Summary
In this episode, Laurie Groh discusses relationships and the importance of understanding our own reactivity and defense mechanisms. She explains that people don't change for others and that therapy is not about changing your partner, but about improving yourself. Laurie introduces five defense mechanisms: Lion (aggression), Peacock (self-preservation), Elephant (control), Turtle (withdrawal), and Raccoon (manipulation). She provides action items for self-reflection, communication, and practicing empathy. Laurie also emphasizes the significance of seeking professional support and attending workshops to improve relationships.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Relationships
03:18 Understanding Reactivity in Relationships
05:14 Defense Mechanism: Lion
07:35 Defense Mechanism: Peacock
09:02 Defense Mechanism: Elephant
09:54 Defense Mechanism: Turtle
10:48 Defense Mechanism: Raccoon
12:16 Action Items: Self-Reflection and Communication
14:16 Adolescent Reactions and Mindful Pause Practice
18:28 Seeking Professional Support and Workshops
Episode Sponsors and links:
This episode is brought to you by:
Vitalminds Counseling:
Book a free 15-minute consultation online and get into therapy within a week!
OMGyes
Get your unlimited lifetime access to this groundbreaking material at the best prices available.
GET YOUR UNLIMITED ACCESS TODAY!
Laurie's Top 5 Recommended Books on Relationships:
Transcript:
Laurie Groh (00:00.206)
Hi, welcome to the Wisconsin Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Grow. Today we're going to be talking about relationships. So all of February, we will be talking about relationships, mostly because it's Valentine's Day. I do want to let you know that for all of you that are not in a relationship at this point, this is also for you today. Isn't just for individuals that are in a current relationship.
This is also for individuals that have any relationship or they're planning to be in a relationship because this is directed towards you. It's not directed towards your relationship. As a couples counselor, most people come to see me expecting that therapy is going to change the partner. That mindset of wanting the other person to change is going to get in the way of real
lasting change. And the reason why is because people don't change for other people. They just don't. And it's not all the time because that person doesn't want to change. Sometimes it's about limitations. They might not be at this moment able to change. And we have to accept that. We can keep requesting for them to change, but it will be an energy that's given to something that can't happen.
or you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. You can also drink the water yourself and maybe that horse will look at you and think, that looks good. They look refreshed. That water looks good for them. I might try that too. One of the reasons why AA meetings work so well for individuals when they're quitting drinking is because we are all human, correct? And we don't really like to take advice or direction. It is against our
typical human response, which is to reject direction. For most of us, it brings us back to childhood. There was a lot of direction, and most of us could not wait until we were out of the house so that we could have freedom. And that was so appealing and making all of our own choices. Most of us don't want that to let that go. So when you're directing somebody to make a change, keep that in mind that most of us have that part.
Us that's ready to say no I don't want to or maybe I want to but because you asked I'm not going to right so there's the rebellious side we're gonna be talking about shifting perspectives and understanding your own reactivity in a relationship, and you will also be able to become more aware of your partner's reactivity your partner and yourself
are the same in one important way. You both are going to have ways to protect yourself, and you're both going to want to avoid pain, and you're both going to want love, right? If you don't, then the relationship really has no direction. If you don't actually want love, then that's a different podcast and a different situation.
Keep that in mind because whenever we are thinking about how we are the same as someone else, we can feel more connected or similar as it levels out the power. It levels out our desire to compete, to feel like we know better. It brings us down to where we're supposed to be, which is in a space of wanting to have a better relationship. If we're in the space of, I want this person to do this, we're up already.
And we want to be centered. If we're in a place of I'm worthless and I don't know what to do. I don't think my partner loves me. We want to bring you up by recognizing your partner as flaws. You have flaws. We're flawed. That has nothing to do whether or not we're worthy of love and connection. I need to give a disclaimer. This is not therapy. If you need a therapist, go find one. Go look in our show notes. I know a lot of wonderful therapists, a lot of wonderful therapists.
If you are in a situation where there's domestic abuse, look at the show notes as well. And there's a hotline to call. This is for individuals that want to make the relationship better, but are also in a safe environment. So let's get started. We're going to talk about five different defense mechanisms or reaction types. Think about yourself in one particular relationship. Bring it to mind while we go through the five types of
reaction styles. The first one is Lion. This is an active podcast. I want them to be engaging and follow some of the homework. That's not, I don't want to call it homework. Life work. I don't know. I'll come up with a name. The first one is Lion. It falls under the category of aggression and intrusiveness. This is one of the defense mechanisms that people tend to fear. The lion is in an aggressive space.
If something's occurring that is harmful or they don't like or that threatens them, they will use aggression as a defense mechanism. They may respond to threats or stressors with assertiveness or hostility. They might yell, they might scream, they might get in your face, point fingers, and use their physical presence to intimidate. Typically what you're going to see in a relationship that's not...
in the abuse category would be ranting and yelling or slamming doors. Think about going to work, you're in a meeting, you're with the boss and he brings up a new system of doing something and all of the individuals there are annoyed with it and frustrated and it doesn't make any sense. And one of the employees steps up and says, Hey,
Help me understand this. This doesn't make any sense. Why are we doing this? This just seems like it's a waste of time. And the boss says, if you don't like it, get out of here. This is how it works. Stop asking questions. You don't know anything. Why are you talking? Do you don't know anything about this project? You don't know anything about the system. You're wasting my time. I think you can probably tell I'm not a lion just with my extremely bad acting, but they're aggressive and there's blaming and it's you.
and there's judgment. It's really this feeling of I need to dominate in order to make changes and I need to step over some boundaries because I'm right. It's all based on fear. So you have all that first information right on what it looks like. Let's go to the center. It's where we're all alike. It's based on fear. Typically it's based on protecting ego and it's based on that desire to
Laurie Groh (07:09.006)
have things go the way that they want them to go. So that is what connects us all. The peacock tends to focus in on oneself when feeling threatened. So in that self-preservation mode, I need to take care of myself. I see this happening in couples with young children. Protect myself in this because it's overwhelming and it's a lot. So I'm going to do all of my hobbies still.
because I'm feeling stressed and don't know what to do. This also has to do with fear, but it can also be about compensation. Similar to a peacock displaying its vibrant feathers to compensate for its smaller size, individuals sometimes use their outward appearance to deflect how they're feeling internally or exaggerate certain qualities to mask feelings of inadequacy. This might be somebody when you're in an argument that brings up all of their accomplishments and how smart they are.
This might be somebody that focuses internally and won't help as much in stressful situations because they're fearful of not being valued or not feeling good enough. They're in an argument about something political, let's just say, and they might say something about how much they listen and understand and read about politics and how they might use their status.
as a way to manipulate that situation. The elephant is about control. They all are about managing the situation and managing stress and fear. The elephant does something different than the lion. The lion is crossing over a lot of boundaries and very intrusive as far as verbal attacks. The elephant does some intrusiveness too, but in a way of micromanaging.
overly detailed planning, like planning activities, events, conversations. It's driven by the desire to control outcomes. They might delegate a lot of tasks or delegate responsibilities, feeling this need to take charge of every situation. They might also have to monitor everything that's going on, make sure everything's going the way I want it to go or the way I think it should go. You could see where there could be definitely issues with that because again, most people don't want that.
They want to have control and ownership over their stuff. It really has to do with anxiety and the fear of losing control and the fear of not doing the right thing. Maybe a fear of I'm not a good person or this is irresponsible to do it in a different way. The turtle is
about withdrawing. So the turtle, when it's scared, it goes into itself and withdraws. Similar to the peacock in the fact that it's going inwards, but this turtle isn't trying to showcase anything. It really just wants to withdraw from its surroundings so that it can't be hurt. And this can happen with high stress. This could happen when feeling attacked.
So this example is regarding like social interactions, right? So let's say you're having a conflict with a friend and that friend hurt your feelings and now you don't talk to them for a week. If you're on the other end of when somebody is doing that, I want you to just think a bit about what is the purpose of it? Is it to punish you or is it that they are protecting in protection mode? Hopefully that can help reframe it a bit. Sometimes it's intentional.
But then it's actually under a different category. What happens next by withdrawing. So somebody might overwork, drink, use drugs. It's a way to hide from overwhelming stress and situations. The last one we're going to talk about is the raccoon. My favorite is the raccoon because it's so cute, but it can be a trickier one because there's a lot of tactics that the raccoon uses. The raccoon is usually feeling in the down space.
Same with the turtle. The turtle might tend to feel down, like I'm not good enough or I'm getting criticized so much and then they go down and wall off. The raccoon goes down feeling that good enough, feeling scared. But instead of walling off, it uses different techniques to connect. This might be someone that shows up at a place knowing you're going to be there to try to fix it. They might call your friends if there's a mistake. They might guilt you. They might..emotionally manipulate, like I'm not going to tell the whole truth so that they come towards me. This is based on fear of losing a relationship, feeling that good enough. This fear tends to be related to losing a relationship and use tricks in order to keep it. Let's move on to action items. Of course, I do want you to do something, obviously, that is up to you. You make the choice. Can you see what I'm doing here with that?
you get to decide. I have a few things that you can do at the beginning. I asked you to think about a recent conflict with someone you care about, which one you might fall into and what they are. Most of us do one or two, sometimes three leaning towards this response. However, circumstances change, people change a bit. So something might be leading at one point. It might be a bit more of a turtle in adolescence, but as you get older,
Maybe you finally grew into your face and body and start to do more peacock stuff. So it can change, but typically it's based on childhood reactions. As much as I would love to say a relationship is all here and now, and we can all be in our adult minds and work through problems, we aren't built that way. If you are feeling pain and feeling very vulnerable, you're in your childlike state. Most of us aren't in that state for too long.
we will go into the adaptive state, our adaptive adult, the one that's transitioning into adulthood. We will go into our adolescent frame of mind and try some of those techniques. We got in a fight. I'm not going to talk to you for a week. I'm going to show them that's more of the raccoon. That's our adaptive state. Typically when we're talking about these animal...
references, the knee -jerk reactions, those are adolescent states. Those are what we learned in adolescence to deal with hard things. When we felt and recognized we do have some power in the situation, when you're five or six, you can't just take off and get in a car, drive yourself somewhere. You can't typically just yell and freak out at a parent because they're physically bigger than you. When you're a teenager,
Laurie Groh (13:56.75)
You can do either of those things really. It's not great for everybody, but you can do those things and it can feel very good and powerful. You can have a million tools in your toolbox, but if you aren't noticing the state you're in and pausing for a bit, you won't be able to make the changes and you will most likely say screw it.
to all of these techniques. After establishing awareness, reframe it and find where we are that's alike. That's the healthy space of not separating and feeling above or below or closed off or intrusive. I'm going to try to find the middle where we are alike and feeling I'm okay, you're okay. Built on childhood wounds, these knee -jerk reactions are formed. You may have heard this before, but those serve you when you're young.
They protect you when you're young. We need to develop them. When we're in the adaptive adult state, we're trying to work through how we can actually become an adult. We are trying the stuff in a bigger version or exaggerated version when you're in that state. Because if you remember what it was like to be a teenager, things were bigger back then. Reactions were bigger. Drama was higher. So that's because there's a bunch of people at that age group trying to figure that all out.
trying to protect themselves and find themselves. That was what was going on back then. Reflection is one of the main components of improving your relationship because you are bringing things that are not in your awareness into your awareness so you can do something about it. If you don't know you are doing a certain behavior, there's no way to make a change unless it's complete accidental type of change. I say a lot and when I first did speeches and speech class, I watched a video.
it was very cringy. It wasn't until I saw it and recognized I'm doing that was I able to stop the behavior. It's not perfect. I use editing to save you all from hearing all of them. By the way, I really would love to have an editing tool in my real life so that I could come back and erase any embarrassing things I say. It would be amazing. Maybe there's something AI can do to help us with that. Next, I want you to embrace self.
Laurie Groh (16:11.63)
reflection using a visual tool. One of the best ones is a timeline. This is important for understanding yourself and your triggers. If you were finding yourself in a withdrawal space like the turtle, having the timeline can show you what stage of life you are in, when somebody around you did that, when you did that. You can start to see those patterns. You can see some of the reoccurring themes as well. The next one would be to communicate openly. Feel free.
share this episode with a partner and say, hey, I recognize what I am. What do you think you are? Have a conversation about it. That is a step towards the middle. It is a healthy thing to be doing. You're saying, I'm something here, you're something here, therefore we are equal. Do not send this to someone and say, you're this, and get it together. Don't do that. Practice empathy towards yourself and towards other people.
That's going towards the center of healthy. You are just saying you can see where that comes from. You can understand why somebody might feel threatened if you don't return a phone call. You can understand that would potentially make that other person anxious about the relationship. That doesn't mean you want that to continue. Try to notice your pain, the other person's pain. The more we start to work on the empathy, the better we get at it.
Doing the mindful pause practice is another tool you can use. We went through the awareness, of course, pausing during the knee jerk reaction. Pausing, taking a breath allows for a small gap in time and may allow for a different behavior. Even if it's not changing your behavior at that time, you are allowing for a potential different behavior to occur. So even if you're far away from not yelling at someone when you're upset, you can still do this technique.
And remember to start where you're at. Seek professional support. Of course, I know, again, I know so many awesome therapists. Considering therapy for yourself to heal some of your childhood wounds is a gift to yourself and your partner, to the relationship. Some of you might feel like you're not sure what to do or what to give to a partner. You know they're not happy, but what do you do? If you tell your partner, I'm going to go to a workshop, doesn't have to be therapy.
Laurie Groh (18:28.43)
I'm going to read this book about relationships because I want our relationship to get better. They're going to like that. It's a really great way to show your partner that they're loved. There's also a virtual workshop that I will be hosting. If you attend it. I know it benefits me if you attend it because I get to hang out with you. But if you attend it, you actually get to let your partner know that too. And I'm going to make it even easier for you. I have some free and some.
very inexpensive worksheets. Like one one that I have to download is on sale for 99 cents. So there's other ones on my site that are free. Print it out, do it, talk to your partner about it. What a great first step and it's really easy. These worksheets aren't meant to confuse you. They're meant to simplify things that can tend to be overwhelming and complicated. If you want to go to a workshop,
you want the worksheets go to podcast .com use the promo code lion and you can get a discount or get them for free. I want to thank you so much for your time today. Be well, Wisconsin.
Join our community and never miss an episode. Get notified about our latest episodes as soon as they're released.
Wisconsin Wellness Podcast
Colgate, Wisconsin 53017, United States
Copyright © 2024 Wisconsin Wellness Podcast - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy
Welcome to Wisconsin Wellness!
Join Our 5-Day Challenge to jumpstart your mental health and wellness journey!
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.