The Happiest Lives Podcast
The Happiest Lives was designed for Christian women who want to stop being disappointed in their relationships and feel more loved and loving. Here you will learn to think better, feel better, and love better.
This podcast is hosted by Jill M. Lillard, MA LPC, a licensed counselor, and Gottman Certified Couples Therapist. Jill has been helping people manage their minds, process their feelings, and have better relationships for over 25 years.
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Discover all her programs and courses at www.myhappyvault.com.
You can email Jill at jill@thehappiestlives.com.
The Happiest Lives Podcast
E48: Invest In Your Shared Desires
This is part nine of the series How To Get Your Relationship Back On Track. In this finale, we talk about creating shared meaning in your relationship, which Gottman refers to as the roof of our relationship house. I show you how to find a 'want match" and highlight the importance of small, consistent changes in positively impacting the fabric of your relationship.
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Questions? Email Jill directly at Jill@thehappiestlives.com
You were listening to the Happiest Lives podcast with Jill Lillard, episode number 48. Welcome to the Happiest Lives podcast, where you'll learn to think better, feel better and become the woman God says you already are. Here's your host, jill Lillard. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast and I always say the podcast as though I am the podcast. Welcome back to the Happiest Lives podcast. I like to think I'm the podcast, but I know there's a lot of great podcasts out there. But I hope that you are a regular listener here and I am appreciative, thankful, honored to be one of your teachers. So this is our final episode in the series that we have been doing over the past couple months on how to get your relationship back on track, and so, if you have not been listening, I'm going to give you a quick rundown, a review of everything that we have talked about for the past. I think it's been nine weeks by now.
Speaker 1:So we began this series talking about creating a healing separation. When you're able to see yourselves as two individuals coming together to create this unit that is called your marriage, then you are able to separate that. The other person brings their own brain to the relationship. They have their own thoughts and feelings, and they aren't always about you, and so when we can disconnect in a sense where we allow them to have their thoughts and feelings and we have ours, we are able to connect in a much more powerful and effective way. It's also really important to be able to regulate your emotions, be aware of what you're feeling and to manage those so that your emotions are not running the show. Part of this is being able to validate your feelings, to actually be able to feel them and slow down, validate what you're feeling, and then you can figure out how you're going to move forward in a way that honors your values the best. We talked about making deposits in your love bank, and so if you're going to have a lot of withdrawals, if you're going to have conflict and differences and compromises that you're going to make, you want to make sure that you are regularly making deposits, and so you want to build up those positive sentiments and good feelings by turning toward one another, expressing fondness and admiration and just hitting refresh on your partners in a world.
Speaker 1:In the next week we kind of move more into dealing with the conflict areas of gridlocked, as we talked about finding the hidden dream Behind every gridlocked issue is a hidden dream, and so you want to be able to ask questions, create a space where you can deepen understanding, recognizing the reason you keep getting stuck on this issue is because it goes back to the bones of who you are, and there is some hidden dream at play that you want to be able to discover by being relaxed, curious, open as you have a conversation and slowing down having to make any decisions, but really just take some time to understand one another so that you can help honor one another's dreams. You want to share your dream and you want to understand their dream. That is in conflict. The next week, we spoke about listening up, how you can be a better listener. I gave you some tips there of how you could listen better, because when we listen better, we actually set the stage for others to listen to us a little bit better. And then we talked about sharing. Honestly, you don't have to share everything that you're thinking, every thought and feeling. I don't know what things you should share and shouldn't share, but I do want you to show up in a relationship where you can authentically be yourself, and so the outcome is not how the other person is going to respond to you, but it is going to be being the person that you want to be in the relationship, that you are having a voice and you aren't just pretending to be someone that you think the other person wants you to be.
Speaker 1:We then follow that by learning how to make requests without demanding. When we can ask for something, in such a way and we're not demanding the other person give it to us as though we're entitled to it. We are recognizing, as we talked about in the very first episode, creating a healing separation. We're recognizing that they have their own thoughts and feelings and they do things based on what they're thinking and feeling, and so we want to respect and honor our individuality and be able to have more influence by really looking at the way that we are thinking about the requests we're making and so that we can soften those. We can feel a little bit more free, confident, abundant as we make requests in the relationship.
Speaker 1:We then follow that by establishing rituals of connection. What are the things that you have in your relationship that you can count on consistently and regularly, that make you feel connected? That's super important in being able to establish a sense of shared meaning in your relationship and today kind of piggybacks on that, because rituals of connection would actually kind of fall under what we're talking about today shared meaning, goals, desires, interest in your relationship. So today we're going to talk about investing in your shared desires. What is it that you both want in the relationship? It's really easy to get focused on the things that you want that your partner doesn't want, or things they want that you don't want, but how much do we spend our energy on our want matches, the wants, the desires, the dreams that do match up? So that is what we will talk about today, and I want to focus on some of the work of John Gottman, as he talks about creating shared meaning, which includes those rituals of connections. What are your roles in the relationship? What are your goals for yourself individually, but goals that you share as a couple?
Speaker 1:And then what is the symbolic meaning of certain things in your relationship? So, for instance, when we talked about back on episode 43, when we talked about looking for the hidden dream, we discussed that a home symbolizes a dream. It represents something to you and it represents something to the other person, as does sex and money and all sorts of other things in your relationship, and so you want to look at what you are making those things mean, what are the hidden values behind that, and see which one of those things match up. Sometimes problems are solvable because we just kind of have to talk about like, hey, we actually do want the same thing in this area, but how we've been going about it it doesn't feel that way all the time. So that's what we want to be able to do as we talk about investing in your shared desires, and I love the concept from the Life Coach School of looking for a want match. This is where you list your different wants, desires, dreams, and then you're going to see which one match up with your partners and you're going to look at each other's list, maybe have a conversation about them to deepen understanding and circle which things on your partner's list that you want to, and then you're going to focus on the thing that you both want, and so I'm going to show you how to apply this practically today as we discuss this topic. So A lot of times I have clients come in and I hear them complain about having nothing in common.
Speaker 1:You hear it all the time. Or even talking with friends like, yeah, I don't even know what we have in common? We don't really like to do the same activities. And as I hear people, I kind of reflect like, yeah, hey, rich and I like to relax in different ways. What energizes me doesn't necessarily energize him. How we would spend our free time is very differently, and so I have to ask do we have anything in common? Is this a problem? And so one day when Rich and I were on a walk, I brought this up of like, hey, you know how clients I have, clients share this a lot. And then I got to thinking I'm like, well, I mean, how we would share spend our free time I think is different, different from how the other person would share it. And so what do we have in common?
Speaker 1:And the way I was asking that question, I think my mind was thinking about activities shared together. But his mind went in a totally different direction. He was focused on our different shared values interest in our faith, our family, relationships, contributing and life giving ways to other people's lives. Those were always that we wanted the same things. Those were shared, shared interest, goals and values of ours. And so I know that, even though we spend our time in different ways and we're energized by different things. We do support each other in our roles. In the household. We share many symbols and many values, even though there's others that maybe seem to collide sometimes. So maybe you aren't feeling supported in your roles or goals. Maybe there's a divide in how you approach sex, finances or managing the household. But if we dig a little deeper, is it because you don't want any of the same things or do you? So?
Speaker 1:Gottman has this idea of creating shared meaning in your relationship and the model that he has it's the sound relationship house model. And so picture a house and the foundation is your friendship, and the middle is how you deal with conflict. And then the top, the roof of the house, is your shared meaning and values. And so when you build a house, you start at the bottom and you build upward, and you can think about dating. You're starting at the bottom and building upwards. You're developing that friendship which is the foundation. The love maps of curiosity about who this person is, the fondness, admiration, the appreciation, the turning toward and sharing experiences that's all very foundational and for couples, therapy.
Speaker 1:We are looking at that friendship, but a lot of them, the incentive for coming in, is the middle part. Like we don't communicate. We don't deal with conflict well, and so that's kind of where the energy is and people are wanting help facilitating conversations and working through the hard things. So we want to do that and we actually spend most of our time in our session learning how to have conversations, to deepen understanding and make requests and express ourselves and listen all of that. But equally important is that you are doing things to build that foundation, the friendship, and then, if we fast forward to the very roof of the house, we don't always get to that work of shared meaning and yet it's so very important. We want to have a good roof on our house. Sometimes I think it's the latter work right. If we can be friends again and if we can move through conflict and build some trust, then we can deepen that a little bit more and talk about our shared goals, values together.
Speaker 1:And so Gottman, shared meaning. That's why I say this for the very last concept in this series. It refers to the idea that successful relationships involve partners creating a shared sense of purpose, values and goals, and Dr John Gottman developed this concept and his work on understanding what makes marriages successful. So shared meaning implies that the partners are building a shared vision for their lives, and so this includes their goals, dreams, values, both individually and together, the ones that they agree upon. And it goes beyond day to day activities and routines. It focuses on the deeper connection and purpose that partners find together. Gottman's research suggests that couples with a strong sense of shared meaning are better equipped to navigate challenges and conflict, and so this idea of the house we're building from the bottom up. We also know when you have a good roof, it's going to benefit what's going on in the house. If you don't have a good roof, you're going to get a lot of leakage and rain and maybe other problems inside the home, and so it kind of works backwards as well. Creating shared meaning involves this mutual understanding of one another's values, aspirations and the meaning behind shared experiences. So this concept is one of the elements that contribute to a romantic relationships, overall health and longevity.
Speaker 1:So how do we do this? How do we approach shared meaning in our relationships? How do we make sure that we're building that in our relationship? One, I think, is being able to have those conversations where you're finding the hidden dreams that help you better understand your individual hidden dreams right, so that that's going to naturally come up during conflict. Using the same skills of conversation and exploration, curiosity, openness, you can have conversations about the roles, the goals and the symbols within your relationship. I also love the tool of Life Coach School, as I said earlier about finding a want match, and what this basically means is you identify one shared want, starting off by making a list and then finding a want that matches up, and then you pursue making that want. Now I think that want could be a shared activity you want to have, but it could also maybe be a shared value. And then I love the concept that comes from James Clear. He's the author of Atomic Habits.
Speaker 1:A lot of that we think of in terms of making behavioral changes in our life, reaching goals, personal development, but I think we can apply that to relationship growth as well, and this is the concept of 1%. The 1% compound effect in creating change is based on the idea of making small, consistent improvements over time. I think that's so important. Sometimes we want to jump to something big and major. Right, if we want to say we're married, maybe we have to spend all this money and go on a fancy trip, or we have to just do something extreme and really, if we can just start creating some small, consistent improvements over time that will lead to significant positive outcomes in the long run. And so the idea of the 1% compound effect is that by making a 1% improvement in a particular area consistently, the cumulative effect over time becomes substantial. And I also love that scripture of hers, isaiah 26-3, and I think we can apply that to any changes we're trying to make in our relationship. And it is he whose feet are steadfast will keep in perfect peace.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you want to make some of these changes, be patient, take a deep breath, recognize change, take some time, and you just want to make sure the changes that you are implementing are consistent. They're small, they're doable. So I wanted to give an example of what this might look like. Let's say that you are wanting to. You know that you both valued quality time and yet your lives have been so busy you're not prioritizing that, you're not finding the time. And so each day, if you wanted to implement and honor the shared value, you could focus on making this connection slightly more meaningful. So if we're doing the 1% improvement, you would share something new about your day, express appreciation or discussed a shared goal or aspiration, and you might have to get intentional by saying, hey, we're going to set aside 20 minutes when you know when, when we both come home from work at the end of the day, you know, maybe we want to have 20 minutes where we just sit down and say, hey, how was your day, tell me about, tell me, you know what was going on? Were you kind of just de-stress exhale? Now I know that doesn't maybe sound interesting or like a positive event for some of you, but I know some of you would feel like, yeah, that would really help me feel connected, to just actually pause and be intentional. Maybe it requires telling the kids they're going to play by themselves for a half hour while you guys just kind of reconnect at the end of the day. But you could even start with 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:But the compound effect over time, this daily habit of connecting on a deeper level. It will gradually strengthen the shared meaning in your relationship. It occurs as you consistently invest in understanding, supporting and being present for each other. So if you are going to find a want match number one, you're identifying the shared want by making a list, picking a want that you both will have and then making a plan. Make your plan doable, measurable. And then the next thing that you want to do is honor the plan. You can have a plan, but if you don't honor it then you're not going to see any change.
Speaker 1:So you want to commit to honor it for a period of time, like, hey, let's try to do this for the next two weeks. This is how often when like, make it measurable somehow, so it's concrete, that you know what's happening, what does it look like to honor the plan? And then you actually want to honor it and then just see what comes up. You know there may be some obstacles, so it may not happen some days. Maybe there were things you didn't anticipate. But then you want to set.
Speaker 1:So if you say we're going to try to do this for two weeks, then you want to set a reassessment period where you can kind of evaluate the goal and then re-decide if you want to keep it and so schedule that time to evaluate. And if you didn't honor the plan, you want to be able to ask why Now, don't do this in a place from judgment or hurt, where you're judging yourself or you're judging the other person. Like, don't get discouraged, it's just information. Identify what were the obstacles. So if the action was we didn't do the thing we said we were going to do, why didn't we? What were the obstacles? And if you decide you want to keep working on this goal which I would encourage you to I would encourage you to give it more than two weeks. Maybe you need to, you know, give yourself three months to actually work on it, even though you kind of put these two-week check-in points to re-decide. But when you re-decide to keep the goal, learn from the information, turn the obstacles into strategies Okay. So if this is an obstacle, we can anticipate that would get in the way of us having the date night. What do we need to do? What strategy do we need to put in place so that doesn't happen again? Or we're prepared next time that it does happen, or we have some sort of backup plan.
Speaker 1:So the alternative to creating a want match, to building the shared desires, is to just complain about your relationship. You can spend your energy grumbling saying that you guys have nothing in common and what you're going to do is you're just going to prove the lack. You're going to find all the evidence that you guys don't have anything in common, or you could do the things I'm telling you to do today implement this want match, this idea of a want match, so that you are filtering, channeling, rerouting your energy in a positive way, rather than your brain going to negative thoughts, thoughts of lack and shortage and criticisms with the other person, you're directing your brain to be productive and to learn and grow. So to kind of close this out, I want to give you a few more examples so I can make this as concrete as possible to you. So let's say that you guys sit down and you do a want match, and one of the things that you identify is that you want to express more gratitude, that you want to appreciate one another more, you want to feel more appreciated and you want to appreciate, take time to appreciate the other person. And so you both decide this is a want that you both have, and so you're going to practice expressing gratitude toward your partner on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:It may be that you formalize it somehow. You could keep a little journal by the nightstand on your bed where each day, you write down something that you're grateful for in the other person, and then this is the same journal they're using and they can read those written words of appreciation. It could just be more cognizant of trying to express. You know, verbalize and express positive feelings, as you are having them throughout the day. But for yourself, you want to make sure that you know, maybe three times without the day, throughout the day, you are expressing appreciation, and I would check in with yourself at the end of the day. Did I do that? Maybe I have positive thoughts, but maybe I'm not always expressing it, and so those feelings of gratitude are, could be related to your partner's character, actions they took or the way that they contribute to the relationship. But you're just looking for new aspects of your partner to appreciate each day and over time. The habit of expressing gratitude fosters positive and appreciative atmosphere in the relationship. You're building up that atmosphere of fondness and admiration and both partners can feel more acknowledged and valued and this contributes to a sense of shared meaning, let's say.
Speaker 1:Another example is you want to have better communication and so you want to feel like you're expressing yourself, you're listening better and you're understanding each other better. So that can feel like a big, just a very big, non-concrete goal, non-concrete in the way that you know there's so many different ways that can then break down. So if you want to create a 1% improvement. Maybe you're just going to dedicate a few minutes each day to active listening and focus on truly understanding your partner's perspective without interrupting, and this may be using some of the tools that we've talked about in this series taking turns as speaker and listener, like you're speaking right now and so I'm going to listen, and then we're going to swap off, and the effect over time of this would be the improved. Communication becomes more of a habit because you've been practicing it, and so maybe you you say we're going to practice this once a week or every day. We're going to find time to practice this and it's going to lead to a deeper understanding of each other's thoughts and feelings, and you'll get better at communication when you're intentional with that.
Speaker 1:Now, for some of us, for many who come into therapy, who come in for coaching, they recognize that they need an outside mediator. They need someone to help monitor the conversation, to be able to hit pause when it's going in the in the wrong direction, and I see some couples come in who are able to implement the things that are I am teaching them quicker than others. I see others who need a whole lot of redirection because some really bad habits have been set in and maybe things just get so emotional and it's very hard for them to observe themselves as a speaker or listener, and so they're not even sure of what is happening. And that is where coaching can be such a wonderful resource, and so I encourage you, if that's something that you need to help improve your communication, that could be something that you both want and that could be a tool that you use to get that result.
Speaker 1:And one final example I will give would be if there's maybe a shared hobby or activity that you want to do. Let's say you decide, hey, we want to cook more together, and so one night a week we're going to cook a meal together, and this will help you explore new activities, even if it's in a small way. Maybe it's we're just going to put make a like a dessert together. Maybe it's not a whole meal, but you can experiment With a specific hobby. Maybe just in general, you want to share some hobbies together so you could experiment with different hobbies or find a common hobby that you're going to focus on, but you want to dedicate a portion of your leisure to this shared activity, rather than just doing all the things that you like to do by yourself or with other people, and over time, as you consistently invest in these shared activities, you are going to make some memories. Memories will accumulate, you will pave some new trails in the woods and this is going to create a sense of togetherness and shared identity, contributing to a richer shared meaning in the marriage.
Speaker 1:So I hope you guys found this information helpful today. I hope you found it practical, that it's something that you can actually go and apply in your relationship. Maybe sit down, ask your husband if he wants to do a one match with you. But in summary, I would say number one you want to identify your shared wants and don't limit those two activities. You can they can include your different values and roles and goals in your relationship. Then you want to make a specific plan of how you can honor this shared one. You want to then take small and consistent actions, learn and grow as you try to implement the plan. What's going well about it, what's not going well, strategize for the obstacles that come up and really, overall I would say, complain less. Invest your energy very intentionally in making a positive impact in your relationship. So that concludes today's lesson.
Speaker 1:Our next series that we're going to start next week is thinking about what you're thinking about.
Speaker 1:We're going to take our brain out of the box and see what is going on in there, because this skill set is so very important. If you want to change the way that you feel, you want to change the way that you are showing up in your relationship, you have to be able to know what it is you're thinking and consciously choose your thoughts, and that is a skill that so many of us aren't even familiar with and we're not exactly sure how to do that, and we have never even considered that as an option or seen the value of it. So I want to thank you guys for listening today and for showing up for this series. I really appreciate it very much If you guys have enjoyed this podcast, if you've been listening for a while. Can you leave me five stars, leave a review? That helps the podcast get noticed, and I appreciate it very much. So thank you guys for listening, and I am here to help you become the woman that God says you already are.