Forget Valentine’s Day | LQ009

Crystal Clark: 00:00:00

Welcome to our love space today, I am so excited to be here. Because February or love month has started actually, we're a little bit into it now. But tomorrow, if you're listening right as this post tomorrow is V Day, or as I like to call it, vulnerability day. All right, I bet you all thought I was gonna say Valentine's Day. And no, I want to reframe this February 14. Today, I want it to be more about a day of checking in about our vulnerability with each other and checking in with our vulnerability with ourselves, in our relationships with our significant others, because this is a really important piece in our relationships, and social health wise, it would be amazing if for all of or more of our relationships, if we could be more vulnerable, because vulnerability is really the key, the key to closer relationships. So that's like relationships that have like more empathy, and more understanding and a deeper connection with each other. So a deeper connection, because unless surfacey and superficial because we're actually taking that time to share with each other, taking that time to share our emotions and our mistakes and our weaknesses, and our doubts. And that allows us when we share our weaknesses, and our doubts and our fears, that creates trust and intimacy between ourselves and our significant other. And this leads to relationship growth, when we have more trust and intimacy with each other. And that deeper closer connection, then we have more opportunities for our relationship to grow and for interdependence, so not codependence. We want interdependence. interdependence, is kind of that state where we kind of know where we could do everything on our own. This is where people get mixed up, we could do everything on our own, but we don't need to, we can support each other, we can collaborate with each other, we can do our teamwork with each other. Because we have all the skills Sure, we could do it all ourselves, but why do we need to that doesn't feed our soul, and our social health and our well being. But we don't want to be codependent where we were only around people because we absolutely need their skill set or their resources or their whatever we want that nice, lovely interdependence. So Anywho. And with that, so with having our relationship growth in our interdependence, that vulnerability also helps to lead to more personal self acceptance. And as I love, you know, I love a good twofer, right. I love a good tuba witness. So how crazy is that? That because you're being vulnerable, it not only increases your love in your relationship, but it also increases your self love. Amazing, that's totally amazing. Why would we want to increase ourselves love that doesn't make any sense, right? We totally ourselves, the more self love we have, the more self confidence and self worth we have. And then the better partners and friends and social human beings we are. So I love a good to flirt, you know me. So vulnerability is key for all of these things. And don't forget that this also applies and I think I've already actually hinted at this. But this also applies to all of our friendships and our close or close social relationships. That vulnerability is a key piece to those healthy friendships and relationships and social connections. And because we're all you know, thriving little social mammals, even if we're a little neuro spacey, we still need to fill up our social health gap. And that's just going to look a little bit different for everyone. So the opportunity to be vulnerable with some at least some of our social connections or at least with our you know, significant other our love of life. This is really going to be important for our social health IT at besides all of those other positive things, it helps also stave off loneliness, depression, feelings of disconnection or social isolation. And it supports as I said, with all those other pieces out social, a healthier social relationship with the person that we are being vulnerable with. So fan tastic. Now why do we need to check in on this and the main reason is because lots of us are not actually ready to be vulnerable. So some of us are scared to be vulnerable and are we tried to avoid being vulnerable even with the loves of our lives. because there's probably a few reasons for this, some of us are being vulnerable, because it makes us feel or avoid being vulnerable, because it can make us feel weak. It can make us feel uncomfortable by, we're not used to being in that space. And as little human beings, we want to avoid being uncomfortable. That's a very punishing feeling for us. You know, we don't want to talk about our fears, our doubts, our mistakes, we don't want to talk about things we're bad at, that just feels weird to ask. And that's a very normal feeling. Okay. But as we know, with everything with practice, I don't like to say with practice makes perfect because nobody's perfect at anything. But I feel with practice, it makes it better, right, and you'll be it the more you choose vulnerability, the more you choose to share, the last you'll get that awkward, super uncomfortable feeling. Okay. And also, you know, let's think about this way, when we are being vulnerable, what we're really doing is we're doing that communication piece, so that C piece out of our cake acronym, so we're doing that communication piece, and when we send out our message, and remember, communication just means sending and receiving a message. And we send out our vulnerable message like, Oh, I feel like I failed at this, or I'm having doubts about myself, or I'm worried about this part, or, you know, I don't feel confident about this, or I feel really self conscious, right? When we send this message out, this gives the love of our life a moment, this gives the love of our life an opportunity to be kindful to kindly receive that message. And to validate it right and that kind fullness, that's our K from our cake acronym, gives that person an opportunity to validate it, to see us how many of us want to be seen, we all want to be seen. So gives us that chance to be seen, right to be validated. And to have it done to know that we're in a safe place with the love of our life in a safe place with our significant other. And if you're confused by the fact that I just use cake, weirdly, in a few places. That's because we use it as an acronym, you if you want to check it out, you can go back to I think it's episode two of the podcast. And it tells you all about how cake stands for communication, affection, thankfulness, and energy and that those are our big picture building block pieces for our relationships. So anywho, if you want more information on that, hop back to that one. So by sending that message of vulnerability out, we're actually giving our significant other an opportunity to be kindful. To us. Wow, cool. And same thing when they're being vulnerable back. And when we put something out there that's that we're vulnerable about and that other person accepts it in a kind for way validates it makes us feel safe and seen. That's what builds up trust. That's what builds up that feeling of trust, of, hey, I did this thing that was scary. And I was safe. And that makes me think that in the future, the pattern is going to be that when I am scared, worried, feeling vulnerable, emotional, that I will be safe, that I can trust that person with these things. And that trust is what also helps build up our intimacy. Okay, so How fantastic is that? We can already see how important vulnerability itself. Also, if the love of your life, it's maybe one of the people, one of the only people right some of us might have a few people that we view relationships with. And like I said, this can extend out to friends to, you know, best friends, very close friendships, I don't know that I would extend the same level of vulnerability out to the whole world. But you know, if your significant other is one of the only people in your life that receives that level of access into your vulnerability, right? If they're the ones so like, you could almost think of it as like a modern day password, right? Like they have your vulnerability password they

Crystal Clark: 00:09:23

can get into your vulnerability. So whenever they want, they have that password that code. Okay, so if they're one of the only people in your life that has that we can kind of see how people can get so hurt by that idea of like emotional cheating, or by situations where like someone has like a work wife or work husband or work whatever, and that they're spending all day, you know, sharing their work vulnerabilities in their work worries with that person and then also maybe sharing some personal worries or vulnerabilities or doubts about their relationships or things going on in their life. And then they come home, and maybe they just zoned out on their phone or with their whatever or when you're like, Hey, how was work? Or what's new? Or what's going on? Or why are you stressed, they go, Oh, nothing, everything's fine. So when we kind of take that step back to that big picture of vulnerability, and we can see all the things that's important about it. And then, you know, we can think about when we're just kind of giving them giving that out freely to other people, and maybe not our significant other, not our love of life, how that could be, you know, hurtful or painful, or cause a break in intimacy or break in trust or break in connection, very interesting thing to think about. So sharing all of these insights, thoughts and feelings gives us that shared experience with the other person that we're being connected to with our significant other. And that allows us, you know, that now we can, if someone's sharing their thoughts and their feelings and their worries and their doubts, right, they're being vulnerable with us, then we can see, or we have more access to that person's inner state, right, my significant other knows more about, like, the place I'm in, in life, and how I might react to certain things, the more they know what's going on inside of me. And, you know, then they get to know more how I think about experiences, or you know, What experiences have shaped my life, right? And maybe more about how I view myself. And the more my, the love of my life knows about these aspects of me, the more they know me, the more they can be connected to me, the more they can have empathy for me, the more we can have empathy for each other, and kind fullness for each other. And when we understand each other more than we can love more, right? That's really important. We can love each other more, we can give each other, more access to those kinds of things. So that's the big picture of why vulnerability is really so important. Why? I think rather than, you know, going into right, and like, you know, lots of us think that Valentine's Day is a little passe, right? It's kind of like we're talking about date nights, like people think they're outdated people. Maybe think Valentine's Day is outdated. Why are we only doing it on one day? Right? And we know here that you don't need to do on one day, right? Why wait for just one day to, you know, get flowers, share card, write a love note, think of something, you know, some special act of service to do for the other person, you don't need a special day for that. Although I mean, I'm a calendar girl, I'd love to have a special day in my calendar. But but it's, it's not needed. It's not needed. If you're practicing your vegan moments of love, I think for people who aren't practicing mega moments of love, then that kind of one year reminder of like, and then also maybe that's where the such importance gets placed on anniversaries to is because oh, we need these big significant reminders to be like, Ah, yes, oh, yes, let's celebrate and think about this relationship and be mindful and mindful about it. And think about each other. Right, but I'm encouraging you to do that more often than just twice a year. So, but what we don't really do is always check in about some of these big picture pieces. So How exciting would it be to think about vulnerability once a year, right to have that little check in and be like, hey, remember, when we had this talk last year, for the first time we had V Day? And you know, and now we've been trying out some things? And where are we at with this vulnerability piece, I think you're gonna find it really exciting. It's like a small thing that makes such a big difference when you step back and think about it. So, you know, I want to share a few kind of concrete ways that you can work on it. So like I said, sharing your thoughts about work about life about something that made you question something, something that made you think about something, a podcast, you heard this podcast, maybe write something that made you think something that you know, kind of like, right, share that that shows your interstate? share stories about your childhood, right, we talked, I think last episode, or Yeah, I think it was last episode about reminiscing and the importance of reminiscing and thinking back to past events that can also be showing past events that shaped or influenced or touched your life, right. The other thing is to talk about mistakes, oops, says mistakes that you've done in the relationship like, ah, you know what, when I walked away, I realized I said this in this way, and, oops, didn't mean to, right. So even it can be tiny things like that. It can be bigger mistakes or oopss. Maybe things you made at work, maybe, you know, family interactions. I don't know where your mistakes and exits are coming up. But remember, your love of life is going to receive these messages currently, right? That's the other thing we're practicing. So, you know, if you're being the receiver, you're gonna practice trying to receive them kindly and not right, we're going to receive them and validate them first, before we go on to if we need to, you know, if this is an oops that we need to problem solve, about, or tweak or whatever, right, first, we're going to constantly receive, thank you for sharing, this is a safe place to share, right, that's what we're practicing, sharing your feelings, whether those are positive feelings of like excitement, you know, looking forward to things happiness, joy, calmness, feeling relaxed, feeling comfortable, whatever it is, and like, you know, those also the negative emotions, which are what people try to avoid, but we want to practice read radical acceptance, hear that sometimes things are EQ, or sometimes things are blood, or sometimes things or whatever. And we accept that we accept that that's just part of life. And besides just that, it's part of life, that we're going to share them. And I actually love to have couples, as share a success and a failure at beginning of sessions, often, especially couples are working on this vulnerability piece. And sometimes people might be like, well, nothing was a success, or nothing is a failure. And then that's when I get people to really dig down, like, I'm sure you can think of something, even if it's a tiny thing, thing, like, I burnt my piece of toast this morning, or I burnt our breakfast, or our toast this morning, whatever it is, we can always come up with a little failure, or oops, and at least a little success, write something on either side. And that's really just to help us be more mindful about things that are happening in our life. But you know, even that's something you guys could try if it's hard to start sharing your feelings or to really think what their feelings and things that you might have, especially for some of our neuro spicy people, it might be hard to think back to those are everything might start to blend in with each other. And so that's good practice to do. And then doing something together outside your comfort zone. Now, this could be a fun, vulnerability day slash Valentine's Day experiment is to do something that's outside your comfort zone that's new that maybe neither of you've tried, maybe you're a bit hesitant, hesitant, because you might you're like, I don't think I'd be good, maybe hesitant, because it could be boring, maybe hesitant, for whatever reason, hesitant because it could be too exciting and fun. And I don't know, I don't think I've ever run into that bar. But you never know, I don't know, you could be something that maybe you think about. So yeah, because then you guys are both sort of being vulnerable. Together, you're taking a chance or going outside of your comfort zone together. The other thing you could try doing is taking turns being the vulnerable risk taker outside of your comfort zone, one MB in the kind full support person. So this would be in a case where maybe someone has some hobbies or some things that they're comfortable doing and the other person is not as comfortable doing it. And so one person is going to take a step a little bit outside their comfort zone, and the other person is going to be the supportive person on that experience. And that I think is super fun. And great to do. And you can do that on lots of your makeup moments, right? That would be something to practice, you know, every once in a while. And so again, it gives, it gives everyone a chance to be vulnerable, but also everyone a chance to be the kind full person, right that kindful supportive receiver of messages and receiver of vulnerable actions. That's what we need to do. So. I'm very excited about this. I'm very excited about all rethinking about Valentine's Day instead as our chance to think about vulnerability and have vulnerability day. Take that moment. Open up to each other. Take that moment to be vulnerable. Take that moment to share. Take that moment to be kindful take that moment to be sparked act