It’s All in the Messaging | LQ038

Crystal Clark: 00:00:00

Welcome to our love space today, I am super excited to be sharing this moment in time with you, to be sharing my love space with you, on love quirks and exploring today about the how important cake is, right, not just your mouse, but cake, as in our communication, affection, kindfulness and energy and how important it is, all of those pieces are so important to creating our love space vision for 2025 and we're going to start today with that bottom layer of cake, right, that communication piece, our big C, because when we're thinking about creating our love space for 2025 we want to be thinking about the space that is going to be nourishing to our relationship and to our connection and our bonding and our interactions with the love of our life, And also what's going to be nourishing to our personal selves, right? So we have our teamwork, collaboration between us and the love of our life, and then we have our personal, little selves too, right? We don't want to forget those. Those are never no matter how close, how connected, how bonded we can be to the love of our life, you still exist. You still exist and you're still there, and if you feel you don't, then things need to be changed. But just because you are madly in love with someone, and you do lots of things with them, and you're very connected to them, doesn't mean that you are lost and that yourself has been lost, okay? And because we want to think about what's going to that love space that's going to our relationship and our personal self. We're going to be, you know, creating that place that's going to be the base for our community, right? Our love. Space should be the base for our life, our love, our community that we're branching out into, right, into our friendships, into our family, into our things like that, that this is really the place where you get energized and that fills up your emotional cup, and that is safe for you, the place you can be vulnerable in, and that's going to be our a love space. So we've talked a lot about keeping things simple so far in the last two episodes, we're not trying to over function. We're not trying to over achieve, right? We're not trying to overthink things, because overthinking things can put us on, you know, so many wrong paths or so much stalling and procrastinating that, you know, even the little things that I'm encouraging you to do right, because it's these small, everyday moments and changes that are really going to make the biggest impact in your love space and in your relationship, right? Instead of doing that overthinking piece about whether our actions simply are moving us toward the love space and the connection we want and the spark we want with the love of our life, or whether they're moving us away from that simple, simple, simple, right, let's keep it super simple, and then we will get some traction and some forward movement. And we've also really started to think about our vision and making it concrete, right? So I got that's why I put in some writing prompts in last episode, was really to get you to put something in writing. You know me. If you've been following along, then you know me. You and me are on the same page that we now understand that putting things in writing, whether it's a brainstorm, just so we have a list to go back to of things that we're going to do, whether it is putting our values in writing on a sticky note on the fridge, so that we can go back and look at it, whether it's texting the love of our life, that we're thinking about them, or that we can't wait to see them, or whatever it is, we're Making that thought concrete, and we're putting it out into the universe. We're putting it out, you know, in to the space of where we live, and that is going to make it more real, and it makes it something we can come back to, and we can really be specific about, and that we can really get into. And actually, this morning, just like serendipitously or coincidentally, or, you know, fate would have it, whatever, whatever vibe that you want to go through with looking at connections in your life, I just happen to be on a zoom little workshop this morning, about kind of like one of those, you know, forward movement, personal growth, you know, leveling up kind of things. And I, you know, I just it, you know, you know me. I love those kind of things. I love to read the self help books. I don't really love that they're called self help, because I feel like help means that, you know, you need, like, some extra support, or, like, not extra support, that something's going wrong. If you are asking for help, then probably something is not aligning, something that is going a bit wrong. But I sort of feel like a lot of those books, a lot of the information they have is really more about growth, right? Like you probably be called self growth books, right? Because you don't need you could be in a perfect, wonderful, lovely place and still find things. Things from all of those books, from all of those things that are going to help you grow, are going to help you, you know, find something new exciting, open up a new door in your world. So that's why I love them. I was in a little zoom meeting this morning, you know, talking about some ideas and thinking about so the person who is presenting today, Jim Carth cart, he shared this thought with us and actually quoted him live from from our zoom meeting today. So I hope it doesn't mind the the live impromptu quote, but he said, If you don't express what you want, okay, if you don't express what you want into the world, then you get what the rest of the world wants for you, or just wants. Not even wants for you, just wants. Okay, so the example he gave, he gave a very pared down, simple example. But the example he gave is like, say, if you're you're chatting about in a group of people about what you would like to where every you should all go for dinner, and you know, you could either say nothing and we'll just see what gets picked for you and where you're going to go for dinner. Or you could put the idea out there, like, hey, you know, I would love to go for some pasta, or some Italian or something like that. And then that idea is at least out there. So maybe you won't get to go for pasta, but it's at least been put out there into the world, and it now becomes an option of something that could be had, right? And so, you know, me, it's so important for us to write down this vision of our love space and, you know, and really have that clear picture on it, and make it tangible and concrete in writing a little bit so that we can come back to it a little bit, so that it can guide us, but a little bit just to make it real, right? Because we're talking about, you know, an abstract space, an abstract place to be in with the love of your life, right? Like I didn't say it, this is an actual, you know, your love spaces. It could be your home, it could be your house, but it's not an actual, physical place. It's kind of your interactions, in your state of being and your values and your everything, and it's very kind of abstract for us to think about that. So by putting it in writing, we're making it clear and concrete and less abstract. Okay, so that really got me today. I was like, Oh, I'm going to talk to you guys all about this, and he's talking about that, and it just, I'm like, Yes, this is the message we need today. So the other piece that we've been talking about is what your what values you have, your shared values that are going to support your love space. So that's another piece, and we talked about that already. But again, if you haven't, please go back and listen to the episode, because I think it will really bring you some clarity. And also, I will put, again in the show notes for today's episode, a link for the PDF, for the value, sorting cards now, again, so I have other podcasts and things like that that explain how to do the value, so I won't do it here and bore and bore you with it if you've already know how to do it, but again, making these values tangible by actually physically printing them, cutting them up into a little cards, and having to do that physical activity of sorting through it, you are bringing yourself into another state of thinking, right when you're just, if you just look through the list on the PDF and go like, Oh, I like that. I like that. Okay, this, you're kind of like glossing over, and we're not making it real and concrete. It is a much different action to just kind of look at something and think the word in your head and kind of scroll by it, versus having that physical piece of paper that says honesty, important in my relationship or not important, you know, um,

Crystal Clark: 00:08:41

humor, important in my relationship or not important. And actually having to put that card in a no pile, to physically put it in a no pile, changes your perspective and your thinking about it. Same thing as having to physically put that card in the yes pile. And this is the yes I want for my values. So again, I think it's very important to be involved in our physical and tangible world, the things we can actually touch, we actually can move around. And if you're a little neuro spicy, sometimes learning and or and, or processing in that physical, tactile way can also be more meaningful for you, okay? And we also let your creativity flow, right? We did some brainstorming. We talked not just about these concrete things, but also those feelings you want to have in your love space for moving forward. These are all important pieces. Okay, so now we're going to dive into our communication part, because it really is a big, big piece, and that's why you will hear it. You know, I'm I'm here to pair things down for you to give you the big picture pieces, so that you can see how these things can fit into your life and how you can have the relationship that you want to have. Because, again, love quirks, right? We are all different, and because we are all different, we all have unique, different combat. Communications of personalities in our relationships. And we cannot just discount, right? We cannot just say, like, ah, there's one type of communication for everyone. No, but we can say what is important is communication is important. Okay? So again, if you're a person who likes to use the I statements, maybe we're going to go for that, but we really need to remember that communication is important. If communication is flowy, is open, is honest, is vulnerable, in a relationship, then the other foundational pieces, right that we're going to talk about right, are affection, our kindfulness, our energy, and then everything else that falls into your relationship is also going to come in alignment. It's also going to be more flowy and more free when your communication is off with each other. Then what happens is, of course, we get more misunderstandings, and then it actually those misunderstandings, if they're always repeated, or things like that, or because we're having so much, so many misunderstandings, we're feeling more prickly. When we feel more Prickly, then what happens is where those misunderstandings, rather than just being a miscommunication, they're going to start to become arguments or fights, right, especially when they get repetitive and they're not solved. And then we're getting when we're getting into so many miscommunications and arguments and fights, then we are also, then we are also probably getting defensive, right? We're probably also jumping conclude, to conclusions about what that other person might say to us, or what they're actually meaning with their words, right? We might jump to these conclusions, and that's going to decrease our vulnerability. And then when our vulnerability is decreased and we're getting into all these fights, then we're probably going to start avoiding, and that's not helpful, because when we're avoiding then we're refusing to talk about the thing, because people are going to make assumptions about it, right? We're like, Ah, I could talk about this, but I just know that that's what that person's going to say, and I want to avoid that, so I'm just not going to bring up the topic, right? So we're going to start to avoid things. We're going to start to be out of alignment. We might that could even maybe lead to lying. That's another miscommunication breakdown, and sometimes our lying is lying by admission, right? Especially if you are a people pleaser, you might start lying about how everything is okay, or you're feeling fine, or it's just at work that's putting you in this mood, and not actually your interactions with each other, right? And if you're a people pleaser like me, I went down a long road of people pleasing, you know, in my first very long term relationship, and that was a mistake, I'll tell you, right that right now, that was a mistake. And, you know, as a people pleaser, you start lying a little bit, and it's kind of in a way where you're not you're more omitting or not expressing your actual feelings or your actual thoughts because you want to avoid an argument, because if you're having an argument, then you have done the wrong thing, right? And can you imagine being a people pleaser with someone who's got some like, gaslighting or narcissistic tendencies. That is, like, that's an impact, that's a no go, that's just get out. Just get out. You're never going to make it. Sorry, sorry to be a bit of a bombshell on that one, but that's true, so you don't, right, and when your people pleaser like I didn't even know I was really lying right, because I just thought I was avoiding hurting the other person, or, you know, or bringing up something hard that they didn't want to talk about, or, you know, maybe being hurtful to them, because I, you know, I I didn't want them to feel like they had to change, or that they had to improve their behavior at all, which is really kind of silly, because, yes, we can't change people, but when we're having open and honest communication, and everyone's feeling vulnerable and comfortable and we're telling the truth, everyone can tweak the actions they do, right? I'm not trying to change a whole person, but I might say like, Hey, you know when you bring something up and you're using that tone that makes me feel defensive. How are we going to come together on our teamwork collaboration, so that I'm not trying to change you as a person and saying, like, Hey, you have to talk to me in these certain ways. But also, I'm right. I'm not getting defensive, and we're having, like, a lovely communication together. Okay? So you can see we, if we get to these communication breakdowns, we really start to have, like, just just, you know, gap after gap after disconnection really starts to open up between us. And the next thing that is going to open up if we are feeling disconnected is really like that, you know, that affection piece, because if I am avoiding you, if I'm avoiding any tough conversations, and then we're not really chatting, and then I'm, you know, maybe probably starting to resent you if I'm lying or not really share expressing all my feelings, because I can't be vulnerable with you. And that's where. We start to get the affection disconnect, and we will talk about affection on the next episode, but we will start to get disconnected with our infection. We won't be engaging as much. We won't be wanting to share love languages, right? We won't be having sex. We won't be having physical touch. And if our affection is low, then we're not going to be engaging in any, you know, light heartedness or playfulness, or any of those great things that make our, you know, our relationship, be that safe space, right? Be our love space for us. And then we're all then we're not drawing to each other, right, to be in the moment together. So then our kindness goes down for each other, right? You can see how it just starts to be this slippery slope, right? Okay? And then our emotional energy is going to drop if we're not getting our physical affection and our touch and all of those things. So our relationship is going to be draining and exhausting, right? To be in a love space with no love or communication, absolutely 100% sucks. So let's not do it. Let's not be in a disconnected love space, because that's not even love space. I'm just that's just like a black a black hole space, to come up with an opposite of love space, that's just a space. It's just an empty space. We don't want to be there. That sucks. So the biggest thing is to really reframe the idea of our communication. So communication is again, like, kind of like our values is not inherently right or wrong, per se, right. We want to think of communication as just that idea of sending a message out and receiving a message, okay, sending and receiving. So it's not necessarily, I mean our tone and our words and all of that, you know, support the sending and the receiving, but we want to just think of communication as that sending and receiving, and that really allows us to get away from that noise like I saying, that certain scent that we have to talk to each other in certain sentence structures, right? Like yes, I statements have some good research behind them for sure, right for our healthy communication, but they're not for everyone. And there's lots of people in very successful, happy, fulfilled relationships that are not necessarily using I statements, okay, I, but I statements are, can be a good place, right? Some, some people will, will need an i statement, and that's fine. Or, or like, we don't really have very functional communication, so we have to learn some things that, like, are a little bit kinder, more functional, or things like that, that's fine, right? No problem. But again, what I want you guys to do, what I want you to do for yourself, is to be able to take this idea of communication, of sending and receiving messages, and to color it in with the your own ways that you could actually send and receive those messages to each other, and getting away from the noise of like, this is healthy communication. This is not healthy communication. Again, our love works, and sure, there are some ways we can communicate that will not be helpful or purposeful to us in particular situations, right? So maybe not with the love of our life, maybe in a different situation, right? Maybe if I'm using my I need to see your manager voice, or let me talk to the manager if you're using that voice, maybe that is not so good with your love of life, agreed. Okay, but that's maybe because we're not using it in the right context or for the right purposes, right? So again, just that sending and receiving of messages is going to help cut out some of the noise,

Crystal Clark: 00:18:38

and it's going to let us to receive these messages more openly, right? So rather than avoid, assume or defend against them, right? If we're there to openly receive a message like, Ah, this person is just trying to send me a message. What's the message they're sending me? Okay, that's going to open up communication so much more, right? Because miscommunications we really want, or sorry, communication, we really want to be curious about it. We want to be Hmm, what is that person trying to tell me by this? What do they want me to know by this? Because, again, as we know, and especially for my neuro, spicy people out there, sometimes our communication is unclear or can be very complicated, because we're not usually being blunt and saying all the words and the feelings and the everything now this and and that can be confusing. Now, this is my sort of permission in some relationships, okay, bluntness is already accepted. That's already the way your love quirks. That's great. You guys have open, honest, blunt communication, because that's what works for you. Fantastic. One of the things we want to think about, maybe for our love space, maybe as part of the vision, and this might shock you, as part of the vision, is to be more blunt with the love of your life. Maybe. Right? Maybe because of your personality type, or just the way you think, or maybe of all your training and your modeling from the work world, right? Like I know, my training and modeling from the work world absolutely influences my life now, luckily, it usually influences my life for the positive, but sometimes it can be like, Whoa, too many lessons, too many things. We don't we don't. We don't need to teach lessons right now. I'm like, Ah, good point. Okay, so, but sometimes, like, if you're in the work world and you're constantly couching your language and all of these hidden, you know, ways and make it to make it sound better, like, I love the tick tocks in the in the reels, where people do the the corporate talk, because that is not a part of my world. And it's so interesting to me to hear the way they will take, like, you know, someone be like, Oh, how do you say blah, blah, blah, and then the person will give them the corporate talk spin or sentence like, How'd you say? Like, can we go over that again? Or, like, we can't talk about that right now. And I think they said, like, oh, we'll circle back to that later, right? And I like, oh my gosh, I don't know any of these special corporate phrases, because I don't work in corporate I don't work in I don't I've never worked in an office, I think, never, like in that kind of office space, you know? I've worked, obviously, in a clinic office setting, but not in like a corporate office space where you have cubicles and things like that. Never. So it's really interesting to me. But if you're used to using that kind of language, and then you're coming home and using that and or you're so sick of that you're coming home and you're not using anything

Crystal Clark: 00:21:32

even a bit gentle or kindful in your words, because you're like, I just had to run around the bush all day with my words, and now you're getting full 100% 197% bloodness from me. You know, maybe there also has to be some things, but again, okay, so we're going to reframe our idea of communication and into that just sending and receiving messages. And we're going to do that checking in. How blunt can we be? Right? Do we need to use I statements like I said, for couples, where things have really slipped in to the negative, where things are very downhill, where maybe we're doing counseling. And me that I statement might be an important place to get so an i statement too, for not in the loop. Let me pull you on in here. An I statement is going to be, you know, I feel, you know, sad or upset or hurt when blah blah blah happens, right? Those are your I statements. So you're not saying when you always do this and it makes me feel blah. You're saying I feel this way when this thing happens, okay, and that's going to be more gentle. And for some people, we need that, that type of messaging to get us back to an okay place. So then from that okay place, we can practice being open and honest with each other and vulnerable, and can move forward from there, and then can get back to, or not get back to the language that we use, because probably that was not successful before. We're in that miserable place, right? But we're gonna go then we're going to maybe Hone and craft our own way to communicate with each other in our own uniqueness as a couple. But again, the important part is really understanding the message. And this could be anything from like, something that's like every day, like, did you understand the groceries that I asked you? Right? I said your text about groceries. Did you understand that grocery text? It can be a straightforward and a simple set, because some people are even having difficulties getting that clear right. Think about that. Do we want the groceries to be accurate in our love space, right? And it could be from anything like that to things that are big, like does? Does the love of my life, understand what I'm asking for when I send my messages, right? When I send out my communications about affection, right? And what I and what makes me feel really loved, and what kind of, you know, touch I like, and things like that. Is that message being clear? Or when I say I want more of this for our mega moments of love, is that? Is that being clearly received, right? Or what my needs or wants or supports, or whatever it is Are any of our messages all the way from super simple to like heavy and complex and complicated, which ones are being received in the way that they're intended and with the message there's that there, or with the information they are supposed to convey to the other person, right? And which ones are falling amiss. Now, sometimes you even get the opposite, with some couples where they're big conversations. They're big they're big pieces. Those are fantastic. Those messages are super clear, and they're going back and forth, and they can be open and honest and everything with each other, and it's actually the more small, everyday things that we're having more miscommunications about. Okay, so let's find out where our miscommunications are. Let's think about where our how our messaging is getting received, right, and how we're sending it out. So does our partner understand when we are sending them? Love messages. And are we getting their love messages, right? These are the important pieces. So the two big things, again, I want you to do for your love space and creating this vision is reframing our idea of communication, checking in about it, right? So we're gonna, we can, and this can be done, like all of those things I was saying we you can do those in a brainstorm again, making it tangible and concrete. What do we want more out of in our communication? What do we want less of, right? And what's our communication going to look like in our love space? Can we be blunt with each other? Do we like to do the gentle, couched corporate spin talk that, you know maybe sounds more gentle, but we're still getting the same point across, right? What what is comfortable and what quirks our love? Okay? That's what you're looking for. These are the things that are going to guide your vision for your love space, right? Do we want less of jumping to negative conclusions and assumptions about the other person's communication? Do we want more of curiosity? And what does curiosity look like? Does it look like something like just checking in with each other more every day and having more chats? Does curiosity look like, asking questions, right? Do we want less people pleasing answers and more sharing with kindfulness? Do we want less, leaving our partners on red right or or even on unanswered, unopened, right? Do we want less of that and more actually honing in to these conversations right? And more chatting with each other, and more immediate responding, what do we want? Right and what are you going to let go of? What are those things that you want less of. There is something about them, those things that you want less of. There is something about them in your behavior pattern, or something about them in the way that they have worked for you so far, or they have worked in your relationship so far. So there's something. There's something about them, about your bad habits. And this is for every, every bad habit, there's something usually about it that does something for you. So what are we willing to let go of to stop that being a pattern or something that's getting in our way? Right? That we have to let go of some things, probably in our communication. For some people, the thing that stops up their communication is like a need or wanting to be right. And so they might even know, like, ah, even though I know the right answer, this is kind of actually a funny paradox, even though I know that maybe the right answer would be to communicate this way, that just wanting to be right in the argument or in making your point or being clearly heard, that that actually becomes more important than having clear, honest communication between each other. So if that is the case, then that could be something that you personally need to let go, right, that conversations and miscommunications and disagreements are not about being right or wrong, they're about finding that right, finding out the the common goal, and doing some teamwork, collaboration around it, so that we can then move forward with what's going to work for the love space and the relationship and the connection, right and for both of you, right, being right. Who cares about being right in an argument, doesn't you don't get a you don't get a ribbon. Probably Nowadays, everyone, everyone for being part of the argument, gets a participation ribbon. So you don't even get a first place or last place, right if you're not first your last as that's from Talladega Nights. That's not a part of of communications in a relationship with nobody's first and nobody's last. So we need to reframe our communication. We need to really think about what we want our love space to look like, right? How we're going to send and receive these messages to make that foundational piece for our relationship? Right that bottom layer of cake, our communication, where we're going to build our affection on top of where that's going to grow our kindfulness for each other, and that's going to grow our energy, and that's going to create the love space that is going to keep us in love and sparked.