Episode 113 - The Intimacy Triangle with Andrea Parks
You may remember my conversation with therapist Andrea Parks about the drama triangle and how we can shift out of harmful roles in our relationships. But once we escape the drama, how do we build the deep, connected relationships we crave? In this episode, Andrea introduces the intimacy triangle and we dive into how authenticity, openness, and responsiveness create true closeness. Here's what we cover:
The role that vulnerability plays in intimate relationships
How to strengthen the three components necessary for intimacy in your relationships
Why it’s often difficult to develop the three components of intimacy in high-demand religions or family systems
Examples of how openness increases intimacy in all relationships
Why responsiveness is often transactional or conditional in an unhealthy system
I can’t wait for you to listen.
By training and profession Andrea is a therapist and facilitator. She is in private practice and the owner of Bloom Healing. She has a degree in Child Development and a Masters degree in Counseling psychology. She has training and experience in psychodrama, attachment, somatic bodywork, developmental trauma, grief and life transitions. Alongside her work as a trauma therapist she specializes in group therapy and loves creating spaces where individuals with diverse backgrounds can come together in community and heal. By choice and good fortune she is the mother to three children and honored to be partnered with Shawn, her closest friend and companion in life. In her free time she is a seeker of poetry, wild things, beauty and friendship.
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Transcript
01:00
We're about to have one of my favorite types of conversations because we said we'll see and hit record. Andrea Parks is one of my dearest and closest friends. She is a therapist and works specifically with people who come from trauma. I'm going to let her introduce more about that, but I have learned more from her about intimacy and vulnerability and the role that conflict plays in that than I think almost anyone else generally and in our friendship, it has been such an incredible relationship for me. I wanted her to talk about her work with intimacy because I get so many questions and comments and praise for the podcast episode we did about the Drama Triangle, which is episode number 83. If you want to go back and listen to that one, do you think they should listen to that one first? Will I give them some context for this one? What do you think, Andrea?
01:51
I don't think you have to, but I definitely think this builds upon that, so it would be useful.
01:56
So go back and listen to that one first, if you haven't, because you need to know about it anyway. Andrea, what do you want people to know about you?
02:04
well, that I am a helper, that I mostly work with all genders in my practice, but I would say primarily women and people who are coming out of high demand religion or out of systems of like conditional systems. So family systems where there's a lot of low nurturance, family systems where, and if I'm being honest, I think that's maybe a lot of us. Yeah. People who are listening to a people pleaser podcast may have some sort of connection to some of these, because I think they all kind of come in a cluster, but folks that are wanting to do better than what they had wanting to give their kids maybe more than what they had and don't have an idea of how to do it. So that's kind of like where this whole idea that we're going to talk about today started is when I first started working with clients really early on and this particular group of clients, it was over and over and over again. We were spending a lot of our sessions talking about relationships and relationships are like the grist for the mill of therapy. It's where it like reveals all of your trauma. It's not necessarily always the source of your pain, but it reveals all the places inside of you that need healing. So we would spend a lot of time talking about relationships and we would spend a lot of time talking about this idea of the drama triangle, these roles that we play. They're like suits that you're assigned as a little child to make it work in your family and you might be the persecutor or the rescuer or the victim,
but they're all kind of the same. It's a lack of connection, a forced role that I'm in to feel safe and no progress, no connection can happen in that while we're in that role. So, you know, we talked about this in the last episode, we kind of have this way to get out these new kind of ways of showing up that help you heal the drama triangle. And I've done that. I mean, I've been in private practice for close to 15 years and I've done that work with clients for a lot of years. And then I realized I wanted to have another model that would teach how you then after you've healed the drama triangle and you've kind of stepped out of these roles and you're like this naked little new baby who doesn't really know how to now build what you want to have, which is intimacy. That's where this came from. And I think I've been teaching this for years, but I wanted to put it together in a similar format so it's easier to remember. And it's a model I think that's really helpful for me. I said this in the last episode that whenever you bump up in a relationship where things aren't working very well, I like to ask myself which leg of this am I leaning too heavily on? Am I leaning too heavily on accountability? Am I leaning too heavily on compassion? Am I leaning too heavily on boundaries? And usually if something's not working in your relationship, you're probably leaning too heavily on one. And so this I use as a similar way. Like if you're looking at relationships, you could kind of ask yourself, does this relationship have these three components? So let's dive in.
05:04 Yeah.
05:05
Okay, so the first thing you should probably know is that all three of the components are different and Brené Brown would love this as I was working on it over the last little bit, I realized that vulnerability is in every single one of them. So it's not a single corner of this intimacy triangle, it's like the breath that moves through the entire thing. So each section as we talk about it, we'll kind of talk about how vulnerability is a part of it. So first, I think unlike the drama triangle where you could kind of start at any given point, I think this one works better if you kind of start at one point and you build on it. So I'm going to kind of teach it that way. But the three components that I found necessary for intimacy are authenticity. And this is like how I show you who I truly am. Openness, this is how I stay open to you and open while I'm being authentic. And we can talk about that a little bit more. But a lot of times when we're learning how to be authentic, we're like authentic and then really armored, like I'm going to show you who I am, but don't you dare come at me, I'm going to boom, boom, boom, right? Like it's this really protective stance. So it's learning how to stay open. And then the last one is responsive. So I'm responsive to you and I'm also still responsive to me. So it's this flow that happens. And I think it's important to know and we can kind of talk about this as we go through it, that those are three conditions that are usually not possible in high demand situations like a high
demand religion, a community or, you know, a codependent family system. So, you know, high demand religion often blocks intimacy both with ourselves and with others. So you replace intimacy with performance. And you replace openness with certitude and you replace responsiveness with control. I could speak for myself plenty of times in my relationship with my children. I've done those exact things, replace responsiveness with control, replaced openness with certitude. No, I'm sure this is the way it's supposed to go and replaced authenticity with performance. Now, now you're fine. Everything's fine and not really being fully in it.
07:17
makes sense. It does. It does. And I think about the ways that certitude feels often like a safer choice. Because you can just go back to the words that someone said about something that established some kind of either factual or mutually agreed upon fact that everybody just repeats over and over again. And how that that just feels way safer than being open in each of these, you know, that the thing that gets replaced feels way safer than being intimate than being open than being authentic.
07:50
That's right. I think that's why vulnerability is just flows through the whole thing, because every stance in this new model requires vulnerability. And if you think about the drama triangle, there's absolutely no vulnerability in that, right? That's all a role. And so this probably, as you're learning this, and as I'm learning it, and still learning it, if you're not feeling a bit uncomfortable, you're probably not doing it. Like it's going to feel a little different because it's not repeating what was handed to us. It's not performing a role that we've, you know, basically been programmed to perform. It's showing up really like me, who I am. Yeah. So do you want me to start with authenticity or where do you want me to start?
08:35
Yeah, just start us with where you think the conversation needs to begin. I think that's great.
08:39
Okay, so the first place I usually start, when you're using this as a model, you could kind of start anywhere if you're just asking questions. Like let's say you're unhappy at your workplace, you're feeling maybe some discomfort there, you could ask yourself, does
this place have an ability for me to be both authentic, open and responsive? You could kind of use it as like a place to grow, but if you're wanting to kind of inhabit it inside of yourself, I always say the first place to start is authenticity, and I think that's the hardest place to start. Most of us have a tremendous amount, most of us who are in this group of folks, who are people pleasers, former codependents and recovery of some way, leaving a high demand religion, we have built a life of masks. And so authenticity is starting to take the masks off. And the vulnerable point in this position is letting yourself be seen, not only seen for who you are, but also seen as being different from the other people in the group, which is a real threat to, you know, belonging inside of those types of closed systems. Belonging is really contingent on being the same. And so if you've never had an experience where that's safe and welcomed and rejoiced, that can be really difficult to show up and be different. So authenticity is I'm showing you who I really am. I'm going to be emotionally honest. So when someone says, how are you? I might actually say, I'm sad. I'm scared. I'm angry. And the big one, the one I noticed I work with the most on, with my clients is the idea of differentiation and individuation. Those seem to be the most difficult and the most vulnerable. Whenever I teach enmeshment to clients, I always use the sentence, I am me and you are you. And that sounds so simple. I am me, you are you. But that is actually really complicated for people because when we're in like a close intimate relationship, it almost feels like it's a threat to the relationship to be different from this person. So I might have different needs. Maybe you have a need for lots of activities today and I have a need for quiet or stillness. Maybe it's, it's just about the temperature of the house, you know, or much more deep, vulnerable needs. But it's also having, I think about right now with our current climate, like being in a family system and having a different political belief. And showing up and being able to be held and seen and respected for that, which is almost impossible, I feel like in most closed systems.
11:16
there's just so much to it. There's different layers of like just basic survival programming of needing a group to survive and thrive of being in groups of people that you have long- term relationships with who might have once been like actively your caregiver as a parent but now you're an adult you don't need the same level of care necessarily but you still have an enmeshed relationship where you don't feel safe to show up as who you are and say I actually have a different opinion about that that can feel really fraught and so if you're listening to this and identifying with it just know that this is this is something really complex that we're talking about that has lots of different layers and the I am me and you are you sounds very simple but there's actually a lot going on there.
12:02
Absolutely. I mean, I think about any of my intimate relationships that I would consider to be a close interrelationship. We have had to come to a point, usually many, but at least
once where there is a really important moment of differentiation, where there's a really important moment. It usually feels, for me, as a people pleaser, as a peacemaker, it feels like I'm going to die. It feels really scary to say, this doesn't work for me, or I'm not going to be in my own integrity if I don't speak up right now and say what I need to say. I was thinking about this this morning, and I was thinking about when my daughter, who's seven, a few years ago, she was asking me about what happens when we die. And how I was given that information as a kid was like, here's what happens. And that's the whole story. Here's what happens. There was no nothing else. But that, what I said to her was, I don't really know for sure. Here's what I think some people say, you know, as these people say this, and these people say this, these people say this, I have no way of knowing for sure. This is what I hope. And then I was like, and what do you think? And that, I think is how it starts with a little child, just giving them opportunities to develop their own idea, and that it could be held. And if she would have said, well, I think when we die, maybe she would have said something really scary, or something that really like, troubled me on, you know, a psychological level, being able to like, hold space, that's where the next part of the triangle comes being open, to like, that she could have a different belief in me or a different idea of things, and that I wouldn't need to correct it or change it or clean it up. Does that make sense?
13:48
It does. I talk a lot with clients about the rules of every group we belong to. Every group has rules. That's how you know who's in and who's out. You are not rewarded for breaking those rules. You are not rewarded for having your own opinion, your own way of doing things. The reward is for conformity. The reward is for agreeing. The reward is for doing the same thing that everybody else is doing, whether it's in an family setting or a social group or a cultural group. It doesn't matter. We know those rules implicitly. Sometimes they're spelled out, sometimes they're not, but we just watch with the brilliant brains and millions of mirror neurons that we've been given that help us pick up on where we get rewarded and where we get punished. For me, that moment of differentiation often feels like, I'm going to lose this relationship if I say this thing. I'm going to be punished with disconnection. I'm going to be punished with being on the margins or even just pushed out. Then when you're in a group that actually does push people out, you see the proof of that in high demand religions. It's very often the case that you're excommunicated or punished publicly or there is some kind of walking back of your privileges within the group. That's not something that your brain is just making up. You see it play out.
15:17
No, you're absolutely right. And I think that's why we probably always should start with the drama triangle, right? Like we have to start with getting ourselves in a strong and
safe enough place. I would not recommend you step into the intimacy triangle with every person you know, and with every system that you know, because they're they're giving you data about if they're open to intimacy. And if they're not open to intimacy, and you go in vulnerably and open, there's a I don't know if there's any way around it, to be honest.
15:50
don't think there is, but I do know that things began to change dramatically for me when I began to at least tell myself the truth. That's it. I had to start by telling myself the truth. This doesn't feel good. This doesn't feel right. This there's something off here. And at least then I could have an authentic connection with me. And I knew what that felt like. And that kind of became the standard with which I could kind of measure and judge other relationships.
16:20
When I'm talking with someone and it's clear, you know, maybe they don't know the exact word for it, but it's clear that they are not in an intimate community or relationship or system. That's usually the first step, as I say, let's start by naming what no longer feels true, just within yourself. Even just acknowledging you got home, you're driving home from family dinner and just an acknowledgement of like, I don't think I was honest about who I was one time there. Yeah. Or also maybe even acknowledging you can see it around you. Like I don't think mom is honest about who she is. So we can just start naming it and then valuing our lived experience over the inherited doctrine. I always say that religion and families are the two places where abuse is called love. And just starting to like, I know you say that is true, for I know you say that is love, but my lived experience is that doesn't feel good, right? Like you're telling me that this is just how our family is and this is how we love each other, but inside I feel disrespected, unseen, unvalued, at risk that if I'm honest, I'm going to lose everything. And then when we have places outside of the system that we can share that with, we start there. So maybe you could share it with a friend, maybe you can share it with a partner, somebody that you could like take the first step of being authentic. Intimacy requires two whole people, not two mirrors, right? So two people. Oh, same.
17:48
about that. Yeah.
17:50
I think oftentimes, and I think I'm going to speak just from my lens. I mostly work with people who are, you know, part of, have been inside Mormonism or outside of Mormonism. Now, I think the idea of you shall become leave your father and mother and be, go from two flesh to one will become one person often ends up looking like we have to be one person. We can't have two identities, two completely different. And so real intimacy means there's two completely different people in the relationship that are connected to one another, not mirrors of one another. Not have to feel need, want the exact same things.
18:32
It's just, it goes against so much of just that early programming that just gets in there first. You know, children learning to take care of parents who can't regulate their own emotions, learning to get love and acceptance by performing and pretending, learning that if I'm going to have a voice here, it has to say the same thing that all the other voices are saying.
18:56 Yeah.
18:57
There's just, there's a lot.
18:59
You know, that sentence, what's good for the goose, isn't good for the gander. Yeah. That guy, I've just heard that a ton as a kid, the goose is thinking for the gander. I think in, in this category of authenticity, we have to have room for the goose and the gander. Like there's got to be room for me to show up and say, this is who I am. This is what I need. Some part of the system has to value it.
19:23
And I think even just about the logistics of family life, I had five small kids. I didn't want a bunch of gooses and ganders. I just want you all to get your shoes on and get in the car, right? And so there's so many ways, and I talk about this a lot, that we are separated from our bodies knowing. Like my youngest child, Micah, I remember like, Micah, come
on, hustle up. And it's like, Mom, I can't go fast. If he was so sincere to this day, he just doesn't have the fast mode that you wish you could reach in there and like flick on and make things happen. But how he didn't fit in that system that I had created of like always kind of rushing to get places and how it required him to disconnect from himself to do what I wanted in a way that just didn't feel good. So little things like that, that pile up and pile up over weeks and months and years of being in the same family, teach you that what you are feeling, nobody wants to hear about, and is probably wrong because what Mom is saying or what the pastor is saying or the Bishop or whoever, whatever person outside of you who holds the authority, that's what we have to be doing.
20:34
And even thinking about that example you gave with Micah, authenticity, I don't think always means that we have to change everything. So even just being able maybe to say, I think today's going to be really hard for you, Micah, because today is one of those days we have to do a whole bunch of things pretty fast. And so I'm going to be aware of the fact that today's probably a hard day for Micah. And then when we get home, I'll make sure you have some extra time to move slow. That's so good. You can't always just custom create life to every single person's needs. It's the goose and the gander have to both be taken into account. But I really think it starts with you learning how to be authentic inside of me. So to know I'm overwhelmed today with all of these kids and all the things I have to do in that and being aware of that and making space for that. The part of the reason you had five kids and part of the reason that you moved at the pace you moved was probably because you came from a disconnected beginning.
21:35
I also heard in that example you just offered about Mike as some of the responsiveness that I think you're talking about. So take us through.
21:44
So not openness, which is the vulnerable point of openness is I am receptive and I'm open to being moved by you. Like I care about you so much you could influence me, you could change me, you could change my mind, my opinions. Another word that I like attached openness when I teach us is presence. I think openness is really about being this like fully present with you. It's such a gift to give someone your attention. So the vulnerable part of this one is about being softened, both the giver and the receiver.I'm going to be vulnerable and soft in my authenticity. I'm going to have this like kind of relational posture. I'm here, I'm listening with all of me. And that also means that I'm going to use the example of my religion just for an just an idea. Let's say you go to your
bishop and you're like, I'm having a really hard time with the fact that women don't have the authority to do something. Openness would look like being able to say that is right. They don't have that. And it makes a lot of sense to me that you would be unhappy about it. And if I'm really going to be honest with you, I don't think I'm super happy about it either. Right? Like it's not this posture of like, I have to go back into the rules, the doctrine, the like, well, that's just the way we know how that goes. So it's the softening that's not threatened by someone else's authenticity and not threatened by someone else revealing their pain or their truth.
23:16
and remind me again, what's the opposite of that openness, or where does openness kind of revert back to?
23:23
So this doesn't have like direct correlations with the dramatur angle, but it kind of does. I think that openness is really connected to the persecutor role in the dramatur angle. It's that I'm not allowed to feel moved by you. I have to stay strong in my stance versus there's no feeling inside of you that could destroy me. I can make space for it. I can be.
23:47
And that's why it goes back to certitude.
23:51
Yeah, that's right. So in high demand religions or in close family systems, curiosity and emotional openness are seen as threats. I'm certitude and control are emphasized over exploration. So, I mean, we're not given an opportunity, like, why don't you just go explore your sexuality and figure that out for yourself? It's like, no, here's the way, here's the rule. And if you break it, you risk hell.
24:17
Here's the punishment, yeah.
24:19
Other worldviews or emotional states are shamed, you know, if somebody says that they have a different political stance in you, it's not there's no space for that. And so part of how I use it when we're like deconstructing those systems is just working on Could you be more curious, starting with some curiosity, maybe when you see something in someone you don't like. If I see a position and my husband Sean that maybe scares me instead of judging it and labeling it. Oh, there he is again doing that thing. I wonder what's going on for him. I wonder what he's feeling right now in this moment. I wonder how that feels in his body. And then it really kind of I think if we're starting with just like the individual is learning how to have that like inner safety to explore inside of you. That there's nothing you could discover that would threaten your relationship. That's a big one. I think is I think a lot of times we're afraid to be open or soft because maybe we're going to discover we're wrong. Or we're going to discover that there's something we don't like in our partner and our friend. So just having some like space that we could receive it and explore it and that it wouldn't destroy everything.
25:27
I'm seeing the two-way-ness of this, because it's openness to others and their experience, what might be going on for that person, but also, and I think that's probably the easier one for me, because I think about being open to showing others who I really am, and that just feels like standing naked in front of somebody else, but the two-way- ness of it, I think is what creates the vulnerability or where that vulnerability component is, because if all I'm doing is asking you, what is that like for you? Tell me more about you, you, you, you, you. That's beautiful, and that's an important part, but it doesn't match you. It's like drawing all the information out of you without matching it with any vulnerability on my part.
26:15
That's right. I think it's can I remain open even when I feel at risk? What am I willing, openness might be what am I willing to risk? And can I remain open when I feel uncomfortable? When I feel like there's space between us? When I feel different? When I feel uncertain? An example that kind of comes to my mind would be there've been times I'm sure anyone who's raised a teenager where one of my teenagers is gonna come at me with like a you never did this for me or you didn't do this right or I'm so mad at you about this or you love one of them that I've heard quite a bit is you love this other one more than you love me. And my first response would want to be to harden up to that. Like, are you kidding me right now? Do you know all the things I've done for you? Like all that stuff. But I think openness would look like some curiosity. I wonder what that feels like for him. I feel like he's not his love.
27:08 Yeah.
27:10
If that's how he feels, I bet that's really scary. I bet that's sad. I bet he wonders if he'll ever be loved by anybody. Like, that's a really deep pit of pain there. If I can stay curious about it, maybe pretend that it's not my child talking to me, but just a human who's in pain, then I can usually find a way to kind of be soft and open and validating and all the things that you need to have an intimate connection with somebody.
27:34
That's so beautiful, because one of the points of pain for me in my childhood that I didn't really realize and not able to put into words until much later was my inability to influence the system. My mom had six kids in 10 years, and there was just this constant three-ring circus going on there, which makes sense. This isn't a judgment of those decisions at all. It's putting into words my experience of not being able to influence a cog in the wheel of this family. We all just had to keep going and moving. It didn't matter if I was tired, it didn't matter if I was hungry, it didn't matter. I was taken care of, but just the lack of openness of the system to the person. You see this in institutions that it's like they eat people for lunch, and they will always protect themselves over the individual. I think a lot of people can probably think about institutions that protect themselves over the individuals, whether it's a church or an employment system or even a relationship.
28:42
are we willing to risk my identity as a good mom?
28:49 Mm hmm.
28:50
in order to hear his pain? Or am I going to get kind of armored back up and like, I'm a great mom and how dare you say those things to me, right? Can both be true.
29:00 Yeah.
29:01
good mom and he's hurting. I was listening to a podcast earlier this morning with Krista Tippett, and she asked this question. I wrote it right down. I thought it was beautiful. She said, I think the question we need to be asking is, what is the quality of my presence in the relationships that I'm in? The people in my everyday life who see me and touch me and need me, what is the quality of the presence I bring? And I think that kind of ties into this idea of like, am I showing up open and soft? And we all know what that feels like when you encounter it. It's amazing. Yeah. When you go to the doctor and the doctor just listens and is open versus kind of armored up and I've got all the answers. It's just such a gift to have it. And that's, I mean, it's a little bit aspirational. It's not how I show up all the time, but I'd like to show up that way.
29:49
That reminds me of another question that I also wrote down that I thought I want to get brave enough to ask this. And here's the question. What is it like to be in relationship with me? What is it like for you? Because I have the story of what it's like for me. I'm a good sister. I'm a good daughter. I'm a good friend. I have the list of all the things that make me, quote unquote good. But just the openness of that question, inviting the other person to tell you, what is it like to be in relationship with me?
30:18
Yeah, I love that. And I think when I was going through this question earlier today, I was thinking, okay, in the morning, when we're getting ready for school, what is the quality of my presence? And I was like, Okay,
30:31 Mm-hmm.
30:32
I was seven year old Charlotte seeing mom through that lens. I don't know if that's the quality of my presence. I like it to be. So it gives me a little place to kind of maybe ground before where I really like this tool. And it's the same way. I really like the drama triangle. Sometimes when I find myself in a situation where you're in conflict, especially with really close relationships, your family of origin, your spouse or partner, your children, you can get really confused and really foggy and not really know what's going on. You get into one of those disagreements where, especially with like a partner where you're going around and round and then you don't really even know what you're fighting about anymore. You don't know what's up and down and you could use the drama triangles like, okay, where am I at in this triangle? Okay. I'm in the persecutor. And then it gives you a real quick steps to get out of it. I think this works the same way. I'm in a conversation. I'm feeling shut down. I'm feeling hurt. I'm feeling angry. Gives you a similar kind of thing. Like with how am I doing on openness right now? How am I doing on authenticity? Am I being honest? Am I having some emotional integrity right now? And then the last one that we'll get to, and what does my responsiveness look like?
31:41
Let's dive into responsiveness.
31:43
So responsiveness, the vulnerable point in responsiveness is about engagement. So it's allowing myself to be moved to have action or empathy. So see how they all are really connected. They kind of all feed each other. The more open someone is in a relationship in, a conversation, or in a moment, the easier it is for both parties to then be responsive. The more authentic, you know, someone shows up and is like, I've done nothing wrong and you can no one wants to be responsive to that. Well, not in like a healthy way. Maybe in like a...
32:15
I'm gonna throw a punch you away.
32:17
But when someone says, I'm feeling really overwhelmed and scared right now, that just inspires responsiveness. What can I do to help? I want to be here for you. So, let's start with how it looks in an unhealthy system. Responsiveness is often transactional or conditional. You get this if you do this. If you follow the family rules, you're the golden child and you belong. And if you don't, you're the black sheep and we talk badly about you. Your emotional needs may be met or they could be bypassed just based on if you're living the family norms or the system's norms. Attunement is replaced with institutional demands. So there's no kind of tuning into what one particular person in the family or system needs. It's this is how we do it. This is how we always do it. This is the rule. Yeah. And love and belonging are tied to compliance. So when we're deconstructing, you know, a reflection question I might ask is, where did I learn to silence my needs in order to be accepted? And what if I could get care right now, what would the care that I need be? You know, it's kind of that tuning back into like what you would need. Or if I could act how I want to act right now, what would I do? If I could say what I want to say, what would I say? It's just kind of like thawing out all of those like rigid rules that kind of keep us from responding in a way that's very authentic.
33:39
It's so interesting because I know one of the obstacles that has kept me from responsiveness is this idea that if I am open and if I am responsive and I'm not met with openness and responsiveness, I'm going to feel terrible. I'm going to blame myself. I'm going to say, gosh, you're so stupid. Why did you open yourself up that way? Why did you stand there naked in another person emotionally? And I think that's probably pretty common. But it's one of the things I think that speaks to my own need to hold my own discomfort in a way that I didn't know how to do and to trust myself that even if that does happen, if I show up in what I think is an open and responsive way and I am not met with that same responsiveness, that I can hold that disappointment and that sadness for myself at the bare minimum and not shut down and blame myself or blame the other person.
34:45
And I think that's why I like the way this builds is that if we're both showing up authentically, if I'm showing up authentically and I'm with a person that's showing up authentically, the chances of the openness happening are much higher. And if we're both showing up open with a lot of openness and presence, the chances of responsiveness, I feel like they're almost a hundred percent. Yeah. It kind of gives us a guide. When I had a therapist ask me this once years ago, I was kind of having this, every week we were talking about the same relationship. And the therapist finally asked me like, has this person ever shown you that they're willing to like, and I was like, oh wait, no. So it was like the beating your head against a wall hoping for something
different. If you're having a repetitive, long-standing relationship where there's no authenticity and openness, you probably shouldn't be surprised that there's not responsiveness there, that this person isn't really able to like, attune to you and show up for you. They've given you enough data at this point to know that's not something they can do or wanting to do or willing to do. But if we're both showing up authentically and we're both open to each other, the chances of being able to emotionally tune in, reach your hand out, put a hand on the back, notice you, hey, I see that you seem sad. You seem like you're in pain. I think responsiveness is not just about showing yourself, but it's seeing the other. It's this like, empirical kind of like, I see you, see me. What it started as when I first started working on this, it was connection. That's the point I had in the triangle, I called it connection. But the more I worked at it and kind of looked at it and saw it in my clients, I realized it wasn't just about connection because connection can be really one-sided. Like one person can show up and get all of their needs met and feel like they got everything they wanted. But it's more about this flow of like, are we both showing up for each other? Are we both meeting each other's needs? Or is this just a performance? Like this is what a good wife does, she washes the dishes and puts them away. Does that make sense?
36:44
Yeah, it does. And I'm just thinking about how I have learned to know the difference between true intimacy and whatever, right? Because I do think it's possible. And I do think I have had friendships and relationships where I was over-connected and telling myself that it was intimate or that it was like a really stable, vulnerable relationship. And I'm just trying to think back over, like, how did I know? How would you know if intimacy was mutual, if connection was mutual, if vulnerability was mutual?
37:23
Well, I think you would know because you would want, you would be feeling all of those things inside of you. And you would also have a person that's being authentic that feels open.
37:35
you would see the evidence of it.
37:36 Yeah, like.
37:37 Yeah.
37:38
I like to like let's use it just as a family system. I recently had a client who is facing something really difficult. And so she went to her family and kind of like opened up to them and shared a bunch but really authentic maybe for the first time in a long time. And what she got back in return was silence. That is not an intimate relationship, right? That's that was deeply painful, but it was really good data for her like to return and continually do that would probably not be in her best interest. So she gets to then take that data and recognize that this is a different type of relationship. It doesn't mean they have to end. This will not be intimate. I will not be able to give them all of this and have that reciprocated.
38:24
And I think that's another just level of telling the truth. It's telling the truth about you to you, and then it's telling the truth about other people to you. And that I love what you said that just because the relationship isn't the most intimate or vulnerable that you would want doesn't mean that you can't still have it and invest in it. It just, I think gi,ves you a really clear eyed view of, well, now that I know this, maybe I'm not gonna invest so much time and energy because there just literally is not a return on that emotional investment.
38:57
We can only have so many intimate relationships. Not every relationship needs to be intimate, but if that's what you're hungry for and that's what you need, recognizing where there's empty wells and where there's a place that's going to be nourishing, I think how this kind of started to come to me was when I deconstructed Mormonism and I left the church, I lost lifetime friendships, friendships that I'd had for decades, and it was deeply painful for me. It felt confusing, I didn't understand why these relationships that some of which I mean I'd had for over 30 years were gone, and as I was making sense of it, that's what I actually recognized. Oh, these weren't intimate. I thought they were, but the truth was if I couldn't show up authentically and be loved and be met with openness, willingness to understand me, if I couldn't show my deepest truth inside of me and have that accept it, it's not an intimate relationship. That's why it was so easy for I think it to fall away the way it did. A deeply connected intimate relationship, they would have
already known these things about me that would have already been there, there would have already been openness, and so once we're in that kind of relationship, we would have worked with each other in it.
40:13
Yeah. We've talked about, and I think I've maybe even talked about on the podcast before, one of the most shocking things to me was that not one person came to ask me, Sara, what is this like for you? What's going on for you? And you know, fine, maybe they didn't already know. I mean, I think they would have if we had truly had an intimate relationship, but no one came. And so that pain, I think of realizing that these relationships weren't what I thought. I think the only thing that matches that in intensity now is the safety and the connection that I feel in the intimate relationships that I do have where I know that maybe it's going to be uncomfortable to tell the truth or I'm a little worried about being vulnerable here, but that I will be met and I will be held. I will be affirmed. Even if I don't get the outcome that I want, I'm going to have the experience with another person that feels like being cared for, being met, and being safe.
41:18
Yeah, that's right. I think once you get a taste of that, it's really difficult to ever go back to what the conditional relationships and systems. Yeah. And I think it's a good model for me to like, you know, if I want to proceed or not, if I met early on with authenticity and openness and responsiveness, well, I'm going to keep moving in that direction. But if I have early encounters where there's a lot of like, performing and a lot of, you know, closed rigid kind of structures, yeah, that's probably not going to be where I'm going to invest.
41:49
Yeah. So if this is making sense to you, and if it's something that, like, I can imagine myself hearing this and just saying, I want that. That's something that I want. Starting with authenticity in the lowest risk situation first, it's often with yourself or with a trusted coach, therapist, friend, you know, partner, someone who can hear you. That's where to start.
42:15
If I'm thinking back on it, the reason I was eventually able to leave both my family and my, um, religious systems that were not healthy was because I started going to therapy and I had this hour a week where I was authentic.
42:30
And that's all.
42:31
I was at first was just an hour a week where I'm just authentic with me. And even that was not fully authentic in the beginning, you know, even in the beginning, I think it was like, yeah, I'm fine. Everything's fine. It took a while for me to acknowledge myself. I'm sad. I'm hurt. I'm confused. And as I got more practice being authentic with myself, you start to feel the difference authenticity has a really specific kind of vibration in the body. And when you have to go back to like going along with things that don't feel right, biting your tongue, playing along with toxic ways of being, I just couldn't do it anymore.
43:06 Yes.
43:07
It just kind of naturally started to create some space.
43:11
Well, and it really does become just the standard that everything else gets measured by. And again, it doesn't mean that those other relationships aren't valuable and worth keeping for other reasons. I'm really grateful that we have had this conversation today. Is there anything that you haven't been able to say yet that you wanna add to the conversation?
43:31
You know, I think that this is just a tool that can help you have more in your relationships. So, if you want, I'm just going to use the example of a romantic
relationship because that's what most of us talk about in therapy. If you want more in that relationship, a great place to start is learning how to first find the authenticity inside of yourself and then accept the authenticity inside of your partner. Be open with your own differences and be open with your partner's differences. Like it really can get really just like checklisty. Pick something this week that you want to start being more authentic about. Practice openness in a conversation, practice responsiveness, just practicing it inside of yourself, practicing it with your kids or your partner. I like models like this for that reason that it just gives us a place to kind of do our work and it can be a little bit of like a spiritual path where I could just practice these skills and as I get better at them, you'll start to notice that there's a sense of intimacy and closeness that maybe wasn't as easy to find before or there was too much fear to get there.
44:41
What I love also is that I can see how this builds. And I know you have it as a triangle model, but you also talked about how it's like circular as well. You just kind of keep going and digging into different places because what I have also realized is that there are some places where I'm really good at telling the truth about this aspect of our relationship, but there's other places where I'm learning. I'm learning to speak up about what the truth really is here. And I just didn't know it before. It wasn't an intentional dishonesty, but the way that you just kind of keep going back through these different aspects of authenticity and openness and responsiveness to just keep deepening that intimacy. This is what I think is so valuable about this.
45:28
Yeah, I think, you know, just speaking from the perspective of my relationship with you, I think that, you know, we've been friends for five years, was that five years? Going on sex. I think that our relationship really started to deepen when we had an experience a year or two ago, where we both had to be really authentic with each other about feelings about things that were vulnerable, about places where we were different. And that's what I value so much in our relationship is that I was met with openness and responsiveness, like the things that I needed were kind of like remembered and hold on to and that I felt safe enough to show you the places I was different. And I think that, but if I was to speak to anyone who's maybe never done that with a friend, it's really kind of scary the first time. But if you look at the friendship, you'll probably be able to see there's enough evidence there that you can take that risk. I think we're all hungry for it. We're all waiting for somebody to be authentic. And when I'm authentic, it gives everyone else in my world permission to be authentic. Right. So when somebody's like finally says like, yeah, motherhood is really hard for me, every woman in the room is like, yeah, me too, right? Like we all just want someone to take the first step. And so maybe it's you need to take the first step in your friendship or in your relationships.
46:53
I love that. And 100%, it also, I was a person who it felt like I had a lot of friendships kind of come and go. And what I realized was that, oh, a lot of the going of these friendships where it kind of just seemed like we just kind of stopped contacting each other as much was a point where we didn't know how to be authentic with each other. We didn't know how to tell the truth about something. And so it just kind of petered out. And so if that happens a lot, you know, for you, if you're listening to this, that might be something I know it was for me. And it's not that I was doing it on purpose. I just didn't know how, and I think, you know, to be totally fair when in some of the ways that you were authentic with me, I didn't meet you with a ton of skill. I met you with desire, willingness, but that you know that the skill of listening and really hearing and responding kind of came later. And so if what you have in the beginning is a willingness, that counts and that is enough to keep moving forward.
47:56
Last thing I'll say about this, I remember when I was getting trained to run group therapy, that we learned that a group can hold almost anything and be healthy. But the moment the group had emotional inauthenticity, it would start to get sick. And you would watch the group disintegrate before your very eyes. So, you know, you'd have this group that's like thriving and everyone's healing and growing in the moment, like basically, you know, an emotional lie, someone's not showing up authentically gets into the group, the group would start to fall apart, and you could almost predict it within a few months, the group would die. And I think that's a pretty good model for how we work as well, that in friendships, when if we can't really show up and be honest there, they just start to fall apart.
48:39
Yeah, I've seen that. I'm really grateful for you and for the way your mind works around some of these bigger things because I think you put into words things that are really important and impactful for me. So thank you.
48:51
Thanks for having me.
