guidance around how to reconnect with that and lean into that. Is that right?
Dr. Laura Dabney: That’s exactly right, you said it beautifully. Yes, exactly – giving themselves permission, space, time, and that’s where the whole selfish thing comes in. I think you and I understand they’re afraid to get to those emotions, but how they explain it to themselves is “Well, it’s selfish for me just to keep thinking about myself and how I feel, and what my reaction is.” But my other take on that is intimacy is all about transparency. We have to reserve ourselves, we have to not be so transparent in relationships outside of our intimate relationships, with healthy boundaries, but in our intimate relationship is where we can reveal the good, the bad and the ugly. And that’s what draws us closer to the other person.
I just had this discussion this morning with one of these executive men where I was encouraging him to figure out what he was feeling in relation to something his wife was doing… And he kept coming back to “Well, she’s this, and she’s that. She needs to tell me. She just told me!” I said “You want her to reveal first, but you aren’t revealing.” You need to go and say “I was irritated when you hung up the phone on me, and I don’t know why.” But he was like “You need to tell me what’s wrong. I can tell something’s wrong.” You need to reveal, and then she’ll start revealing.
I’ve seen this over and over, when people are saying “Well, how can the other one get fixed if only one person gets fixed?” But when one person starts displaying healthier patterns of behavior, the other person — I think it’s unconscious, but they start doing the same.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. Laura, you’re saying some really important things, and I just wanna check them out with you. When you initially started talking, I was like – okay, when you’re working with an individual, this is assuming they’re giving a pretty accurate or fair report, right? Because somebody — it’s really one side.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: But what you’re describing is really powerful, in that you’re saying “I am for the relationship, even though I’m working with one person”, because you’re listening for the interactions, and given your perspective, you have a pretty good sense of what the fuller picture looks likes… So you’re for the relationship and you’re really holding that person accountable to these more healthy practices, if you will. And I don’t know if I’m saying that right… Because this is the danger when we seek solace or comfort.
I think comfort is great with loved ones, but when a loved one — you know, oftentimes we wanna feel validated. “Oh, you’re right!” or “Yeah, that sounds awful!” or “That sounds really hard!” That there’s sympathy and empathy, but without the nudge of what you’re offering people to look at “Okay, so it sounds like you’re wanting her to go first…” And so that’s really for the relationship. Is that right?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah, you’re right. The term I use is it’s just these destructive relationship patterns. And what I always say to people is “If you change the patterns, the patterns change.” You don’t need two people in the room to change a pattern, because you’re half the pattern. You’re contributing. Either you’re doing something or you’re not doing something. So we can help you adjust to the pattern to break it.
This guy was also at another point saying his wife tends to give him the silent treatment, and it’s like “Well, what do you do about that? First of all, how do you feel about it?” It makes him sad. And then “What do you do about it?” and he keeps going after her, and then she gets angry. I said, “Okay, so going after her doesn’t work. How about we try the opposite, where you don’t go after her?” But that can look retaliatory, so I said the phrase is “It makes me sad when you pull away and I don’t know why. When you’re ready to let me know, I’m ready to hear it.”
So he’s changing this pattern that was ineffective – going after her when she’s quiet. So we’re changing the pattern, and we’ll see. I don’t know exactly, but I do know changing the pattern is important. So I gave him another pattern, to not go after her, and then we’re gonna see what happens with that.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… So it’s not like “I’m gonna sign up for this for the rest of my life.” You’re really in this place of curiosity, and recognizing you don’t have her in the room, but helping him feel like “Okay, these are some pretty tested and tried techniques, and for you to practice this and see what information you get, that’s gonna be really helpful.” Because the thing it sounds like you’re also doing is – especially for people that are in the engineering field, or attorneys, scientists, executives… There’s this intellect that’s required during the day, or even these decision-makings, and leading people… And it’s a real different hat to put on, like you’re saying, with key people – our spouse, or our significant other – to put on this relational hat. We might not have that relational style anywhere else.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right. And I deal with military people, and it’s like “Well, if it works at the office, why doesn’t it work at home?” [laughter] And I can understand; if you’re anxious about it working out, it makes sense intellectually why you take something that works in the office and try it at home. That’s when I always get to “Well, if you want an executive relationship, that’s one thing. But if you want an intimate relationship, you can take the patterns, but you just have to add the feelings to it.” They do all have great ideas, and their intellect is great, but they don’t add the feeling part. There’s some people I just say “Okay, now add a feeling.” [unintelligible 00:21:46.25] “We’re gonna try this, and we could do this as a compromise, we could do that…” Start with you and a feeling. That’s what gets it from being a work relationship to an intimate relationship.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, I wanna quote that, because that is so important. I think so many people – to your earlier point of having discomfort with emotions – have all these different ways of distancing. So if I go to the intellect, it’s safer. But then it’s so business, or dry — I even had a client I was working with yesterday, and she was like “Oh, I have to have another one of these talks…” I’m working with her individually, and it is a lot about vulnerability, and I was helping her recognize, similarly, that if we bring the emotional backdrop or the understanding of what’s going on internally, that’s where the connection, that’s where the juicy — that’s where we wanna tune in, right? That’s the program I wanna watch!
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right…
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And so helping people access — and it’s such a foreign, and even counter-intuitive… The way people have been brought up perhaps, where the emotions haven’t been safe… So how do you help people feel safe taking these risks?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, it’s interesting… I sort of have to do a little intellectual work myself. Because a lot of times people feel that if they express their emotion, they’re more vulnerable. And I’m like “Well, you’re the exact same person, with the same strengths, 20 seconds before you say it, and then 20 seconds afterwards. So how are you more vulnerable?” I have to walk them through “You have the same strengths, and abilities, and capacities. If you start saying something and someone starts overwhelming you with something, you have the right to put up a boundary. You know how to put up a boundary. Drive away, walk away, say something, change the topic – all the things you couldn’t do as a kid.”
A lot of times they’re having a memory of being flooded with a certain emotion and not knowing what to do with it, and they have blamed the emotion. “If I just weren’t needy, then I wouldn’t get overwhelmed with rage at my parents for not filling that need… Because it’s just too overwhelming for them to have that negative emotion towards someone they love, their parent who they really do need to survive at that point. So I have to remind them that you now have these adult capacities, you can deal with that flooding way, way better than you could when you were just a child.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So important… So how do you help people start to reconnect with that neediness and recognize that perhaps your parents were limited in their capacity, or whatever the circumstances were and weren’t able to really support you, or be really attuned emotionally and help create safety – but your circumstances are different and you have the adult ability to work with what you need to feel safe… How do you help, what are some of the things that you help people with around that?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, it’s actually not — I often call it a “feeling-phobia”. Because not unlike dealing with phobias, I have to — I can say it all I want, and I know you’ve experienced this as well… You can say it all, and they agree, and they get it, but really the work comes down to practicing. So the first third of therapy, the first third part of it is me stopping them at every moment to “What are you feeling? What did you feel? What is the feeling?”, so they can start saying it out loud, and then realizing nothing bad happens. Their vulnerability hasn’t increased, the world hasn’t ended, the relationship hasn’t crumbled, people aren’t leaving, screaming in horror, or bursting into flames. So it’s just a matter of getting them comfortable naming it. And again, I sometimes have to lay out these words for them just to name it.
And then the second third of therapy is them doing that themselves, in front of me. So they’ll start naming their feeling, and then once they’re able to name it — I say “Once you’re able to nail the feeling, only then can you decide on what’s the best option for soothing that feeling.” Sometimes it is talking to the person, sometimes it’s not talking to the person. Sometimes it’s talking to somebody else. Or putting up a boundary.
So then they start doing that, but they’re doing it in therapy, practicing, and then they’re taking it home and coming back and reporting how it went. So it’s like they’re doing it with guidance. And then the last third is them doing it all on their own, just checking with me here and there… And they’re done.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, so it’s this real learning curve…
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yes, it’s a large learning curve.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And how do you help people who have been so disconnected with naming their emotion, understand what would help them?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, in this practicing, when they start seeing that their lives have calmed down, they can better see that their approach was causing so much chaos… Because a lot of times when they’re going after the other one to try to change them, that’s driving the other person away. They’re gonna fight back, or be resentful… It’s very unappealing to have someone tell you what you’re doing wrong, or labeling you as having a problem. It’s invasive, and critical, and all those things… But they unwittingly had been creating a lot of chaos in their lives.
So when they start speaking for themselves, when they say — the template I give people is “I feel X when you do Y”, it’s much harder to argue about that. People don’t get defensive when you say you’re hurt. If they care about you, they’re compelled to work with you to fix that, because they want to change… Not because you’re demanding it, but because you’re hurt.
So when they start seeing the difference, then they start buying in more, and they start realizing how damaging their old approach was, and how really much easier it is to say it leading with themselves and their feelings.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. Now, I’m curious for people that are beginning to change their pattern and how they’re relating, perhaps even taking risks and sharing their emotion with their significant other, and their significant other doesn’t respond in a positive way, or they report back to you “Oh, that didn’t go well”, how do you support them in staying with the practice?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah, so that happens a lot… And then I have to always double-check, because when they’re practicing, they still will say things like “Well, I did it, I told her how I felt, and she just got enraged and it didn’t work.” So I’ll be like “Well, can you just tell me what you said and what she said in a little more detail?” And sometimes they won’t lead with themselves at all. “You make me so angry!” or “You know that made me angry five years ago, and now you’re still doing it.” So they’re throwing out an emotion, but they’re still attacking.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Or “I feel that you’re defensive”, or “I feel that you’re being judgy”, or whatever…
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah, yeah… So we have to rework the whole template, and everything… But there are times people say it correctly, and then the other person reacts, for whatever reason, and I have to help them — then we do the whole boundary thing. Because what will happen – they’ll come back with some fact, and then they’ll get into this whole [unintelligible 00:29:30.05] and they go “Well, you shouldn’t be sad” or “I told you have…” whatever, and they start doing their thing. And then I have to help them with boundary setting. That’s something along the lines of “Look, I didn’t wanna argue. I was trying to tell you how I feel about this, and I wanted to work something out. When you’re ready to talk to me about it…” and then what I call a bridge statement – “I’m gonna go to the office, I’ll be back for dinner, and hopefully we can try again.”
So you really have to get them not only to do their part, but not accept any inappropriate behavior from their partner’s standpoint. That’s a two-pronged approach – you’re responsible for yours, but if you don’t put up a boundary, you’re enabling their behavior. You’re basically saying “I accept you yelling at me, or criticizing me, or mistreating me”, and you definitely don’t wanna do this. You have to be vigilant about your feelings, but also about not getting into any conversation unless they’re being appropriate.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes, a two-pronged approach… Because it is in the interest of protecting the health of constructive relating… That if we’re starting to go down the old pattern of injury and mutual hurt – that’s gonna again probably be more of the same, that’s unfulfilling and disconnected. So to set the boundaries and the limits and recognizing “Oh, we’re going down this path… I don’t wanna do this with you.” So what’s the bridge statement? There’s the boundary, and there’s something about coming back?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, because it is right to leave if you’re finding yourself getting so worked up that you’re no longer being an effective communicator, or you feel your teeth are clenching, your hands are clenching it’s right to leave. But the problem with that is it looks punitive. It comes across as punitive. They don’t know where you are; are you coming back? And in a way, unconsciously, a lot of times it is a way to punish. You’re not hitting the person, but they’re increasing their anxiety by taking off in the car… This person’s left wondering what’s going on.
So the bridge statement is a way to make it not punitive. You say “I’m getting all worked up. This is upsetting me, it’s not where I wanna go. I’m gonna go to the office, and I’ll be back at dinner.” Just say where you’re going. That makes it not punitive and it decreases the anxiety in that person.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, and as you’re describing it, it sounds like it’s still self-referenced. It’s not like you’re yelling, or “You’re this…” It’s more like “I’m getting flooded” or “I’m reacting” or “I’m losing my ability to stay calm. I’m gonna take a break, and here’s when I’ll be back.”
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah. The key piece to that is the whole — I always tell my patients to come up out of the weeds. They get into details, and I help them learn to come up and see what the pattern of the relationship is. So the key piece there is you want your significant other to realize if they mistreat you, if they’re not speaking to you appropriately or mistreat you, they’re going to “lose” you. And if they’re speaking appropriately and intimately, they’re going to get you.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I like that.
Dr. Laura Dabney: So that’s a way of encouraging them to change without forcing them to change, or punishing them to change.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yeah, it’s like biofeedback, right?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right. I said “How long do you think she’s gonna keep attacking you if each time you go to your office, or outside, if you leave?” She’s gonna soon figure out that if she wants your attention or time to resolve something, she needs to do it appropriately.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And the first time you said it, you also said something key too around “I really wanna have a constructive conversation” or “I really wanna hear you.” So there’s the claim of the intention around “I really do wanna connect with you around this, and I’m having a hard time… I’m gonna leave, and I’ll be back.” So it’s not, like you’re saying, punitive.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Right. And it builds the trust, because when you say the bridge statement, you’ve got to follow through on that. You do have to come back when you’re coming back, so the trust starts to build again. Because a lot of times by the time they come in, the trust has been eroded. And then you also can be true to yourself – you’ve told her this is something that you needed to discuss and needed to work out, so you have to come back to it. A lot of times they won’t come back to it, and the whole resentment is still in there, and that will end up building and blowing. Your build and blow routine — and then you have to come back to it.
Typically, they’re terrified, because they have this in their head – “Well, if it caused an argument the first time, it’s always gonna cause an argument.” And that’s not fair. It’s not fair to your significant other; she may have had a bad day, or it was a mistake, or what have you. You owe it to both of you to go to her and say “Look, this problem is still between us. It’s gonna hurt our relationship, so we need to try again to have this discussion.” And 9 times out of 10 it goes better the second time.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Absolutely. And I’m just listening and I’m thinking about people who maybe have run this disconnect pattern for so long that it really whittles away at the hope or the confidence that it will go differently. So I just have the personal belief that it’s helpful to get support sooner rather than later; start really working these principles sooner rather than later.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Well, you’re bringing up a good point, which is that we often have to do some healing. We can’t just start with the repair of the relationship; we have to work back through all of the junk that’s built up and accumulated. We have to deal with the grief that they have before we can start really getting into the “How do we do things differently?”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Do you have anything you wanna say about how to repair grief from past injury?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Again, it’s really — I don’t mean to oversimplify, but it’s really they have to grieve. I see this mostly with parents with adult children. I’m actually thinking of one patient I have right now, who came in for a relationship problem with his wife, but really he’s just — I don’t know, for a lack of a better word, haranguing his teenager to get A’s, and get A’s, and get into a good college… Just this constant — and she’s not, of course, because she feels harangued into it, and she’s getting C’s, and B’s, which is not acceptable, and all that… But he had to face the grief that their relationship has been damaged and didn’t go the way he wanted, and now she’s “leaving”, she’s applying to colleges… So I have to help him sit with grief. Sadness is one of the emotions that people have made an enemy-emotion; they don’t want to go through grief. I mean, nobody likes grief, but they are almost afraid of it.
This particular patient, I said “What’s keeping you from sitting with the pain that your daughter is grown and gone, not the little girl you had?” “Well, I don’t wanna sit around and just be a puddle on the floor forever…” They actually equate sadness with weakness a lot of times. So it’s really just, again, encouraging them to feel the grief… So I’ll often ask very poignant questions to get the grief [unintelligible 00:37:07.19] I’ll say it at the end of the session, “How are you feeling now?” He goes, “Well, I feel pretty good.” “Okay, so you can see – you can have this grief, and then you can go back to your work. Then you can come back to the grief, and go back to your work. You won’t fall apart and become a puddle on the floor.”
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes. So key, and important… Yes. Okay, so I’m listening to you and I’m thinking — okay, I have a question about… Do you feel that it’s equally as hard to start maybe making friends with emotions, and start naming and expressing that? Do you think that’s equally hard to set boundaries? Do you feel that people find these both difficult, or one more than the other?
Dr. Laura Dabney: That’s a good question. I actually think getting comfortable with all their emotions is harder… To set boundaries, you have to admit something is irritating you, which is of course the cousin to anger. So once they’re comfortable with their anger and able to say it readily and recognize it readily, it’s just a little bit easier to say “Okay, this is really annoying me. I ask you to please stop. It’s just not working for me.” So that becomes easier. If I try to — it’s impossible to set the boundary until you’re comfortable with the emotion… It’s impossible to set it effectively anyway.
So yeah, this whole getting comfortable with the emotions – when I first started my practice, I had no idea that it was as hard as it is for some people. It’s just excruciatingly difficult, and they’ve associated all these different — like, the puddle on the floor; jello is the other. [unintelligible 00:38:50.25] I had no idea the shame and guilt attached to those emotions was so great. It’s a tremendous problem, and it just builds, and it’s this big boulder by the time they’re with me. They have this huge boulder of rage or sadness sitting there, and it’s just running their lives.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: And do you find that people who have this backlog – it might be harder for them to progress, or they get stuck, or does it just take longer and it has to be a slower process?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Like you say, the quicker you can come in and get help, we go so much faster… If they’re younger, or what have you… Or have had some training in this already, and haven’t made all three of those emotions an enemy emotion. So yeah, the less they have of this, the better it goes… But it’s all possible; it’s just a matter of how long it takes. Because it takes the practice to see that — I would say it’s like petting the spider. You have to have the practice of seeing it and admitting it first in your own head. They really start with having to admit it themselves, and then to admit it out loud with me, and then admit it out loud with someone that you love in order to see that it’s not catastrophic, like they’d labeled it.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: I love that, petting the spider… It’s so great.
Dr. Laura Dabney: “I’ve gotta pet the spider…” Right?
Dr. Jessica Higgins: So if we can weave this back into the topic of being selfish – is there anything else that you wanna say, now that we’ve kind of really gone through some of the process of what this looks like in practice?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yeah, I say this selfish almost tongue-in-cheek, so it gets them thinking… But I often have to say “Well, what’s the difference between selfish and self-aware, or self-esteem?” and it’s really a head-scratcher for them. So you learning about yourself isn’t selfish, because you’re half the relationship. If you are at your very best and you understand yourself fully, then that 50% of the relationship is a lot, and you’re gonna have more reserve, more genuineness to help your spouse, to change the destructive patterns. You can’t deplete yourself and then expect the relationship to be good.
They always try to work backwards, by “Get her fixed, or even the patterns fixed. Then I’ll be happy, then I’ll be fixed.” No, there’s a reason they say on the airplane “Put your oxygen mask on first” and that’s because you have to be at your best to tackle these things, to tackle these problems.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… And I would imagine too that when someone’s being able to understand, name their emotion, express their emotion, that when that magical moment or those moments do occur where your partner does hear you and turns towards you, that level of intimacy is profound.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Exactly. I say “You don’t know what you’re missing.” [laughter] It’s right there for you, but you have to lead the way, you have to open up first. You can’t just expect the other person to open up when you’re ready. You have to open up, and then when she opens up (or he opens up), yes, that level of intimacy is the whole shebang.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Yes… Well, Dr. Laura Dabney, how can people get in touch with what you’re doing and what you have to offer?
Dr. Laura Dabney: I always like to talk to people, so I would encourage people to give me a call. I do a lot of talking on the phone before I set up any appointments or anything. And sometimes that phone call is just enough for me to maybe set them on it. If it’s not me that can help, then I can set them on the path to getting help from someplace else… And that number is 757-695-3925.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Excellent. I’ll make sure to have that on the show notes so it’s easily accessible. And for people that are listening all over the nation and internationally, do you work with people outside of Virginia?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Yes. I am also a life coach, so I do coaching. There’s this platform called Doxy.me, which is a HIPAA-compliant, totally safe, super-easy way of doing video conferencing.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. Excellent. And you have a website that people can also access. Is there a way to contact you through the website?
Dr. Laura Dabney: Sure. I guess there’s a form on there to fill out. It’s DrLDabney.com.
Dr. Jessica Higgins: Wonderful. Well, thank you again for sharing your wisdom, your expertise with us today here on the show.
Dr. Laura Dabney: Thank you, Jessica, for having me. It was really fun.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s conversation with Dr. Laura Dabney, as she helps us recognize how difficult it can be to turn towards our painful emotion, particularly when we have not been accustomed to or had a lot of support to be more emotionally aware and emotionally intelligent. And she’s also helping us see the powerful impact, the game-changing effect of really leading with our emotion as we address our significant other around relational challenges.
If you would like access to today’s show notes, again, you can visit DrJessicaHiggins.com, click on Podcast and all the episodes are there. Again, today’s episode is 189, “How being selfish may be the best thing you can do for your relationship”, an interview with Dr. Laura Dabney. Until next time, I hope you take great care.
* * *
You’ve been listening to Empowered Relationship, your relationship guide. Remember to take a moment to write a review and subscribe today. You can also get your free relationship gift by visiting DrJessicaHiggins.com.
0 Comments