Almost Awakened, Rupture & Repair

https://almostawakened.org/2025/05/what-healthy-relationships-do-differently/

https://youtu.be/BplY5V5C3RI

 

Transcribed with: https://restream.io/tools/transcribe-podcast

 

 

What Healthy Relationships Do Differently !

(Rupture and Repair)

 

At some point, it happens. You say the wrong thing, they shut down, or maybe they didn't say anything at all. But the air gets heavy, you feel the distance, and something broke. And now you're both pretending it didn't. That moment, that's a rupture.

 

It's not a sign your relationship is doomed. It's a sign that your relationship is real. Every meaningful connection comes with cracks, misunderstandings, missed cues, hurt feelings. The question isn't, will there be a rupture, but will there be a repair? Today, we're diving into what happens when connection breaks and how healing it intentionally, imperfectly, and bravely can actually bring you closer than before.

 

Next, on the Almost Awakened podcast. Healing begins in the body, but awakening touches everything. Relationships, purpose, identity, pleasure, and truth. Join Bill Real and Teresa Hobbs as they explore the real work of becoming a healthier you. Welcome to Almost Awakened.

 

Welcome to another episode of the Almost Awakened podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Bill Reel. And I am Teresa Hobbs. And today we're talking about rupture and repair. So I'm gonna put up on the, screen, our slideshow for today, rupture and repair in relationships.

 

All of us are in relationships. Again, unless you're the rare person who hides themself away and, isn't interested in human connection, the rest of us, the 99.999% of us are in relationships. We're in relationships with coworkers, with parents, with kids, with a romantic partner, friends, and all kinds of people. And in those relationships we have, it's just very natural for us to have rupture and repair. So I just want to define as we get going here, rupture is any moment of disconnection, misunderstanding, conflict, or emotional wounding.

 

And repair, the other side of that, is the conscious process of reconnecting, understanding, and reestablishing safety. Anything you wanna say up to this point, Teresa? Just that, you know, this is and we're gonna get to this, I think, in some of the other slides, but this isn't a bad thing. So this idea of rupture and repair, I know that every time we think that we have a rupture, it's a really bad thing. But as long as we actually bring the repair to it, we are creating stability and stabilization in relationships.

 

So as we sort of walk through this process and talk about this subject, I know a lot of people may feel a lot because a lot of us are very conflict avoidant, and we think that to have a good relationship means that we don't have any ruptures or there aren't any snags or there isn't any conflict. And so just be mindful that as we move through this that, the reason why we're talking about this is to emphasize the repair part because that is part of what makes really, really strong relationships. And to that point, I mean, every relationship is going to have ruptures. Having a rupture isn't the sign of something, necessarily being significantly wrong. It it really is just that healthy relationships also have the other side of the coin, which is that somebody comes back to the to the relationship and makes the repair.

 

And I'll just note here, that not all ruptures are conflicts, but all conflicts are a form of rupture. And so the big circle there in the middle well, first off, the big yellow circle is ruptures, and there's all kinds of ruptures. And the three that they represent here, the big circle inside that's gray is conflict. But But if you think about it, there's other things like growing apart, which isn't anybody's fault. Nobody did something they can repair.

 

People sometimes just grow apart, and, the relationship either grows, it changes into something more distant, or sometimes it ends altogether. Also, the unavailability of one partner due to reasons they can't control. So maybe somebody is in a situation where they have to work sixty hours a week for a month, and neither person feels connected to the other. But, again, it's not someone's fault. It's not that one party's responsible.

 

It it it's nobody's fault, and it just is. But today we're talking about the ones that are based in conflict because these are the ones that we can truly do something about. The relationship is desirable on both parties' parts, but something has happened that has created distance that has the relationship feeling a lack of or a disconnection. And, these are the ones that we want to address today. So as you pointed out, Teresa, conflict, rupture, repair, This is normal.

 

This happens in every meaningful relationship. And I should say that the conflict part does as we'll get to later repair for a lot of people is difficult. And I think some people rarely, if ever, carry out the the facets of repair. But this happens in every meaningful relationship, parent child, romantic partners, friends, work colleagues, etcetera, etcetera, and so on. Anything else you wanna say there?

 

Just reemphasizing the fact that this you know, it is normal, and, again, so many of us feel like it's not. And I think it's the fear of it or the that we label it as wrong that sort of makes us afraid to, to work with it and to offer the repair. So, yeah, if anyone comes out of this with with anything, I hope it's just that, maybe a little bit more normalization about, what ruptures really are and maybe a little bit more willingness to kind of lean into the repair part of this. Alright. Next, what we wanted to talk about is, the cycle of rupture repair.

 

This isn't anything, out of the ordinary. I think all of us intuitively understand this. This is the healthy cycle. And so, you know, very top there, we develop closeness. A rupture happens.

 

Something occurs that creates distance between you and the other party. Distance happens, and now there's an opportunity to repair it. And if you repair it, you get to get back into that connection in closeness if it's repaired appropriately, if the repair matches the magnitude of the rupture. And so there's that. I just want to note too, attachment theory teaches us that the foundation of secure relationships isn't the absence of conflict, and we've been saying that so far.

 

It's the presence of repair after rupture. When caregivers consistently respond to distress with empathy and reconnection, children develop a secure attachment. In adult relationships, the same principle applies. Rupture is inevitable. But it's how we come back together that builds trust, resilience, and emotional safety.

 

Repair literally rewires the brain to expect connection, not abandonment. And you and I were just talking about that before the show started, where you said that, you know, you and I have been together for, going on is it seven months now? Eight months. Eight months. Sorry.

 

I don't keep track of time well. It's okay. Create a rupture there. So, we're eight months in almost, and, you noted that we've had opportunities. Again, we both come to this relationship having had past relationships, and those have had various degrees of healthy or unhealthiness in them.

 

We come into a new relationship, and we're used to the patterns that other people brought into our life. And so we start this new thing with a person, and we don't know what kind of energy they're exactly gonna bring and when conflicts occur, how they're gonna handle it. And you noted, before we started the show that one of the things that's really cool about our relationship is that we have had ruptures, and we repaired them really well to the point where now we're beginning to develop trust that when the rupture happens, we can let down our walls and we can come back to the conversation and know that the other person will make a sincere, good faith effort to understand us and to make amends for the thing that happened. Yeah. And it it builds trust.

 

So every time we have a reparative process, the next time we have a rupture, it doesn't feel as chaotic. It doesn't feel as, you know, terrible, what whatever it is sometimes, especially if you've had a history with another partner where you've brought to their attention a moment when there was a a disconnection or a rupture or a misattunement, and that person responded badly, then you have an expectation that that's how it's always gonna be. So as, you know, we've come into relationship and we've had a moment to practice this and, and we've had these positive moments, it starts to repattern the expectation. And so now my nervous system feels really safe when I feel there's a disconnection, because this can happen. You can't you cannot avoid that.

 

There and and people who go through life without experiencing conflict or denying conflict or just avoiding conflict all the time, that doesn't actually equate to more safety in the relationship, and that doesn't mean that you have a good relationship. I think you did a podcast on on how to have a healthy relationship or something, and I remember you talking about some of the research that that you've learned about on that. And, and and then I've read some of the books on the Gottmans that the Gottmans have written, and they were talking about these different, styles of argument or whatever. And one is, like, the avoidant people, like, the people who just never never have conflict, never fight, never address things. And that doesn't that doesn't build a foundation of trust over time.

 

So I do really appreciate having these experiences with somebody who shows up in a safe way and is willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that that there's been a rupture or is humble enough to, and responsive enough to respond when I've shared that there's a rupture. Right? It comes it goes both ways. So whenever you bring something up or I bring something up, how we respond to one other is is huge. And the other thing I wanna say about this is that, you know, speaking to this part when it says when caregivers consistently respond to distress within with empathy and connection, children develop secure attachment.

 

And this is really huge because a lot of parents feel you know, of course, all parents are gonna lose their shit. Like, they're gonna flip out the things that's impossible to not have a rupture with your children as well. Well, but a lot of parents carry, like, extreme guilt about this, and they feel like, you know, maybe they've harmed their child. But, I've said this before on different podcasts, but a a parent only needs to be, I think I'm gonna actually look at my my notes here. So so a parent only needs to be, to respond to cues appropriately about 30% of the time to, to for the child to develop secure attachment.

 

And that's pretty that that gives you a lot of leeway. I mean, 70% of the time, you can mess up. But the important thing here is not that is not that you, don't mess up. It's how you respond to that. So in order to develop that secure attachment with the child, you have to come back with the repair.

 

So, yes, you can have ruptures. Yes, you can have misattunements, 70% of the time. Right? But that means as long as you were coming back to the child and you were offering a repair process, as long as you're acknowledging that, okay, there was a disconnection here. I'm so sorry.

 

This is why. And you're giving context and you're reconnecting and reestablishing that sense of safety. So I just wanted to to bring that there to mention that there. And then in the adult relationships, the same thing is true. Like I was saying before, every time we come back with reconnection, it's establishing deeper trust.

 

It's establishing this this sense of safety that, like, oh, ruptures can happen because they will, and I don't have to freak out about it. Yeah. And I'll just note too, we all grasp on some level that if a kid is born into a healthier family with healthier parents and they develop secure attachment styles or they're given the, actions on the part of the parent that help the child to develop secure attachment styles, that child is going to enter the world as a young adult more able to trust in relationships, to trust in attachment, and to start off on the right foot. But for folks who get something else, and they, are molded with actions from parents that lead to unhealthy attachment styles, they're gonna bring that out into the real world. And as you form relationships with people, and I've met a lot of folks over the course of my life who I could just watch them over the course of a few days, and some of them I had years to get to know, and I could just sit back and go, wow, like that person is so, this person is so skeptical of the world.

 

And I don't mean skeptical, like, thinking about religion and the other topics we cover in this podcast. I mean, they have such distrust that anyone is gonna do right by them, that they show up with their walls up immediately. They come to every situation that way. And as we talk to this audience, all of you out there, the relationships you're in, if you think about when someone brings, some sort of criticism or some sort of awareness to something that happened that they got hurt by, how each party responds to that, what was the natural tendency when your relationship started, how you responded to that often goes back to how your parents molded you by the way that they responded to, rupture and whether they gave repair or not. So I just note that.

 

And, I think most of us, I don't know what, I don't know if you have any data there, Teresa, on how many folks come in to adulthood having pretty good secure attachment style, but I imagine it's less than it's less than forty percent of the population. Yeah. Well, what's interesting about that is I actually, the estimates are much higher than I thought they were. And I remember I I was working with a therapist at the time, and we had this conversation about attachment. So I'm like, I don't believe that most people come into the world with secure attachment, because I was reading off the statistics, and they just seem so skewed to me.

 

And she said, I think you're right. She's like, I don't know that many people with the truly have secure attachment. I'll look up the statistics as you're as you're going through here, and I'll I'll bring them back up when I find them. But, I think it's less than they say, but maybe I'm just, a cynic. But but what I will say is if you do come into the world and you didn't get enough of this, rupture repair process or you didn't earn or you didn't develop secure attachment, you can do internal work and develop what's called earn secure attachment.

 

And I actually believe that this is true. I I remember while I was in the process of healing, and I'm you know, healing, by the way, is a a a lifetime, effort here. So I've never I haven't reached this pinnacle yet. But but there was a time when it felt really out of out of reach for me to to even know what secure attachment felt like, and and I was really skeptical about that. But then I had this moment.

 

I I it was when I decided that I was ready to start dating again, and I was noticing myself responding, you know, what was coming up for me as I was getting messages from from, you know, meeting new people, and then people would ghost you or just not respond to anything. And I was having a lot of chaotic moments inside, and I thought to myself, like, oh my gosh. Like, I have not I haven't done done any work on myself. I feel like I'm I'm responding in this anxious attachment way. And and then, and then I had this moment when I realized, like, wait a minute.

 

No. Actually, I'm responding appropriately to people who are being irresponsible in the way that they're communicating to me. And I'm choosing to not engage with those people, and I'm choosing to recognize that those people aren't gonna offer secure attachment in return. Whereas if I was still in an unhealthy attachment style, I would have been chasing those people. I would have been trying to somehow, you know, when you have anxious attachment, for example, you tend to be somebody who who sort of clings and needs and tries to mold the other person to to give you what you need.

 

And I realized I wasn't doing that. I was I was meeting my own, internal anxiety, and I was choosing wisely who I wanted to engage, in relationship with. And so what it kinda demonstrated to me was that I actually had developed a lot more earned secure attachment than I realized. And then that I I noticed that that unfolded when, you know, I met Bill because I I just instantly felt a whole different experience with you and was able to kinda settle into a sense of of feeling secure and okay in the relationship, and and I thought that was really cool. That was kind of a tangent, but No.

 

No. No. I I like that because, it gave me a second to look this up instead. So I I found it says about a fifty to sixty percent of people are estimated to have secure attachment style. So it is a little higher than than I thought, based on population studies in Western countries, primarily US and Europe.

 

The rest are generally divided among the insecure attachment styles, twenty percent in anxious preoccupied, twenty percent to twenty five percent avoidant dismissive, and five percent to ten percent in fearful avoidant, a. K. A. Disorganized. And it says this attachment style isn't fixed.

 

It's shaped by early caregiving and later relationships. People can move toward more security through therapy, safe partnerships, and corrective emotional experiences. It's not a life sentence. It's a working hypothesis. And to what you said, I mean, I would say the same thing back, and I'll talk about it later, but I haven't had a lot of relationships that felt safe to do real repair with.

 

And, I feel that here, and I felt that from the beginning. And so kudos to you as well for, for modeling that. And so I'll just note that. All right. The next slide here is common causes of rupture.

 

And the first one is a word you use all the time. So I'd like you to explain you know, I I see the definition there, but I'd like you maybe to explain this a little better. But misattunement, is a big one. And and maybe explain to the audience what misattunement is. Yeah.

 

And these seem really small. But so a misattunement is just when somebody doesn't, meet you or see you or hear you in the way that you need in that moment. And it's not it's not because someone is, doing something malicious, but it could be, for example, I feel like this happened in I had a group today, and there was a woman who was sharing. And I I was I was trying to give her some suggestions on different ways she could work with, you know, some of her, chronic symptoms or whatever. And I realized halfway through it, her system kind of shut down, and you can read a misattunement in the moment.

 

You can see when a person, might be disconnecting or turning away. And so I thought that maybe I what she really needed was to just be heard, was to just, like, share her story and not, quote, unquote, be fixed. And, so I noticed that in the moment. So that would be considered a misattunement. If your child comes towards you and, you know, you tell them you tell them that you don't have time for them or something or just things like that or yeah.

 

And they happen they happen all the time. And, it's easy to happen especially if you are so moments where somebody brings you a problem, and this happens between men and women a lot because men love to fix. So when they bring you a problem and you really just wanna be heard, but instead they're giving you advice, that would be a misattunement. So Excellent. Unmet expectations.

 

So the way I like to think about this one is at least one party thinks there's an agreement in place. Mhmm. It could be as simple as, you were gonna pick up dinner on the way home from work, or you were gonna take the car in today to get that oil change. It could be something like that. But it's where one party and and these some can sometimes be unsaid, which can create some of the chaos because one party has an expectation or thinks there's an agreement in place and the other party, wasn't aware or didn't think of it that way, didn't think there was an agreement in place.

 

And when expectations aren't met, I think we've all run into these moments, it can cause a lot of dysregulation. The next one is directly that, emotional dysregulation. It can be that, the person or other party that we're having the interaction with just operates in such a way that we get triggered. And and and our regulation system, we get dysregulated. Historical trauma, so the person that maybe you're having a connection with right now does something that's similar to what's happened in the past, or you're having an experience that reminds you of something in the past, and that can cause disconnection or rupture, power imbalances, boundary violations, ghosting, stonewalling.

 

Stonewalling is when a person withdraws from an interaction, often emotionally shutting down or going silent. And then rather than engaging in a difficult conversation, it's not just quiet. It's a form of self protection that often feels like emotional abandonment to the other person. And I have a tendency to do that sometimes. A moment that feels tense causes me, again, based on our past conversations, to go into dorsal, and I'll get really quiet and really shut down.

 

And, I know that the other person that I'm in that rupture with will may have the tendency to interpret me as, being avoidant intentionally. Like I'm just wanting to stay away from you, I want to stay away from this conversation. And so I'll try to announce out loud, I can guess that maybe one thing that's happening is you're interpreting me this way. I just want you to know that I'm just feeling really shut down. And I just need a minute to to work through that and to process that.

 

So I'll just note, sometimes just saying what it is you're actually feeling helps the other person not make, false readings about what your body language could also indicate. Yeah. And, the last one here I added. This was a list that was online, but the last one I added in, which is misstating and misinterpreting. I've had so many conversations in my life where I said dog and they heard cat and they s they thought they said Italian and I thought I heard Chinese And, it led to disagreements because ego got involved and now we're fighting about who said what and who heard what.

 

And I'll just note that there are a lot of times in relationships that rupture can occur simply because one person misstated something, or the other person misheard something or misinterpreted something. And it and it can be as simple as you said something, but your brain wanted to say something else. That happens all the time to us humans. It also happens the other way, which is that your your your person, that you're in a relationship with says something and you heard it as something else. Yeah.

 

And those moments occur. And then and then also people can say the right thing, but those words in that order with that tone mean something else to the other person than what you intended. And so while both parties heard the right the same words, there's still a misunderstanding. Someone's either misstating something in some way. There I've had times where I've been dysregulated, and that caused me to have a tone that might have seemed aggressive when really I was nervous or feeling anxiety instead.

 

And and I noticed I remember, I there was a time a few years ago in my research for something for the Almost Awakened podcast where I came across the data point that we reading the body language of another human being. We only get it right about 52 of the time. It's not much better than guessing. And, and so I think we are so prone to look at another human being that we're in relationship with and to read things into tone, facial expressions, body language, and I think I'm good at those things. And it's always a reminder to me in any of those moments that, hey, you could be wrong.

 

And so I think that's helpful to all of us to take a step back and not make assumptions about what body language or facial expressions or tone mean. And again, you might be in a relationship with a really unhealthy, egotistical, narcissistic, sociopathic, those kinds of tendencies, and they will feel the thing you think they're feeling. You will call it out because you have this history, and they'll just deny it and always play up some other reason or excuse. Yeah. But we're not talking about those.

 

We're talking about where two people who sincerely wanna be in relationship are trying to work through things. Anything you wanna say about common causes of rupture? These all look really familiar. I have plenty of examples of all of these, but I think I'll, hold those till we get to some of the other slides. K.

 

The next one is the nervous system in rupture. And, jump in any moment you want to talk about this slide in particular, but, fight, flight, freeze, fawn responses and how they show up in conflict. Every one of us when a rupture occurs, when either the person that the rupture happened to, and so they're the initial one that recognizes it occurred or when they bring back, the conversation to the partner who did something that led to that rupture occurring, not that it's their fault, but they did something that the other person interpreted a certain way and it caused disconnection. Now they're learning about what the other person has to say about that rupture and they're going to have the run the risk of being dysregulated. And so both parties have to be really on guard for this.

 

We have these patterns when these things start. The moment the rupture happens, somebody gets dysregulated, both people get dysregulated, and it becomes extremely difficult to work these things out. And we'll get to this later when we talk about the steps. But the first step is is got to got to be, you know, you yourself, just settling down, taking a pause, figuring out some way to get out of the anxiety of the moment and get back into, the ventral vagus system so that you can, process what's happening from a very present aware state of mind rather than the anxiety of of dysregulation. Anything you wanna say about that?

 

Yeah. I'll just say that so our nervous systems are constantly communicating to each other. So let's say there was a a mild misattunement, let's say between Bill and I. Right? And, you know, Bill says something, it's not what I really needed to hear, and my system goes into a little bit of freeze, which is tendency of that's one of my tendencies.

 

So I might just suddenly suddenly become like deer in the headlights, like, oh my gosh. That didn't feel good, and I'm sitting here trying to process it. And I might you know, when you're in the free state, you're a little bit disconnected, and you're also feeling a a little bit of, fight or flight energy. You're feeling some of that sympathetic energy. That's gonna actually translate to bill before I even use words.

 

So before I've even said something or I've communicated that there was something off, and many times, actually, you will notice that maybe I go quiet or I I'm withdrawn a little bit, and then you may actually question. You may ask what, you know, what's going on or what happened there. And so, you know, we're we're gonna be our nervous systems are gonna be aware of these disconnections or disruptions before we even use words for it, which I think is really interesting. So just be mindful of that. And then, yeah, being able to kind of check-in with yourself and recognize, wow, I'm feeling some big things here, and and try to find some regulation for yourself first.

 

Try to find a sense of safety before you engage, if you have the opportunity. Yep. And then the last one here is how past trauma distorts present interactions. Again, I just wanna remind the audience, you and the other person or party, and I keep using that word. I do it intentionally because ruptures can be with groups of people.

 

It doesn't have to be just you or your romantic partner or you and a parent or you and a child or you and a friend. It can be with you and a whole group of people. But, it how past trauma distorts present interactions, we need to always be aware we're bringing our history in, they're bringing their history in. If you show up healthy, but the way you showed up looked so close that it reminded them of an unhealthy relationship, a moment in an unhealthy relationship that that person's been in, they may dysregulate first, and they may come to you with a rupture. And now the pressure is really on, to show up in such a way that holds space for that.

 

And there's a there's a like a cliche or a saying that says if it's hysterical and I don't like that word, but if it's hysterical, it's historical. And so if somebody is feeling like high anxiety, high emotional display with the rupture, maybe just make a note to yourself in those moments that this almost certainly goes back to some history that came before this moment, either in past moments of your relationship with them or their relationship long before you. And so I think that's important. Okay. The anatomy of a repair.

 

So the steps of a healthy repair process. Again, the first one is right there in the middle. We talked about this in the last slide. Why repair must begin with regulation yours first. It doesn't mean that it doesn't matter if you're the one who caused the rupture, whether you're the one who did something that was misinterpreted that caused the rupture, or whether the other person did something in your direction that caused disconnection.

 

You are the one that's responsible to regulate, to to start that process because whoever does that in the relationship, hopefully, it's both people, but it won't always be both. It'll be one in some instances and the other in other instances, and you really need it to be a tool that hopefully both of you have in your tool bag. But the steps of a healthy repair process, one, recognizing the rupture, naming it without blame. I think we do a really good job of this. There have been instances where one of us has come to the other and notified the other that we're just not feeling good about things.

 

And, and then it opens up a space to ask questions about, like, what led to that or how did that happen? And so now we're in a conversation of understanding rather than fighting to be right or wrong. So if you can recognize the rupture and name it without blame. Regulate yourself before engaging. And, we've heard these things before, but these are really hard, Teresa.

 

There are moments where you're in a rupture. You're in dysregulation. You are trying to communicate to your romantic partner what's going on, and it can go downhill fast and turn into an explosive, fight or heavy disagreement Yeah. When no one on the front end had that intention, but that dysregulation gets in the way. Well, and that's a place where, again, you can pause.

 

This is, something a lot of people don't think about because you when you're in the midst of dysregulation, you feel this urgency to sort of, resolve the situation. But what actually needs to happen is you need to take a moment sometimes and and go bring, you know, shake off some of that excess excess energy, take some time to really reconnect with yourself before you reengage with, the person, your partner, your friend, whatever it is. So, if you can't you know, if you're recognizing that you are dysregulated and you're feeling a lot of, intense energy, take a pause and and communicate that, you know, you're feeling some things and you need to step away for a moment, and then you'll reengage in a minute. And, you know, in unhealthy attachment styles, one person might shut down, the other person might be a chaser. Mhmm.

 

This gets really difficult. I'll note too, a lot of times, you feel like if you could just say one more paragraph, you'll sort the argument out. You'll both figure it out. Everything will be fine. Next thing you know, it's 03:00 in the morning and you're both pulling your hair out at each other and, you just can't solve it.

 

And so there are these moments where you you have to be wise enough to go, Hey, the last hundred times I've did this, this didn't work out good. It, it almost never benefits. You know, there's this idea like, let's never go to bed angry with each other. And people say that they make a rule that you'll just never go to bed angry. Well, I think sometimes it's better to tell the other person that you're just not okay right now.

 

And you really need a good night's sleep to let your body settle down before you reengage the substance of the conversation. And I think we should feel safe to do that. Yeah. And it's even possible to be upset with your partner and not have things resolved and stay in connection with them. You know?

 

Like, maintain a a tether of connection. I feel like that's happened to us in in different, situations. And then when the morning came, we could sit down and figure it out, which we have. Yeah. Even if we're frustrated, still let each other's feet touch underneath the bed underneath the covers, for instance.

 

I know. Okay. So, reach out with curiosity, not defensiveness. So again, it's coming back to the other person or party and truly going like, Hey, I can see something's off. Again, if you're perceiving that the other person is stepping back from connection and you can't figure out what it is.

 

You come in with curiosity. Hey, I can I seem to sense that something's off? Is that correct? Is there anything you wanna say about why, it feels like we're not really in connection right now? That's a great way to open it up.

 

If the other person cause did something that you that led to you feeling hurt, you could show up and say, hey, yesterday, I got bumped into by a situation, and I'm really feeling, some hurt from it. And I'm wondering if now's a good time that we could chat about that so I could share, what's going on. And then when that person says, yeah, like, now's a safe time. I can manage this. Then you can ask questions like, hey, you know, yesterday this thing happened.

 

What was going through your mind in that event? Because sometimes we attribute motives. We attribute, reasoning or the person being informed on certain levels about what our needs are or what our expectations are. And if we can come to these conversations with curiosity, we leave a lot more room for, repair. And and repair is often, includes understanding each other and what what was going on with each party, not just getting to say your say about what was happening.

 

Yeah. And just being able to give the other person the benefit of the doubt, you know, before coming to the conclusion because sometimes we'll have, you know, we'll be so certain of our perspective of something, but we're missing like what you said like what you said, like, to use I statement I statements. Like, this is what I experienced, or this is what it was feeling like for me. And then you stay curious and ask the question, is that what was happening on your side, before you make the assumption of what really happened. Yep.

 

Take responsibility even for tone or timing or impact. You don't have to be the bad guy. You don't have to, like, yep. I'm just I'm just careless and horrible at these things. I I just don't do any of these things well.

 

Shame on me. I'm the bad guy. I'm wrong. No. It can be just a misunderstanding on the other person's part, but you can still take responsibility.

 

So for instance, in conversations where I'm shut down and I'm concerned that you perceive me as, ghosting you in the situation, me announce it is doing that. I'm taking responsibility by going, I acknowledge that my body language and tone could be understood this way, and I'm really sorry for that. But this is how I'm this is how I'm really feeling inside. Again, you're trying to create understanding for why they feel the way they do and why they got dysregulated and why they perceived a rupture. And and then as a secondary thing, get understanding for yourself for why you came to the experience different than they thought you did.

 

So there's that. So it can be, again, tone, timing, impact. And just note that even if you're not malicious, you're going through life trying to be a good human being, You're trying to treat your partner the right way that inevitably you're still impacting them at times in negative ways. And it doesn't require you to take accountability for the for the action, but you can still take responsibility for some of the impact by saying, like, hey, I couldn't help it. But I and again, I'm not saying you're saying this to them, but I'm saying inside your head, you're going, I couldn't help it.

 

But I recognize that the way I move through the world, some people are different in ways that that might bump into them and to honor and validate that somebody else is feeling something because I'm moving through the world in my natural full expression of my humanity. And so it's not necessarily that someone did something wrong. Validate others' experience, offer empathy or an apology without justification. We all want to explain what happened. I I know you got bumped into, but I didn't do anything wrong.

 

Here's what I was doing or thinking or It's the but. Yeah. You're off the but. Yeah. So sometimes it's more helpful to do an and.

 

Yeah. And and I might even suggest just leave that off completely for a moment. When things get repaired and you're back to connection, once the dysregulation is settled down or that's gotten solved, then you can have the conversation about, hey. You know, yesterday, I just wanna be clear. Like, I'm really sorry that all that happened, but and I didn't I don't wanna say anything at the time because I I knew that you were really upset.

 

I just wanted to make the repair and get reconnected with you, but here's what was going on with me yesterday. My mind was on these things, and I just I just wasn't thinking about the thing that you were thinking about. And I think there's ways to handle that that you you prioritize the other person's feeling safe, the other person getting the repair that they need. And I think intuitively, you'll you'll if you practice this intuitively, you'll learn to kind of figure out what works and what doesn't work. And most of us have had enough experiences that we should by now start to understand what doesn't work, even if lizard brain tells us to do it that way again.

 

So offer empathy or an apology without justification and then create a forward path. What needs to shift to soften, to be understood? Anything else you want to say about this list? Nope. Okay.

 

So the next one is the cycle again, but this is with a lot more understanding of the steps involved. So this is rupture to repair. So the rupture happens again, you and your, your partner, your parent, your kid, your friend, your coworker, you are in the standard connection of that relationship. The rupture occurs and one or both parties feel activation. That's the whole point.

 

If it if it didn't cause activation in your system, it wouldn't be a rupture. It wouldn't have bothered you. So the fact that the rupture occurs, it's a, it's a natural next step that somebody gets dysregulated. And so you feel activation. Maybe there's a trauma trigger, fear based patterns, survival strategies kick in, dysregulation, self protection.

 

And it's, you know, then the next step here is stabilize. There's, inner resourcing. So again, you're trying to figure out how to solve this. And there are unhealthy ways to stabilize. You can start screaming at the person.

 

And to the person who's screaming, that feels like it's an active step to stabilize. So the stabilization is not always healthy things. The healthy things are to stop and take a pause, sort of that inner resourcing, acting please. I was just gonna say just a few ideas for for self regulation. If people don't know how to help themselves when they're when they've gotten into that triggered place.

 

Sometimes, just having a mantra that you can reach for. I always like to use questions to sort of interrupt a a negative thought cycle, which is what if what I'm believing now isn't really true. And if you have something like that that you can sort of reach for in moments where you've been activated or you've been triggered and you automatically think something negative about the other person, that can sort of help bring you back. You can also, go out and and take a short walk or, you know, there's lots of different tools that you can use, breath work tools to just bring yourself back to your to your to your body and to your senses until you feel like you can move forward in the process. Yeah.

 

So you've got the unhealthy stabilization, and then you've got what Teresa just said, which are, the kinds of tools that are a healthy way to stabilize. And and this is the big part. This is this is the first step in moving through the process. This is the way to either, again, the unhealthy way is to, act in ways that will actually make the rupture worse or will cause harm to you or the other person, emotional harm. And it can be as serious as physical harm.

 

Because even like, you know, you come back the, something from like a story we see in a movie where somebody comes back from the restroom at a bar and they, and some guy stole in their seat and it immediately turns to get out of my seat. And then the next thing you know, there's a fight happening and people are throwing punches. The ego in order to not feel shame might think that stabilization means putting the other person in their place and claiming back my space. But but again, not effective. The healthy, ways to handle this are to find ways to regulate.

 

So, inner resourcing, self care practices, you talked about accessing tools for self regulation. Number three, honoring the pain, feeling your feelings, like, take some time, feel it all. It really helps me. I know you do this. It really helps to sit with feelings because rather than on the onset of a rupture, you think you know what's going on.

 

I often, if I sit still and get in touch with my feelings, I recognize that the story I'm telling on the front end is just a cover up for what's really going on. And that if I sit still and ask myself questions and begin to look inward to try to get answers, I can come back to a conversation with you and I can name exactly what is really happening. And and I think that's a big step as well. So Yeah. And that also leads to, self regulation, by the way.

 

Being able to let the steam off of whatever got activated by processing or feeling those emotions is a big one. And we tend to, again, avoid emotions. We think that they're wrong or bad, and we shouldn't be feeling them. And so we tend to sort of try to to push away from them. But if you can take a moment and just drop in like you said, and and know that it's safe to do that, and and sometimes it takes learning, more about how emotions work and and and practicing with a practitioner or therapist to be able to do that.

 

But, you know, when you're able to, that that is incredibly helpful. And and then it you know, when you do come, come back into the process of of trying to repair and come into connection again, it's not filled with that huge weight of of heavy emotions. Yeah. And, you know, the top one there, feeling your feelings, grief and and rage, noticing sensations, allowing and surrender. It's another one you're really good at.

 

You make it just okay that it's okay to feel what you're feeling. It's okay to experience what you're experiencing. You don't need to make any anything bad. This is just normal human work, that we've been doing for thousands and thousands of years. And we live in this modern society, we go to school, and we have people teaching us and but the reality is that this isn't easy stuff.

 

We've been struggling to get it right and to do rupture and repair in a healthy way since the beginning of time. So there's that. And then reflection, looking at trauma patterns, leading, leaning into discomfort, taking responsibility for behavior. And then it comes to compassion, having self compassion, having, you, seeing humanity in the other, seeing yourself in them. That helps me a lot.

 

When I look around the world, I can clearly see that everyone else is just me under a different set of circumstances, a different history, a different genetic code, different life experience, different traumas, and I can have compassion for their showing up in a way that hurts me by recognizing that really if I had experienced life exactly they would the way they did with the exact history and DNA that they've got, I almost certainly would have showed up the exact same way. So that's helpful to me and then, inner opening or softening. And again, I think when you do those top three, that bottom one starts to become natural inside the moment. So, there's that. And then that leads to repair.

 

And this is notice, by the way, none of this had to do with talking to the other person. This is the process inside you as this whole thing is going on, and I thought that might be helpful. Any thoughts on rupture to repair process, before I go to the next slide? No. I just I think that's really I love that.

 

I think it's a really good, representation. Cool. Here, this was just a fun little slide. Not knowing how to lead sorry. Not knowing how to repair leads to playing it safe.

 

You just you're avoidant, right? Like if you just walk away from the situation, everyone will just move on. I'll say this. I have a person in my world who I love dearly and, our relationship is pretty good. But this person, whenever I come to them with rupture, anytime I come to them and go, Hey, like that, that violated a boundary that that that bumped into me, I got hurt in this moment.

 

Their way of handling these things is just to go like, hey, let's just move on. Let's just move on. We'll we'll move on. And, you know, we'll try not to do that again, but let's just move on. And there's no way to get a conversation around the thing that happened.

 

And, when you do that, it leads to shallow, unsatisfying relationships. And I can say that's true. This person that I care about and who I think I have a decent relationship with, I also will note that it is much more shallow and unsatisfying than what I would want it to be. And I've shown up this way for others, and I can see why my relationship with them because of my fault is shallow and unsatisfying. And, so to be aware of that, it says rupture is inevitable.

 

Repair takes work. Repair might feel like a myth because it's so rare, but it's real. Repair is more than I'm sorry. It's also naming it happened. That's a big one, isn't it?

 

Just to acknowledge like, hey, that that happened. You know, one person showed up one way, the other person got bumped into by it. And without even having to discuss blame or fault, you can just say, like, I acknowledge that that occurred. That seems like a really big one. Owning our role, naming the impact, listening to their version is a big part of that.

 

Wondering how it was co created almost always, not, not always, but almost always, rupture was co created, by both parties and then planning a way forward. So there's that as well. Okay. This is just a slide to say this is going to happen over and over and over and over and over. And almost everyone, and maybe it's safe to say everyone in relationships has rupture.

 

Rupture happens over and over and over and over again. I think very few humans have the tools to give healthy repair. And so if you get rupture and repair over and over and over again, count yourself one of the lucky ones. I think often it's just the rupture that happens over and over. Yeah.

 

Rupture and repair in spiritual or religious relationships. And I want to put a slide in on this. Many deconstructing folks experience rupture with believing family and friends. In a high demand fundamentalist religion, family has been taught by the religious system to interpret their loved one not going along with the system. So if the family is a true believer in the Jehovah's witnesses, for instance, and somebody in that family goes, I just don't think this is true, and I don't want to participate in this anymore.

 

The family has been taught to shun them, to see them as broken or less than to see them as bad in some instances as as caving into a bad, seducing would be how the Scriptures would say it, but essentially that Satan tempted them and they gave in. And, I say all that because folks in relationship, the rupture is going to be created. They're going to think it's your fault. You're going to recognize that they're predesigned by the system to judge it that way. And so you're gonna have a hard time having a conversation where they can see what's going on.

 

They're they're trained not to see it. And in these situations, you got to be extra careful because, any effort to hold the situation to the actual merit of what's happening will often, unfortunately, it's not right, but it will backfire. And it'll end up with, the family sort of gets gets you being the bad guy reinforced to them, even though you're just handling the situation in a healthy way, trying to acknowledge the rupture and trying to be heard about what happened. Yeah. I was just gonna say, you know, it's it's an enmeshed it's an enmeshed system, and it rewards enmeshment or, you know, and and when somebody wants to assert their independence or interdependence, the enmeshed system doesn't like that.

 

It feels it feels to them as if they are being abandoned, and that's not really true. But because it's an unhealthy system, it sees that natural desire to individuate in in a healthy way as, something negative? Somebody stepping out of the family's religious system to walk their own path. I'll just say for anyone who happens to be listening that is a believer and has been taught to think that someone leaving is bad, I would only note that that is such as never the case. Someone stepping away from your family's religion to walk their own path is just the normal, human development of individuating, as you just said, Teresa, of claiming your own life and moving forward, walking your own steps.

 

And religion teaches us to be scared of that and to label that. But that's a reflection of the insecurity of the religion and those who are in it watching someone step away. There's a fear that it says something about the truthfulness of your system. So anybody walking away has to be made into something other than a sincere speaker of truth who simply couldn't continue to believe in your faith system. And we ought to honor people, who walk away from any religion, including the one that you and your family belong to, if they're just doing what feels right to them.

 

Okay. So, the next one here, can spiritual or ideological ruptures be repaired? Sometimes, yes. But the new terms have to be negotiated. So, when you're in a family or you're in a faith system or you're in a family in a faith system, there are certain agreements that the system taught all of you to make.

 

So you grow up, you're born in a religion, your parents are that religion. You all go to church every Sunday. You show up at temple every Saturday, you there's, there's a unsaid agreement that the parents often, more especially the parents, think that everyone in the family has agreed to. And when somebody says like, No, I'm going to do something different, I'm going to ask that you respect that and honor that. In a healthy space, a conversation needs to take place, where the new terms of this relationship have to be negotiated.

 

And again, I don't think that's easy. Sometimes people are very resistant to it because again, it seems to say something about the system that they don't that they don't want to be questioned. But having healthy negotiations with people that you care about, being able to establish healthy boundaries with people that you care about are crucial steps in a healthy relationship. And then the last one, the power of grieving the relationship that was in order to allow a new one to emerge. We often think our life is just always going along, never changing, but in reality, every moment from the one before it to the one after it will be different.

 

Your friendships are constantly changing. Your romantic relationship is constantly changing. Your relationship with parents or coworkers are constantly changing. And when rupture happens, and it becomes obvious that something has, in fact changed, it's okay to grieve the relationship that was and to and doing so, makes a space that the new one can emerge. Any thoughts there?

 

I'll just say that I I think it's a challenge for a lot of people, especially referring to, like, the Mormon church, for example, when somebody decides they wanna leave and and go a different way. But it can be done, and I think the people who respond poorly in those situations are people who have unhealthy patterns anyway. I will say that, you know, one thing I was always so grateful for is my my grandmother on my dad's side was very religious. Like, she was a temple worker forever, and a lot of her grandkids were not active in the church, and she loved all of us. She never ever criticized.

 

She never she held space for everybody to be exactly who they were. And I I just thought that I I just had so much respect for her ability to do that while being such a, a true believer of, you know, of her faith. Yeah. It is touchy. Sometimes we have to let people have, their misunderstanding or their misappropriation of of saying to another person, like you can't you can't fix people.

 

And the only thing you really can do is to set healthy boundaries for yourself. And that may that may mean that a relationship, actually, you allow it to be distant because it's not safe for it to be close. In some relationships, you may have to end altogether. And it isn't a reflection of, any weakness on your part. It really is a matter of if it isn't always a win win situation.

 

And sometimes you have to make a choice between the healthiest path for you going forward in setting boundaries that allow you to be safe and being in relationship or connection with a person where that relationship isn't healthy for you and it bumps into you or harms you. And you you can't just snap your fingers and make it be okay. So you have to make a choice on whether you stay in a relationship that hurts or whether you create distance with boundaries, and that hurts too. But maybe that's the right call because it allows you, to avoid being caught off guard in significant ways that hurt you. Yeah.

 

So there's that. Okay. The next one, there's that one again, which we'll skip that. So this brought us to the end, and there's some questions here that I think are maybe the most important part of this conversation. And and I'll say, I I think this is another option for folks if this is something, if you find yourself having rupture but no repair in relationships with romantic partners, parents, friends, coworkers, whatever it is, you've got patterns and it might be just with one person or it might be a whole host of people that sort of points to you're not handling something well.

 

I think this is another great opportunity to seek out whether it be a coach or a therapist. A therapist has helped me a ton, to be more in touch, with with what I bring to these situations, in order to show up better. But I think it's a great opportunity if you notice like, hey, I'm in a relationship. I want to do rupture and repair. I just tend to always do rupture.

 

Repair seems to never happen. Every time I try to repair me and my partner's conversation, just it just falls off the tracks and we end up in an argument. I think there's this is a great opportunity to talk to somebody because I think I think what we think works or what our lizard brain tells us to do is sabotaging these moments and having a third party help you walk through some of these, experiences and practice with you on how to change it up and to show up doing something different, could be extremely helpful. But, this final part of the conversation is just some questions that we wrote down, to get some engagement from each other and to to sort of plot out what some of this looks like when rubber meets the road. And so this first one here, what is the healthiest way to bring and I'll ask you this, Teresa.

 

What is the healthiest way to bring attention to a rupture with another party? Well, it's to number one, give the other party the benefit of the doubt. Again, we use the, term using I statements. Right? Like, you're gonna explain what happened inside of you, and you're gonna take accountability for for your response and reaction without coming to a definitive conclusion.

 

So it's almost like you're like, well, there's some things I'm noticing right now. I you know? And you can state someone's behavior. You can you can state the thing that happened or the misattunement or whatever it was. And and if it's like a misattunement and you're like, well, what I really needed in this moment was this, and this is the way that you responded, and I I felt this in response.

 

Rather than, you know, blaming the other person or saying you caused this or you made me feel that's a really common one. You did this and you made me feel this. That's, not gonna get you a really good healthy response, and and that's setting the person up to be defensive because if it was a misunderstanding or if they had no intention to create a misattunement or, misunderstanding, then they're gonna be put on the defensive because they're gonna be thinking that you already assume that they've the worst about them. So really being able to practice giving that person the benefit of the doubt and speaking from an I statement. Do you have anything to add to that?

 

I think I think you're actually very good at this. This is where you excel is in bringing the rupture to the party. I think that you always come from a place of taking accountability for your own feelings. Yeah. The other thing I do too is I wanna grant that the other person arrived at their perspective honestly.

 

They came to the moment feeling what they felt, thinking what they thought, doing what they did, and they've got their own, schematics for how that all played out. And so coming to the conversation, recognizing like, Hey, here's another human being who did something that hurt me. And again, it's the thing that hurt me almost always. It's a good person on the other side of this conversation. And so coming to the conversation going like, okay, I'm going to notify, I'm gonna notify Gary that Gary bumped into me and he hurt me.

 

But also, I can just about guarantee, no matter what I think right now, that Gary's got, a good explanation for how his brain tracked that whole experience and why it happened the way it did. So I'm going to go into this trying on my end to create a safe space for Gary to clearly understand that I'm trying to understand him. And that I want to hear out what happened and why he went through the steps he did that ended with something that bumped into me. And that, to me, if you come into it with that, it changes your tone. It changes the words you use.

 

It changes what the goal of the conversation is. And I think it makes it exponentially more likely that you actually get from this conversation what it is you're trying to get. Yeah. The next one is, and I've got the one word spelled wrong here, but what is the healthiest way to respond to a party bringing a rupture to you? I'll I'll sort of the same thing.

 

I recognize that even if I'm innocent, that something I did or at least the appearance of what I did hurt them. So I wanna own that. Like, hey, I I can see your hurt and I I validate that the way this all unfolded, it was reasonable. I always try to say that too, by the way. I think you probably noticed this, but Me too.

 

Anytime you and I are in a conversation, I will tell you it was reasonable for you to feel that way. Yeah. It was reasonable for you to have arrived at the conclusion that you did. Because immediately, what I'm what I'm not saying is you're crazy. Mhmm.

 

You you are the one who misunderstood this whole thing. That may be true, the misunderstanding. But also, it's reasonable that when someone misunderstands you because something gave them the interpretation that it did, even if they misunderstood you, it was reasonable that they that that happened. They're not crazy. And so using language that says that that says, oh, like you came to me, You know, if you come to me and you say, Phil, you you hurt me.

 

First thing I'm gonna say when I know what it was, the first thing I'm gonna say is, wow, that's reasonable. It was reasonable that you felt hurt by what happened. Because I, I, the, my first step is I want to put you on safe footing to know that I'm not going to gaslight you. I'm not going to shame you. I'm not going to make this all your fault for misunderstanding me.

 

And immediately, that is makes it really safe for you now to go like, oh, he's he's safe to talk this out with, and we can understand each other. So that's my 2¢. Do you have any advice here? Yeah. One is again, this is where we come into the normalize, normalize, normalize because a lot of people are gonna be, reactionary here if they feel internalized shame about having misattuned with another person, about having made a mistake, about whatever it is.

 

Right? When somebody brings something to you and they're saying, hey, something about your behavior affected me in a negative way, some people feel so much guilt and shame about that that they just project it back onto the other person. And so what I try to I don't know. Like, try to get people to understand is that we're all human. We all make mistakes.

 

It's totally okay to make a mistake. It's okay to misattune with people. It's okay to all the things. Right? And and it's there there's a freedom that comes with giving yourself permission to mess up and then being able to reach out to the to the other person with, contrition and say, I am so sorry.

 

I I I see you and I hear you. And so sometimes you have to practice that. You have to practice giving yourself permission to make a mistake, to have that humility that it's like, oh, well, yeah, I'm human. It's okay. And and that makes this process go so much more smoothly.

 

When you have, when you have internal wounds around making mistakes or messing up, and when somebody brings a problem to you, you react with defensiveness and anger, like, there's some stuff you might need to work on there. I know a lot of people like this, and it's very difficult to have a repair process with them. Yep. So there's a couple piece of advice there. I I saw this quote.

 

I can't remember where I saw it, but I saw this quote. I was listening as I prepped for this conversation. I was listening to a few things on YouTube about rupture and repair and trying to make a few notes of things that were beyond, what our standard conversation was today. This quote caught my eye. Repair is about reestablishing that the offending party is decent and sympathetic.

 

And I would add empathetic is better, but sympathetic at a minimum is decent and sympathetic and can be a good enough interpreter of the other party's needs. And I'll read that again. Repair is about reestablishing that the offending party is decent and sympathetic and can be good, a good enough interpreter of the other party's needs. So when I, when I feel rupture with you, Teresa, and I come to you and I say, Hey, you bumped into me. That hurt.

 

What I'm looking for is I'm looking for you to establish that you're not malicious, that you are willing to be accountable for the part you play in me getting ruptured, and that you're establishing that you are that you care about me enough that I can trust you to be a a good enough interpreter of what it is that I need from our relationship. And again, it can be a relationship with friends, a parent, children, but that process is constantly playing out. So again, if I go back to attachment style, this is secure attachment. Someone insecure attachment recognizes that the person they're insecure attachment with is a good person, that they're understanding of my feelings, and that they understand my needs well enough. Again, you pointed out, it doesn't have to even be great 30% of the time to be a properly attuned to the other person's needs.

 

You can blow it 70% of the time, but that they're a good enough interpreter of, of my needs that I can feel safe around them with my feelings, with being vulnerable, with being my authentic self, and that if something comes up, I can trust that we can talk about it and work it out. That you can let them know that if there's disconnection or if there is a misattunement and that they will respond by reestablishing connection, by by reattuning with you, by letting you know, oh, I'm so sorry. I do see you now. Thank you for showing me that I wasn't seeing you correctly. That is that is all that repair is about, really.

 

That's the fundamental, aspect of it. Alright. Here's one for you. What's one repair moment in your life that stands out? Actually, I wanna turn this around on you because I think I think you had something to say about this.

 

It's a little different than the question, may seem. Yeah. My answer to this question is when I look back across all of my life, I'm 46 years old, I have it has been difficult in practically all of my relationships to have the other person or party do repair in a healthy way. And at the time I wouldn't have been able to name it, but I can look back now and go, I've been around a lot of good people in relationships that I was content with, but anytime there was conflict, anytime there was rupture, practically never did anyone have the tools or resources to do healthy repair with me. And so I was even telling you yesterday, maybe, or this morning, I was saying to you, you've done repair with me more times than probably all the rest of my life added up.

 

I can probably count on my two hands the number of times that someone even came close to doing repair in a healthy way with me. And and so what stands out to me is that repair for most people is not easy. Most people don't have the tools and resources to do it. That's in my awareness. I'm not saying that's true.

 

I'm saying based on my life experience, my anecdotal evidence is that based on the people I know and I've been in relationship with, people do not often have the skill set to be able to carry out healthy repair. What would your answer to this question be? I mean, there's one that it stands out because it was, like, so momentous just because I, I I thought it was interesting. But I had a I had a coworker a male coworker come up to me, and there had been a misunderstanding. I had been joking with him during the day, and, you know, he left for the day, and I stayed after because I I was working late that day.

 

And several hours went by, and he came back several hours later, and I was like, oh, how's it going? And he was really upset. And he came to me, and he actually came quite dysregulated and quite, you know, quite upset about something. And he brought up this thing that I said. He said, oh, you told me this and and and his there was a language barrier, so he's from another country.

 

And what I was joking with him about did not translate well. And so he's telling me that I'd said this thing to him, and I was like, oh my gosh. You know? And I'm thinking how horrible. I would never say that thing to him.

 

And then I realized that he had misinterpreted what it was I said, and I immediately just said, I am so, so sorry. And I want you to know, like, I I thank you so much for coming and bringing this to me. I told him I was really grateful that he came came and told me about it. I apologize that he'd been sitting with it for several hours because he'd been stewing about this. He was so upset.

 

He came all the way back to the office just to tell me about it. And then I let him know what the phrase meant, you know, what the real interpretation of it was, and he you know, everything just sort of washed off his face, and he realized and we kinda both laughed. But I I made sure to let him know that I saw the impact of of what happened, whether it was a translation, issue or what. And, you know, and he was able to release it and let it go, and and it was it was okay. But, you know, I I I don't know why I was able to do that.

 

I I could have gotten really defensive and said, well, that's not what I said. You know? You're overreacting here. But I could see the pain. I could see how much, his interpretation of that really hurt him, and I didn't want him to continue believing that.

 

So Almost certainly, repair will never start with your overreacting. That that yeah. I mean, that's gonna set things down the wrong track. But, good on you for making the space, safe for understanding and good on him for also making room. And it really does require both sides.

 

It may not be, you know, again, one side needs to regulate first and come to the come to the conversation much, you know, present and aware of what's at stake. But hopefully, I think in most healthy repair, both people kind of figure that out and some relationships don't have that. And so in the next slide, we're going to talk for a moment about that, which is and we hinted at this earlier, we were talking about the religious stuff, but not all rupture gets repaired. Not all ruptures are repairable. Safety is the non negotiable when abuse manipulation or trauma patterns are present.

 

Again, we all get to decide how much non repair we'll tolerate And many of us in endure non repair in a relationship because the relationship is worth it. And so we're with her a person, whether it's a sibling or a parent, where they just don't have the tools to repair, but the relationship is deemed by us. And it's up to every one of us to determine that the relationship is deemed by us as worth it. But there are times where the relationship crosses some line, it's just not safe. And we determine that the relationship isn't functioning at a level that we are getting the benefit from it that we need to for this relationship to carry on.

 

And so knowing when to walk away versus when to lean in. And then when it doesn't work, when repair fails or it isn't safe, we're going to have to do some internal repair with ourselves. And I think this is a great place where parts work comes in for me anyway. If somebody can't resolve things for me by offering repair, I can go in and talk to that part and take care of that myself, internally. So how to process unresolved rupture alone.

 

So parts work, journaling is helpful. Being a therapist, I think, is is super helpful. Yeah. So there's some ideas there as well. Do you have any thoughts on when repair fails or it isn't safe?

 

Yeah. And I have a I have an example, and I, there I had a relationship in my my life that was very important to me, and I'd reached out to this person. I was going through some challenging things, and I'd asked them if they had space to sort of, you know, hold space for what I was experiencing. And they said yes, and so then I shared. And I noticed in that interaction that while they they were well meaning, like, they they did nothing wrong other than, there was a lot of trying to sort of reframe what I was experiencing and what I really needed was to to just be heard, to just let myself, express what was going on.

 

And so after the conversation, I I just felt like, ugh, there's just something off. You know? But I felt guilty because, you know, they'd spend all this time listening to me, and I didn't wanna criticize them. But I also really wanted to build a relationship. And at the time, I was trying so hard to practice, recognizing my needs and speaking my needs.

 

Like, this was a process for me at the time, and so I remember thinking, well, maybe it's safe to to reach back out and sort of share the missing experience or to be able to speak, like, the need that I had so that the next time, it might be easier for me to say, hey. This is what I really need in in this moment. And so I did that, and I tried to do it the the most gentle way possible. I tried to take accountability for what I really needed and and, you know, without sort of blaming them in any way. And I thanked them for, you know, how they did show up.

 

I I I recognized where there were parts of that, the way they showed up that was actually really helpful for me. And then I said, you know, but in the next I said, sometimes I need I need to to just be able to hold to to share what I am feeling before my thoughts are questioned about it. You know? And that that's kinda how it came across. And, unfortunately, this person had so much internal wounding around feeling like what they did wasn't what someone else needed, and I think that really what was what it was.

 

It was, you know, I'm pointing out that what you gave me wasn't what I needed, and there was something in them that felt so much shame around that that they just attacked me. And it was attacking my character, reacting in this very defensive way, and it was so painful. And so, therefore, I didn't feel safe anymore, and I I shut the conversation up. Well, actually, there was a lot of back and forth, and I I overreacted at one point, but they called me out on that, and then I apologized for that. But they just kept coming at me, and I asked them point blank, you know, like, do you think it's okay to to continue to respond to a person this way to attack my character?

 

Because if this is normal to you, if this is how you wanna show up in this relationship, this isn't safe for me, and I'm gonna disengage, basically. And then they kept defending and saying, basically, they they weren't doing that and that you know? And so at that point, I just I just had to I had to disconnect. I had to I had to walk away because it was unresolvable, and I was not getting met in a healthy way. And it, it was very painful.

 

It's still it's still really painful, and I have had to sort of do the internal repair myself because I know I'm not gonna get it from this person. So sometimes these moments can be really painful. They can cost us relationship. But I think back on that, and I realized this would have happened over and over and over again. And and and I had a history with this person for for my whole life, basically.

 

And so, you know, there was a moment where I realized, like, it just probably wasn't a healthy relationship, but I was trying to make I was trying to make it one. And, ideally, what I wanted from the relationship was, closeness. I wanted to be able to have the kind of relationship where we could have rupture and repair, but but this person just wasn't able to meet me in the repair on the other side, and that was really hard. Yeah. And I'll I'll answer the question in a similar way.

 

So the next one is sort of playing along those same lines. What do you do when you bring a rupture forward and the other party isn't accountable? I had a situation where, and this was in a group setting where, I I found myself on the outside of the group. No one had, clearly articulated that to me. I was caught off guard.

 

And so when I sat down with folks from the group to try to figure out how the group moved on without, without me getting an explanation from them or understanding. What ended up happening was the folks that I sat down with made it my fault, and they pointed to life situations that I I was in the middle of that were hard that I couldn't do anything about. And and I fully understand sometimes in group dynamics that we fit or we don't fit, we're in, we're out. I understand all of that. What was difficult in this moment was there was no healthy conversation to say, hey.

 

Just to let you know, the group decided x y z. And so when I found myself on the outside of the group and no one letting me know, the only way I learned it was to reach out. And then I'm basically told that the group had moved on and no one had told me. And that was hurtful, but it was even more hurtful to try to express that. And all I needed from, the folks representing the group was to say, yeah, that wasn't cool of us.

 

We were scared to say anything. We we felt like if we said something that it was just gonna be awkward and uncomfortable, and so we avoided it. I would have accepted that. No problem. But instead, the answer was, like, what did you expect?

 

Like, it's your fault. And, same as you, I I had to just deal with that on my own. Took a few days, process that, realize that, you know, they're doing the best they can. I was I felt mistreated, but there wasn't any way to get justice for that. And and I also understood that I understood that the way everything unfolded, it was uncomfortable for the group.

 

I'm I'm aware of that. I'm aware that, there have been times in my life where I have done exactly what they've done, where, it was too uncomfortable and I just stepped away from a relationship rather than tell them why it didn't work anymore. But in those instances, if someone had come to me and said, hey, Bill, like, why did you why did you abandon this relationship with me? At that point, I I would have had to say, like, I was just too uncomfortable. I didn't wanna say this thing and and make it awkward for us.

 

So I just walked away, which in turn was so disrespectful to the relationship that we had. So I think we're all navigating these things, and it's messy, and it it has multiple perspectives that have merit to them. There are good reasons that people choose to avoid the healthy response. It's a protective measure. It's meant to sometimes people want to protect you from being offended or embarrassed or feeling like you're not good enough.

 

So leaving it in just dead airspace can sometimes seem to the person doing that to be the kinder move. So I just want to grant in these moments, like, it is messy and there isn't any one track that, ends up being exactly right and people have good reasons for why they do things. The thing we're talking about is that when that rupture is brought forward and somebody is looking for, some understanding. We need to do our best to give it to them. Yeah.

 

And I think also when you've done work and you've gotten to the place where you can now sit with discomfort and you can sit with conflict and you can practice healthier, rupture and repair process, it gets harder to engage with people who can't. It it becomes more difficult to to tolerate, you know, the lack of that. I think on some level, it can feel like those relationships just aren't as fulfilling once you've had an experience where you do have that. And so sometimes you can outgrow people. You know, you can outgrow, yeah, you can outgrow people, and that's okay.

 

Yep. Yep. That's true. So alright. I'll put this back up on the screen.

 

What do we do when we haven't contributed to the rupture and the other party believes you have? So somebody brings a rupture to you and you really are just completely innocent. You haven't there, there isn't something you've done. How, how do you handle it when, you haven't contributed to the rupture and the other party believes that you have? Any thoughts you have on that?

 

I would say, you know, it's it's, important to continue to remain kind If somebody's really highly activated and you're seeing that they are perceiving something through a lens that is just skewed, and maybe they're having a trauma response and you know you haven't done anything, it's it's important to be kind and compassionate to that person. But I would also say it's also important to sort of hold your boundaries. I mean, you can recognize and acknowledge the impact of whatever they're feeling and experiencing, but that doesn't mean you have to take accountability for something that that you didn't do or that that you didn't some way you didn't contribute to that. And it is a fine line to walk. And in these situations, there's almost, there's almost a secondary rupture because when that person is attacking you for something that hasn't happened, now you feel like that person has created a rupture with you.

 

And so I think these situations are kinda tricky sometimes. And if it's a one time or a one off thing, that's one thing. But if this is a type of relationship where you have this pattern with somebody, because they're continually misperceiving you or seeing things that aren't there because of their trauma history or whatever, that may be a relationship that you want to put some distance with. The the thing that comes to mind to sort of demonstrate this, you and I watch these, reality TV shows, Love is Blind, Married, Married at First Sight, Temptation Island we're watching right now. And in these shows, people are set up to, be initiated into potential romantic connections with others.

 

And I'll get, I'll use Temptation Island as an example. Actually love, I think love is blind is actually better. So in love is blind, people go into these rooms where they don't see the other person, but they get to talk to three, four, five, six people of the of the gender, the opposite gender that they're attracted to, and they, form various bonds with these people. And then as it comes as it rolls towards the end of this initial period, they have to pick somebody. And if they have a really strong connection, they have to propose and say, Will you marry me?

 

And then they finally get to meet that person. And whoever the second choice is, is almost always pissed and feels cheated, feels like they were strung along. But the reality of the show is that you're being asked to find your person, and you're being offered the opportunity to try to make connections with lots of people to sort out who offers you what best meets your needs, who are you most compatible with. And it seems to me as an outsider looking in, that the process is really natural to develop feelings for multiple people, and to test the integrity of whether that's real, for more than just a brief moment to figure out really who is the best for you. And if you do that in a way that is, honest to yourself, and, attempting to figure out for you who is the best person for you, like like my end goal here is to be kind to everyone, but I'm trying to find my person, Then it seems reasonable that another person is going to get hurt if they're not the first choice.

 

And often when I hear them explain, I go like, oh, like I can totally understand you feeling that way. But also the other person didn't do anything wrong. And so when I watch those moments play out, and these are young people and they don't often have the skills or tools yet, but there's a lot of avoidance. And as you pointed out, what really just needs to happen is like, hey. Like, if, like, if I take a step back, I can see that from your point of view, this really hurt you, that you experienced a lot of hurt.

 

That makes real it makes a lot of sense to me. Also, I'm just I'm just trying to do this process the way it was designed and I'm trying to find the best person for me and I can't know until I know who that person is that I want to move forward in this process with. And, that really is the, I think, the best you can offer someone, which again, the second half of what I just said is the boundary, which says, hey, I'm doing what's best for me. And that's what this show is for me. And but also in the first half is to acknowledge that, as you said, to be kind, like, give that person a lot of grace.

 

They they're really getting caught off guard. I say this all the time on this podcast, and I say it to people in real life too. The moments that are most hurtful to you, they, they bump into you the hardest, are the moments where you were planning on life going one direction and you were caught off guard by something that you never expected. And in that moment turned your life on its head. And in those moments, when you notice that you are in an experience, where that experience does that to someone else, you gotta find a way to honor what happened to them and how they felt through that while also, again, holding your boundary that you're just you're just doing your version of humanity with deep consideration to be a healthy person.

 

And it just so happens that the differences between how you wanted your world to show up and how they wanted their world to show up just clash. Yeah. So there's that. Practical tools and takeaway. So as we wrap up the show today, the repair checklist, and I'll go back.

 

I don't think I have it in this one. I'll go back here and try to find, the tools for that. Recognize the rupture. Name it without blame. Regulate yourself before engaging.

 

Reach out with curiosity, not defensiveness. Take responsibility even for the tone, the timing, the impact. Validate the other's experience, offer empathy or apology without justification, create a forward path. In other words, what needs to shift? What needs to soften?

 

How do we create understanding? And that's the repair process. And then, practice pauses. I, you know, we do this a lot with each other. I'll just tell you like, Hey, I'm really shut down right now.

 

I just need a little bit of time. And you're really gracious. You go, Hey, take all the time you need. It seems so reasonable that you need time to process that. And then I think we do it the other way around too, that, you know, when you need time or you're shut down and you ask for a break, I think I'm very responsive to that and give you time.

 

And then we come back together and we seem to always be able to to fix it once that other person's had the time they need. Well, and one thing I'll say here, just when you notice that somebody, needs space or or, they're telling you that, try to refrain from thinking that what they're experiencing is about you. Right? They're having their own experience, and it's about them, and it's about all their historical stuff. It doesn't necessarily reflect on you, and that's what happens sometimes as people feel really unsafe because they think what what's going on with the other person is really about them, and it's not.

 

So. %. Conflict scripts, I think this is where it helps a lot to to sit with a coach or a therapist where you can work through a script, you can practice it. You can practice in your head, but then you're always going to be telling yourself what you think the next step will be. Whereas practicing with another human being gives you the chance to be caught off guard by what the reaction is of the other person.

 

And so you can practice how that all works. But again, practice, conflict scripts. These are the the narratives you start off with. These are the, phrases you start off with the story. You said this earlier in the show, the story I'm telling myself is, so if if you come to a situation where, you got ruptured, someone else showed up in such a way that you got bumped into and you now go to them and you want to figure that out and create a space where they can repair it.

 

You start off with the story I'm telling myself is x y z. And even if it's a harsh thing, the story I'm telling myself is that you acted vengeful. Again, it could be a harsh thing. By adding that phrase, the story I'm telling myself, it it invites them to correct the story. Yeah.

 

Well, and that comes from Brene Brown, and she has I can't remember which book it's in, but she has the best story about that, about an experience she had with her husband. And it's, it's so, it's just so helpful because everybody has this stuff, and, you know, it can be the you know, let's say we have a a moment of disconnection where you're a little bit shut down or you're, sort of, like, you know, spending more time playing video games, whatever it is. And I may be feeling like, oh my gosh. He doesn't he doesn't like me anymore. He's not interested.

 

And so if I come to you and I start yelling at you and be like, god, you're never you're constantly checked out. You're, you you know, your video game suck, whatever it is. That's not gonna be bring as much of a response as if I were to be honest and be vulnerable and to come to you and say, hey. The story I'm telling myself is that I don't matter anymore, that you're not interested, that, you know, that that whatever it is. You know?

 

And and that's a a a much softer way to bring that and a much more honest way to bring that to, the table. Yeah. %. And then regular check ins to debrief past ruptures before they become patterns. So it's one thing to have a rupture and to repair it and, you know, good on us for doing that.

 

But also if if the thing that's causing the rupture is happening over and over again, now you're into something that's a pattern. And even if it gets repaired each time, that's gonna start to break down the relationship. And so we need to come back and have conversations past the rupture, once the repair has happened. And sometimes if it hasn't, because we want to knock out those patterns too. But if the repair has happened, we still want to come back and just have a conversation around it and see how we can better, understand each other in a way that we cushion each other from getting bumped into by this thing that again, it could be just a simple difference of the kind of human you are and the kind of human I am, and it doesn't mean that someone's a bad guy.

 

But I think that's an important step as well. And then I just wanted to maybe check-in, you know, we were talking before the show that it might be helpful to run through a couple of ruptures and repairs that you and I have had, to sort of show people what it looks like, as it's happening rather than we're using examples of other people in our world. And this gives us a chance to to talk about the person that's right next to us here in the podcast about how that works. Yeah. Any thoughts?

 

Well, yeah. I mean, there's, one example recently, and this just I I think this is gonna demonstrate, how gracious you are with me. But, so, Bill and I have a slightly different, preference for laundry soap. And I have a sensitivity to certain smells, and it's getting much better. But but when I first, when I first cohabitated with Bill, you know, I noticed that he had this laundry detergent, and I just hated the smell.

 

And he had two giant bottles. It's America's number one value brand. We have we disagree on this. So, anyway, I mean, it does say that right on the bottle. But but, anyway, so so there was one day when, when I see Bill and he's doing his laundry and that say I mean, he's still on bottle one.

 

And and and we had this conversation at one point, and he said, like, you know, this is just where I'm not gonna budge. Like, I'm gonna use the two bottles of laundry detergent, and I was like, okay. We can't throw these away. This is I'm just gonna have to deal. And, so, anyway, I see him one one day, and I'm feeling a little irritable.

 

And I think I said something. I was just sort of, like, complaining about it, just like, oh my god. When are you gonna be done with those? And I just kinda went off on it. You know?

 

Like, I I'm so I hate the smell of that. I just kinda was going on a rant. And, you know, rather than getting reactionary and defensive, Bill was able to sit for a second. And I'm sure you were I'll also just ask you, how were you feeling in that moment? As I was saying that, what was coming up for you?

 

I know that I've had patterns in my life where I get defensive, my wall immediately goes up, and I want to shoot arrows back. Mhmm. And, so I'll let you finish your thoughts, but I'll just say as an answer to your question is that, I've gotten so much better in the last whatever years, five years, maybe where, when I come to these kinds of situations, I just want to slow everything down and try to speak as responsibly as I can to the situation. Now I still might be, I don't wanna say snarky. I still might use humor at times.

 

And I worry even in our interactions, I worry that I'm using humor in a way that's making the disagreement more difficult to work through and repair. But I don't mean it that way. I'm trying to use humor as a way to like, get us get both of us to laugh and get out of the pattern of defensiveness that we that we naturally have because of the course of our life that has nothing to do with this moment. But I will try my best, in these kinds of situations to just show up responsibly in terms of not attacking. Like, you can you can say your point, but say it in a way that doesn't try to knock them down because they just said something that kind of knocked you down.

 

Yeah. Which is what you did. I mean, that's what that was your response to me. You said you said, the choice I have here is that I can retaliate and, you know, you basically pointed out that, you know, we both have things that we sort of have to put up with the other person that we may not be our preference, and that you could just attack me for the things that that that you have to put up with. And instant instantly, my brain got it, and I was like, oh my god.

 

I'm so sorry. And so I was able to just say, I am really, really sorry. You're right. I I I will give you more space to like, I'm not gonna say anything about your laundry detergent because that's that's the thing that you said that you wanna can you know, you wanna use, and I it I'm not gonna be thrilled about it, but I'm also not gonna harp on it, you know, because it wasn't I realized it wasn't fair. And I don't wash your clothes with my laundry detergent, and you don't wash my clothes with yours at least not with me knowing So and then and then the other instance, so, in that instance, I saw that what I could do was retaliate you you came in a little sharp.

 

And so my option is I can come back sharp at you and go, well, you'll yeah. Well, what about this thing? And instead of that, I just I didn't want to start that pattern. I don't want our relationship to have that pattern in it. And all relationships involve compromise.

 

And we, we all in, especially in romantic relationships where we're living in the same place with someone, we have to allow them to be their version of humanity. We hope that they allow us to be our version of humanity. There is compromise and negotiation because it's it's you can't exactly be all of you and they be all of them. You have to negotiate and find, ways to, accommodate each other. And so I just knew right then to me, what came into my head was here's a moment there's a fork in the road.

 

Either I start a new pattern of being sharp with you when you're sharp with me, or I try to explain to you that, that we're both we're both having to live with things about the other person that, like you said, are not the way we would have it be. You know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't cut my carrots that way. Using a bad example because that's not true. I don't care how you cut your carrots. You wouldn't buy organic carrots.

 

We'll put it that way. I wouldn't, I wouldn't spend the money on organic. I'm a very frugal person. And you're willing to spend extra money if it means that you get some assurance for health benefits, for instance. And so that's a place where we bump into each other.

 

And there are places in our relationship where I let you have things the way you want them. And there's ways you let me have things the way I want them. And this was just one of those moments where you were just, you were feeling something. And you wanted it to be your way. And I knew in that moment, I could poke at you and say, well, well, then fine.

 

I want it to be my way on this, and I want that or or don't you realize that I let you have this? Well, I'm not really have that anymore. And the moment we go down that track, now our relationship has shifted into something where we're we're fighting to be right with each other. Yeah. And and so my thing I just wanted to say was, I don't wanna do that.

 

And so knowing if I can just remind you, like, hey, I I do things the way you want them done in order to accommodate you. And might you be willing to let me have this one to accommodate me and let's just call it a tie and know that we both do these things for each other. The one that I think of is, you came to me, I'm going to say it was a week ago and you notified me that, it was sort of the example you gave a minute ago, but that I'd been kind of hiding myself away and spending a lot of isolated time doing, things that that I sort of do when I escape from the world, and you weren't feeling connection. And you came to me and and said that. You said, you know, I'm I just want you to know, like, I'm not feeling connection right now.

 

You're you're taking a lot of time to yourself. And, that's causing me to have stories in my head. And we proceeded to have, a really, I think, healthy long conversation where I honored what you were feeling. It's you know, but but I definitely felt defensive, not because of anything you were doing, but because I wanna justify why I do what I do. And, but you but you came in so gracious and kind, and I just explained to you what I was feeling and there was some part of me that's like, if I tell her how I'm feeling, maybe she gets even more upset with me because I've got some some things I'm wrestling with in my head and and it's got me sort of stepping back and there were things going on in my world that had nothing to do with you that I just I was exhausted from and and I had spent so much emotional capital in and felt so many things that I just needed to to just go into dorsal and and hide away for a few days.

 

But that wasn't fair to you. And I think you did a great job of making it known what how it was affecting you. You left room for me to explain my my side of things. We had a long conversation about what your needs were and my needs were, and I never felt any part of that was either side of it was disrespected. And, we both just gave each other space to feel what we were feeling and to have it be.

 

And and then we still maintained, as you said earlier in the podcast, we maintained, some degree of connection as we were both processing all of that. And then we come back to right back to where we were and things are good and and feeling like, that moment had passed by and and I had recuperated and, you felt reconnection again and and that we had dealt with it in a really healthy way. Yeah. And what it does for me is every time that happens, it makes me feel like I can trust and I don't have to wig out when disconnection happens again. It's gonna it's gonna keep happening.

 

It's just that's part of life, and so it reinforces to me that it really is safe to move through that process, and I can trust you to, do your part, and you can trust me to do my part, and that builds a healthier, stronger, relationship. So, one thing I also wanted to share just about the whole rupture and repair concept or idea is that if we take this, and extrapolate the idea from, you know, relationship with other and and sort of, present it as an idea of practicing this in relationship with yourself. So, because whether people realize it or not, we will have rupture and repair with ourself. When we disconnect from ourself, we self abandon. We do something wrong, and then we're mean to ourselves, and, you know, we we attack and internally criticize ourselves.

 

That's also a form of of rupture and and disconnection. And so there's a way that we can start practicing this type of, process with ourselves. And I think that this helps to, immunize us and and make us more capable of having repair processes with others when we learn how to establish a repair process with ourselves. So if we've been unkind to ourselves, if we've if we shut ourselves down, if we've, misattuned with ourselves and but, you know, one of the ways that you might misattune with yourself is maybe you have a real authentic feeling, but you talk yourself out of it or you or you or you pretend like it's not really there or you don't honor a need or a boundary that you have internally. That can be a moment of of misattumbent or disconnection.

 

And so being able to take a moment to practice acknowledging, you know, the misattumbent, acknowledging where you didn't show up for yourself, and and offering that repair, apologizing to yourself, and then responding with compassion and kindness, can really can really go a long way to building, more tolerance for discomfort, more tolerance for conflict, more, a greater ability to respond to people with kindness and compassion as well. So just something to think about, because I I do think that part of the work that I did on my own and continue to do on my own, translates back into my relationships with other people. I just wanna say that this episode is brought to you by Extra, America's number one value brand of detergent. Anything you wanna say about Extra? It's one of your favorites too.

 

Right? It smells as bad as it looks. I'm teasing. It's I don't like fake. I just don't like fake fragrances.

 

I I I just don't. That's Alright. Well a smell snob. But, that's really funny. Yeah.

 

Any final words on on rupture and repair? Just everybody be kind to yourselves. You know? Normalize this. It's normal to go through conflict.

 

It's normal to make mistakes. It's normal to have ruptures. We just now have to figure out how to get a little bit more comfortable with reaching back out and offering the repair and and, coming to the other person with a sense of humility. That doesn't make us feel diminished because it's not diminish it's it's not diminishing to have have been misattuned or to have made a mistake. Like, it's just human.

 

So that's what I'll leave everyone with. Yeah. Yeah. And and just what you said, I mean, you only have to get you don't have to get these things right a % of the time. You have to get them right enough that the other person can trust you to handle big conversations, hard conversations, that they can bring their hurt to you and their hurt will be honored and respected, even if it didn't happen the way they thought it did.

 

So the more accountable that we can be, more self aware of how we're showing up in these moments, like being aware of our own nervous system and how we're showing up to these moments. And and then I'll just say one other thing, which is if someone has done something, so many of us just avoid ever bringing that forward. We just go, we just go, I'm never I'm never gonna, no one's ever gonna honor my pain. No one's ever gonna repair with me. There's too much risk in doing it.

 

I'm just always going to run away from every situation and just carry my hurt with me. And I'll just note that that pattern never breaks until you do something different. And if you are going to do something different, I'd highly suggest you pick a person or two in your life that you trust the most and you give them an opportunity to show up differently for you. And I don't think it hurts to watch something like this conversation here with a partner or with a friend or a sibling. And somebody who cares about you should be willing to hear out this kind of process, the steps that go on and rupture and repair, and and to try to do better to, in their relationship with you.

 

So maybe something like that would be helpful. Well, I'll say that this is where traditional therapists really shine, is being able to especially, you know, someone who's like a marriage and family counselor, to be able to sit down with you and help walk you through how to have really healthy conversations and how to how to help have healthy, conflict and repair. So Yep. Well, folks, we appreciate it. We try to put these out every Sunday.

 

I'm not sure if there will be one next week only because we'll be out of town for a week, but we will be back, soon with another episode of the Almost Awakened podcast. Please hit the like button. Please subscribe, and please, consider donating. You can go to almostawakened.org. Click the donate button.

 

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