257: Two Obvious (but IMPORTANT) Healthy Relationship Principles
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Relationship Alive, a whole new season of episodes. I'm your host, Neil Satin, and I'm really excited to be back, finally. What took so long? Well, if you want the full story, I encourage you to check out my last episode, where I gave a little bit of the rundown of what I've been up to over the past few years, and

When I released that episode, I thought I was just a few moments away from being back here with you, but life had other plans. I'm going to tell you a little bit more about what happened in the intervening time in a moment. But first, two important things. The first thing is that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about core relationship principles and boiling them down to even simpler truths.

Truths that are so simple, they're almost stupid. And yet these principles are at the heart of so many relational successes and failures. It's common sense, but my goal is for each of them to create a framework that makes it easy for you to put your own experience, whatever it is, into perspective.

So today, I'm going to debut a couple of those principles, two that actually go hand in hand, in hopes that you will marvel at their effectiveness and simplicity, and maybe at just how ridiculous it is that I'm naming them at all. But name them, I will, coming up in just a minute. The second thing is...

It's spring here in Maine, and you might hear the Phoebe that has decided to take up residence outside my window today, chirping away. So let that be a lovely sign of spring for you. The third thing, I thought it was only going to be two things, but then the Phoebe joined us. Before I could come back, I knew that I needed to rewrite my communication guide.

The first version that I wrote, which you've heard me mention here on the show in the past, had some great tactics in it. Specific words to use when you're in a conversation, for example, to help you get to a place of greater understanding. But it was time to revamp it into something even more useful and even more of a reflection of all the things that I've learned over the past decade since I started Relationship Alive.

So the new and improved version has three strategies that will help you step into any conversation, no matter how potentially contentious or challenging, with a solid approach so that you can harness the place within you that's already resourceful and knows what to do, or in the case you don't know what to do, to recognize exactly where you need help so that you can get that help at some point, but

but without it taking down your conversation in the moment. So to get the new and improved communication guide of my top three communication strategies, just visit neilsatin.com slash relate. Same link, different guide. Check it out, try it out, and please let me know how it goes. Okay, I think that's it. Let's get on with the show.

Okay, I just had to spin my chair a little bit to, I don't know, give it a little dramatic effect. Did you know that you can watch Relationship Alive on YouTube now? You can see me spinning my chair. You could always listen on YouTube, but now I've actually started recording video for the show. The link is youtube.com slash neilsatin. Easy enough? Yeah.

And you can see me attempt to spin in my chair or other random things that I do in front of the camera. Sometimes I can be a bit of a perfectionist, but that little chair spin was definitely not perfect. And you'll be able to see all my imperfections live and in HD. Now, there are, of course, so many nuances to having a successful relationship.

But at the same time, there are principles that are at the core of almost every successful relationship. And I'm not just talking about romantic relationships here. I'm talking about any kind of interaction that you have with another human. If you want those connections to grow and feel good, then you're going to have to address these core principles one way or another. And as I mentioned at the beginning, we're going to cover two of them today.

The first one should be obvious, but surprisingly, given some of my experiences and some of the experiences that I've had the honor of hearing about, this obvious relationship principle is something that lots of people seem to be missing. So that's why I'm going to start here.

And if you think about the best relationships in your life and some of the not best ones, you'll probably recognize why with what I'm about to say. Before I name it, it's probably worth mentioning the second principle that I'm going to talk about today has a huge impact on whether or not you'll be able to follow along with the first principle. So when you hear it,

the first principle, if you're thinking something like, oh no, I'm totally screwed, don't worry because obvious relationship principle number two just might be able to help you out. Okay, so what's the first one? Don't be an asshole. Or put more positively, do be kind and generous and compassionate. So

I mean, on some level, this should go without saying, right? But you would be surprised by how many times I've heard a relationship issue that could be solved by someone essentially just not being a jerk. The principle is borne out by the science. Now, you've hopefully heard my conversations on the show with John and Julie Gottman, who have been researching healthy relationships for more than 40 years.

Famously, they talk about the five to one ratio of positive to negative interactions in a relationship. In other words, you need way more positive interactions than negative ones in order for things to feel good and sustainable, like a situation that you want to be in.

Usually they actually follow up by saying it's more like 20 to 1 positive to negative that you need. And don't get me wrong, I appreciate the science. It's important to test out your ideas so that you can get rid of the bad ones. But what is this science saying exactly? It is saying be kind, don't be a jerk. Do lots of positive things. Do the kinds of things that are deposits in the emotional bank account.

And if you want to stick with that analogy for a minute, that means that each positive thing you do adds a dollar or a pound or a euro or a dinar. You get the idea. Wherever you are in the world, you do something positive and it adds one unit to your emotional bank account with the other person.

Now, if you do something negative, it's going to subtract somewhere between five to 20 units. So do you see where this is going? Say I do 10 super nice things for you. That feels really good. $10 in the bank account.

Then say I make a snide comment about the dinner that you just made and all that money comes out and then some plus 10 minus 20 and there you have the story of any relationship that feels like it's not going quite the way you want it to.

And on some level, it makes sense, doesn't it? Our relationships are really just the sum of what happens in our interactions with each other, with the additions of our dreams, our stories, and sometimes our wishful thinking about who the other person is or could potentially be.

And usually at the beginning of getting to know someone, we and they were all on our best behavior. And then slowly things slide a bit. Now, as always, it's important to recognize our own tendencies and to be able to see what others are doing accurately.

Sometimes being a jerk is obvious, like when someone is hurling insults or swearing at you or calling you names. However, there are some other potentially less obvious examples of being negative, like using sarcastic humor, subtle put-downs, or backhanded compliments, like saying, "'Oh, honey, nice work being on time for once.'"

And if you hear that and you think, but what about joking around? I mean, can't you just take a joke? I was just complimenting them on being on time. Look, if you're joking at the other person's expense, they're going to perceive that as negative. And you probably know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone's joke too. If it wouldn't feel good to hear it directed at you, then

Don't freaking say it. And if you want to compliment someone, just compliment them. Appreciate them. Like, for instance, I really appreciate that you were on time for our lunch date today without all the other stuff about how things have been in the past. So some other examples, criticizing and judging the other person, complaining, criticizing

Blaming another person, literally insulting another person or insulting someone who's important to that person. Being argumentative all the time. Playing devil's advocate when someone hasn't asked you to play devil's advocate. I could probably go on for a little while longer, but basically, if someone treats you in some way that makes you on the inside say, ouch, on some level, they are potentially being a jerk.

And if you treat someone in some way where they're suddenly getting hurt or defensive, then it's worth looking in the mirror to see if maybe, just maybe, it's you who's being mean in that moment. Now, I suppose it's worth naming that there are sometimes exceptions to this. Sometimes you disagree with someone and it's important to find a way to express that. Sometimes you have a legitimate complaint about something and somehow things need to change.

Under circumstances like that, it's important to be able to create a container with the other person that's safe enough to hold things that could be construed as negative, but in a constructive way, to talk candidly with respect for each other, and to make requests that the other person can actually hear and consider. And it may be that sometimes you do need to make a withdrawal from the emotional bank account,

But it only works if you've made lots and lots of deposits through positive, supportive interactions with each other. And let's be honest, if you have lots and lots of complaints about another person, then you probably have a bigger problem on your hands. Now, another exception is occasionally you might have a relationship with someone that on some level is based on being antagonistic with each other.

Or maybe you know a couple like that who argue all the time, who take jabs at each other, and who still seem to be fine at the end of the day. I have a feeling that the only thing that makes these situations sustainable is what we on the outside perceive as negative energy. Those people actually see as a sign of something else. Love. Presence.

You're here for me. You see me. In other words, their stories about what they're experiencing are a different story than what you and I hold about that situation. Now, those things do happen, but in the end, that seems to be the exception, not the rule. Most people I know and that I've worked with get really worn down by negativity and negative interactions.

And well, as I said, that's also revealed in the science by the Gottmans. Now, there's also the counterpoint to this kind of situation where someone is being mean. That's worth addressing, which would be something like walking around in defensiveness or being oversensitive.

Because if someone is defensive all the time, then it's really easy for them to construe things as negative and for their feelings to be hurt. So in other words, if you feel like someone is being mean all the time, then it's also worth checking yourself to see if you're walking around wound tight and wary of being attacked at the slightest offense. It could be that you're feeling that way because of your relationship, but

which probably indicates that there's some work to be done there. It could also be that you feel that way in general, maybe because there were things that happened in your past that made it hard to feel safe with other people. And that might indicate that there's some different work that you'd want to do to handle that level of defensiveness or sensitivity. Interestingly, the way to safeguard yourself against that, being overly defensive or too sensitive, is

is actually the same as how you might stop being a jerk. And we're going to talk about that in a minute with the second principle, but not quite yet. I want to talk about what you can do when you realize that you've been mean. And I want to talk about also what to do when you realize that the person you're with is mean. But before we do...

Yeah, let's dive into that second core relationship principle that I wanted to talk about. One that I think has a huge bearing on taking the meanness in a relationship down by several notches, if not most of the notches or even all the notches. But this next principle stands on its own as well as perhaps one of the most important life skills you can learn and develop. So as I've mentioned,

I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about everything that I've learned from decades of study, all the books read, all the conversations with people like the Gottmans and Sue Johnson and Peter Levine and Stan Tatkin and everyone who's been on the show and all the coaching work that I've done with individuals and couples.

And I had this deep sense that there would be a way to distill everything and make it even easier for you to understand how to strengthen your connections, how to have meaningful relationships that lift you up instead of bringing you down. Now, one of the things that became obvious for me as I was surveying the landscape is that emotional resilience is the core relationship skill, if not the core life skill, and

So what's emotional resilience? Think about it this way. In your normal day-to-day life, when you're relaxed and feeling grounded in who you are and what you're about and what you're capable of, you're going to be at your best. That's because you're in an emotional state that allows you to show up for yourself, show up for others, and to be responsive and collaborative in positive ways.

You probably recognize those moments that you've had where life threw you a curveball, but because you were good at your core in that moment, you were able to show up for whatever happened without any issues. However, there are times in life, obviously, when things get challenging, when things don't quite go your way. When someone says something that catches you off guard and knocks you off balance, you

When you try to have a conversation about something important and it turns into an argument. I mean, obviously I could go on and on here. There are any number of ways that things can happen that would disturb that precious all is good feeling that I was describing a moment ago. Your resilience is your ability to notice when that's happening and

and to have consistent things that work for you, to bring you back into balance, to regulate your emotions and reactions, and to be able to glide gracefully with your emotional state, whatever it is. And if things go way off the rails, resilience is your ability to recover from those big moments of things that go wrong,

or the times that you get overwhelmed without being taken offline for too long and without leaving too much damage in your wake, or hopefully not leaving any damage because you either avoid it in the first place or you know how to repair it when it happens. So we've talked a lot in past episodes about strategies for bringing yourself back into balance when you're triggered.

And we have some upcoming episodes geared toward that as well, because I wanted to cover it from so many different angles so that you can be well-versed in this. I guess it's not really a principle as much as it is a core relationship skill that

so that you almost never have to think about it again. Because as you get better and better at it, regulating your emotions, bouncing back with resilience, it just makes all of your life easier. And it becomes obvious how you need to improve and when you need to improve. But think of all the times when conflict might arise in your relationship, whether it's just a minor disagreement about, I don't know, what you're going to have for dinner, or

or trying to navigate something major, you wanna be able to stay in the part of your brain that's social, that knows how to listen, knows how to cooperate, and can understand all the nuances.

This includes being able to communicate about your emotions in ways that other people can understand and work with because the goal isn't to stuff or hide your emotions. They're important information after all. The goal is to use that information in order to craft a life and relationships that take your deep truth into account with all the choices that you make.

But when you get dysregulated, like when things get intense and your emotions get all stirred up and you don't have a consistent way to deal with that positively, then you can end up stuck in some sort of dealing with danger mode, fight, flight, or freeze. And none of those modes are conducive to connecting or making a tough decision or finding your way back to being connected with your partner or your coworker or your mother-in-law after having a challenging conversation.

Now, I want to tie this back into the first principle about how being a jerk isn't conducive to a happy and healthy relationship. But first, I did want to mention that one of the things that delayed my return to putting out new podcast episodes is that once I realized how important this skill was, I decided to create a course to help you develop it.

And it ended up becoming more like an experience to help you develop the skills of emotional regulation and resilience, because this is something I'm doing all the time with clients. And it's really become part of my core journey as a human. And I thought it would be really easy to put this course together. But instead, as I dove in, I realized that just how much ground I needed to cover for it to be thorough, right?

And I wanted you to be able to walk away from it with your own personal, customized game plan of how to respond when things get intense based on how your emotions get activated and based on discovering the strategies that work for you and who you are. And I also wanted to create an experience so that you could safely get a feeling for what it's like to use those strategies in real time when you are actually getting triggered.

So what I thought would take maybe a few weeks to put together actually took me about nine months. But it is finally done. And if you want to learn more and check it out, just visit neilsatin.com slash foundation. The course is actually called From Chaos to Connected, Mastering Emotional Regulation and Resilience.

But I use the word foundation in the link because it truly is a foundational skill for just about everything else that I teach. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I'll put the link in the description as well. So like I said, this feeds right into what we were talking about with our first principle, either in terms of why you or someone you know might be acting like a jerk or

or in terms of how you can either reform your own behavior or respond effectively to someone else who's being a jerk in your life. So when it comes to the whole don't be mean thing, generally, in my experience, when people are mean, it's for one of a few reasons. The first reason is just that they learned along the way to act like that.

It's just the way they are, and they may or may not have any self-awareness about that. They probably witnessed someone else acting that way, most likely a parent when they were younger, and just thought that's how you're supposed to be in the world. Or maybe they are aware of what they're doing, but they couch it in ways like by labeling themselves as opinionated or being a truth teller.

But you and I know that those can really be excuses, maybe for someone who just doesn't quite get how to act differently or what the impact of acting that way is on their life, along with the lives of other people around them. Now, some people also learn that being mean is a way to get their way in life.

One of my mentors, when I got out of college, actually, and worked in the tech world, he used to say, assholes always win. That was when we were complaining about some particularly vexing situation. But I don't actually think he was completely right about that. But at times it can feel that way, that the person who's loud enough and obnoxious enough will get what they want.

And a lot of the times that's true because their behavior causes emotional turmoil and distress for the people all around them.

So everyone around the asshole is just playing defense to try and shield themselves from any more abuse or manipulation than what's necessary in that situation. So the asshole, in a way, actually gets positive reinforcement for how they're acting because they get their way. And the people around them just are focused on maintaining their sanity or recovering from the damage that the jerk person is causing.

Most importantly, though, I think that people end up being mean because they are very easily emotionally dysregulated. And their go-to emotionally dysregulated state is the fight state. Since the options are essentially some form of fight, flight, and freeze, if your go-to is fight...

then odds are that the people around you will have a perception that at least sometimes when the pressure is on, you're mean or hard to collaborate with. And if things get out of hand or go on for too long, that you are just plain dangerous in their lives.

So whether you can be a difficult, mean person, or you're in some sort of relationship with an asshole, the core skill that can help you improve your situation is your ability to emotionally regulate. Now let's talk first about the possibility that you get mean when you're triggered. In other words, that you go into fight mode.

I don't think any of us are actually immune from this possibility. I've certainly experienced it. I can think of one relationship in particular that I was in in my 20s that was particularly volatile at times. It was like things would escalate and we couldn't quite find the off-ramp. And I don't think I'd ever yelled at a partner before that relationship. So I want to be clear, though, that...

I don't think anyone really wants to be in a relationship with someone who's mean. And I think that the other person being mean is, it's a completely legitimate reason to part ways. And we'll talk a little bit more about that at the end of this episode. But before we do, it's worth stating that it might not be impossible to turn the situation around. For most people who are mean,

It's not a permanent 24-7 condition. There may be some hope. So let's explore the hope without being blinded or unrealistic. So if you tend towards mean when you get triggered, and instead you can sense that something in your system feels threatened and deal with that feeling first,

Then you can consider whether the actions that you were maybe about to take are what you really want to do. Do they really move you towards your highest desired outcome? How do you want the people around you to feel about you and about their interactions with you? Do you want them to be excited about it or do you want them to be dreading it?

The thing is, if you're emotionally regulated, you get to make a choice here. But a lot depends on you and how you're showing up. So if you're in a relationship, then I'm going to assume that the highest desired outcome is for you to move through whatever situation you're in, feeling closer, feeling more connected,

feeling like you actually accomplished something together. That's going to come through engaging your social collaboration system, the parts of you that, as I mentioned earlier, know how to listen, how to understand, how to solve problems creatively. And you can only access those parts of your system when your whole defensive fight trigger mode has been calmed down a bit. So that's the gift that emotional regulation gives you.

And let's talk about apologizing for a moment. I've had an episode or two on apologizing, most notably episode 112 with Harriet Lerner. And it's usually an important part of healing whatever wounds have been created by the ways that you've been mean. But before you can, you've got to come clean with yourself first about what your actions have been and what you'd rather have them be.

That's important when it comes to apologizing effectively, because anyone that you've offended will want to hear that you get what you've done and the impact of your actions and how in the future things will be different. And you'll probably want to spend some time listening without getting defensive and

so that the other person can share more about your impact on them. And so they can see that you're able to reflect and hear challenging things without retaliating and without being mean again. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that you should never get angry.

It's important to distinguish between the anger that you might feel, which is an emotion that's healthy, a healthy reaction to being hurt in some way that motivates you to act, and the actual actions that you take because you're angry. In other words, you can get angry without being mean. Getting angry means

That's not something you typically have any control over. It's what you do with that anger that matters. So can you recognize that you're getting worked up about something? And what do you do about it after you realize it? That's what emotional regulation and resilience is all about. It's not not feeling things. It's feeling them, being clear on what you're feeling, and then making choices about it based on the results that you're really after.

So can you choose actions that work for you and that build connection between you and others instead of actions that create damage or drive you further and further apart? Beneath anger, there's always some sort of hurt or fear of being hurt or a protective impulse around someone else that you care about being hurt.

And sometimes you do have to act quickly from your anger because there's truly some kind of danger involved. But I find that often you can hang on to the impulse to act, which is something useful that your anger gives you, while at the same time exploring the hurt and finding ways to take care of yourself. And then in the end, your actions will be way more effective because you can focus on the change you're trying to create and

Instead of having that untended to hurt part of you, calling the shots. Okay, now what if you're being impacted by someone else who's being mean to you or mean to people you care about? If you're in this position, then it's probably obvious how improving your ability to regulate your emotions can have a huge influence on your ability to show up in the situation.

Now, when I say show up in this situation, here's what that's going to look like. First, when you're on the receiving end of someone's bad behavior, you need to notice what's happening within you

And do something about it before you either launch into a counterattack or flee or get overwhelmed and shut down. So step one of emotional regulation allows you to feel what just happened to you, let it register, and bring yourself back into a more balanced, grounded place.

The second thing is probably going to be making some sort of boundary. Now, how you do that is going to be personal to you. You might decide you need to take some space. You might decide to say something. You might even put a mental force field between you and the other person enough to slow down that cycle of ping, ping, you know, whatever's happening between the two of you.

There's an art to setting a kind boundary, one that creates a little safety for you without completely alienating the other person. And it's going to be super challenging to do that unless you're operating from a place where you're feeling more emotionally regulated. The third thing might be to check in with the other person. Like, what's going on with you? You seem really angry, hurt, offended, upset.

You got to name the feeling that you think might be true for them in the moment and see if it resonates. So can you get curious about what's going on with them? Like, especially now that you're not feeling like you're in mortal danger from their aggressive tactics.

Do they calm down enough to be able to have a conversation with you? And is there a way for you to steer your interaction towards collaborating so that you're both focused on a solution?

There's so many things that become possible once you're able to steer the direction of your emotions a little bit more. And then later, can you have some conversations with that person about specific actions that they took and the impact they had on you and see if they'd be willing to change how they respond to you. Let them know the long-term impact too.

But what you don't want to say is something like, can you stop being so mean? Because that probably won't go so well because it will feel on some level like you're attacking them. So on the other hand, saying something like, hey, next time we're having a disagreement, would you mind not raising your voice? Or when you told me I was lazy, that really hurt me a lot. Would you be willing to just ask me to do something when you want me to do something instead of calling me a name like lazy?

Now that person might say something like, well, what do you want me to say? You were being lazy and I called it out. Do you want me to just be dishonest with you? Do I have to sugarcoat everything? Now I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you. At that point, and you can see how being able to regulate your emotions comes in really handy for a conversation like this, you might be able to start making your own requests. Something like,

No, I appreciate that you can be honest with me. And yes, I think it would feel better if you could find ways to be honest with me that were a little easier for me to hear. If what you want is for me to really consider what you say and to act differently, then it's going to be a lot easier for me to do that if you treat me in ways that feel like you understand me and have compassion for me instead of pointing out what's wrong with me.

And you can see how the conversation goes from there. Sometimes the other person can hear you and sometimes, and be willing to adjust. And sometimes they can't. And then from that place of feeling more confident in your own ability to ride out emotional storms, you also get to make some choices about your connection to this person who gets mean. In the end,

I want to be clear that you have agency in your life and you get to make choices about who is and isn't right for you, who is and isn't going to be involved in your life, or how involved you're going to let other people be. It's not impossible to get to a better place when someone is mean if that person, whether it's you or someone else, is willing to look at what they do.

and look at the impact of what they do, and make some real effort to change. And because generally I tend to want to avoid the pain of a relationship ending, I'm inclined to at least put in the effort and try. For me, I would probably try a bunch of times. But if it's not going anywhere, then it's also worth taking the trust and confidence that comes from

You being able to experience your emotional resilience and regulate your emotions and just maybe courageously make a different choice. You'll know when the time is right and you'll know that you have the strength and courage to face whatever you need to when you take whatever steps you need to take. As I said in the beginning, the quality of your relationship is the sum of how you treat each other

and the stories that you tell yourselves about each other. If you can both be kind, generous, compassionate, understanding, patient, forgiving, that goes a long way towards helping you get through the challenges that will inevitably arise. And if you can sense the ways that your emotions push and pull you,

and get better and better at steering that emotional energy towards positive, constructive action, then you'll be in a better position to respond to the people around you with care and understanding, and when necessary, with a boundary that's as fierce as it needs to be. Okay. My dear friend, I am really excited to be back here with you.

I have lots of guests lined up for the weeks and months ahead, along with some interviews that I've already recorded over the past year or so, in preparation for finally being able to continue this conversation about relationships and about being alive and cherishing the life that we've been given, living it to its fullest. As always, if you have burning questions for me, you can send me an email at

neilius that's n-e-i-l-i-u-s at neilsatin. many of these episodes actually come from the questions that i've been asked and of course i can keep you anonymous as i answer them also don't forget to check out the new course on emotional resilience and regulation at neilsatin.com slash foundation and until next time take care i'll see you again soon

And it's really good to be back here with you. ♪