00:00

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 416, "Leaning In." Alright. Hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast today. I'm just, as always, just happy to be here with you sharing some content that I have been thinking about and processing and putting together, hoping that it gives you at least one nugget of information that you can use to nudge your relationship in relationships in a better direction so that you can show up in a way that feels more in alignment with your values. This is so much of the work that we do is just showing up in a way that feels amazing to us because that's who we want to be. This is tied so tightly in with our sense of self. It is tied in with our capacity to be the person that we want to be in relationships. So I'm so glad that you're here. I hope that you find our content today useful. 

01:11 

Before we jump in, I want to remind you that the next Talk with Tanya is July 14th. And if you don't know what Talk with Tanya is, it is just an open, free webinar that you can come, you can get coached, you can ask me questions, you can just sit and listen to other people get coached. There's something about hearing other people get coached when you are not emotionally invested in the relationship that allows you to see the pieces and understand what's going on at a level that you can't with your own situations. And so hearing other people get coached is really a brilliant way to increase your understanding of this work and how you can implement it better in your own lives. 

01:53 

The second thing I want to remind you of is at the end of every podcast for about two years now, I have been putting in the show notes a list of other podcasts that will expound upon, dig deeper into the topic that we discussed that day. And I hope you're taking advantage of those because if there's something that you want to learn a little bit more about or you just want to understand the concepts deeper, that's a great way to build upon what you've learned upon that day. So make sure you do those things and let's go ahead and jump in. 

02:27 

Today we are talking about leaning in. When I talk about leaning in, what I'm referencing is leaning into our relationships as opposed to leaning out. I think a lot about relationships because this is the work that I do. And I'm always curious when there is information about why in difficult times, why do some relationships flourish? Why does the couple grow stronger and more solid? And why do other couples in difficult times disintegrate and seem to fall apart? And how can the exact same, well it's never the exact same, but how can a similar challenge cause some relationships to grow and develop and cause others to struggle and fall apart? 

03:20 

So I believe from the research that I've read and listened to and from the things that I've experienced that much of the answer for this comes in our tendency to either lean into the relationship or our tendency to lean out. So what do I mean by that? Let's start off by first of all talking about what it looks like to lean in physically. Okay, if I'm having a conversation with someone and we're sitting somewhat close to each other, what does it look like to lean in? And what does that mean? 

03:58 

Okay, when I lean in, I am listening more intently. It sends the message that I want to understand, that I want to close the distance between us. This allows a space for deeper conversations, for greater understanding, for creating greater intimacy. In this place, I'm maintaining eye contact. I'm listening carefully, right? This is what leaning in physically does. We might see the hands or the elbows be placed on the knees. We might see a more intent gaze. I do this physically when I am with someone that I want a better relationship with and I do it intuitively. I don't have to train myself to think, "oh, I like this person. Let me lean in." It's something that just happens. Okay. So I want to physically show up, engaged, and invested in the relationship. And so we do this lean in thing. 

05:03 

So what does it look like when we physically lean out? Well, we might fold our arms. We might lean back in our chair. We might look around and avoid eye contact. What we're doing is we are creating distance, even physical distance between us and the other person. And it's a way of us protecting ourselves. It's a way to show disinterest, a way to disconnect. We turn off our brain and we start to half listen to what's going on. We're not intent on understanding. The place in my life where I notice this the most frequently is when I am shopping for something and a salesperson comes up and wants to start engaging with me. And I feel that it's intrusive because I don't want a salesperson there. And they just keep pushing, pushing, pushing into my space. What do I do? I physically start giving intuitively all the signals that say, "no, I'm not here. I don't want this." I am seeking to disengage and I'm trying to show that I am not interested or invested in having that conversation. 

06:13 

I also notice that I do this when I start feeling defensive about a certain topic that may be brought up. Maybe I feel accused or attacked or criticized or blamed. Okay. And leaning out is a very normal human response. We do it physically. We lean out or we lean in when we want to communicate, when we want to deepen or when we want to distance. 

06:40 

So what about emotionally? So here when I'm talking about leaning into the relationship, I'm talking about emotionally. So when we lean in emotionally, we are doing it for the same reasons, leaning in or leaning out. Okay. We want to either create a closer, more intimate, and connected space, or we want to create distance and a protected space because we don't feel safe. And this is the challenge of most of our relationships, learning how to lean in when our primitive brain doesn't want to because it feels like we are not safe. 

07:19 

Now, what I'm not talking about here are abusive relationships where we literally need to create some distance to protect ourselves, whether that be physically or emotionally or mentally or spiritually. We're not talking about the abusive stuff. What we're talking about is when you're married to a good person, but you're struggling to linger emotionally. There seems to be a distance. There seems to be a place where you can't connect. We struggle to be vulnerable. One or both of us struggle to invest time and energy and effort. We struggle to be interested in the other person or to show interest in what they're doing. 

07:59 

And let's be honest, this is super, super easy, even in our most valuable relationships, because our primitive brain is constantly monitoring for safety. "Am I safe? And am I safe? Am I safe?" And if it perceives any danger at all, even in a very safe relationship, it will drive us to intuitively want to lean out. Now, I want you to realize that perceived danger to our primitive brain is very different than actual danger. Perceived danger is, what if this person doesn't like me? What if this person doesn't accept me? This is perceived. We are literally not in danger. It is just uncomfortable. And relationships, to move them into deeper intimacy, require that risk of being uncomfortable, that risk of being rejected. And we literally are not in danger. Our lives are not at stake, but our primitive brain is scared of rejection. Okay, and so we have to realize that it will perceive danger, sometimes even in a very safe relationship. 

09:15 

Now, I'm going to say that I feel very safe with Sione. I have never had an experience since we've been married that I have felt like he has not been all in on wanting to understand and see and everything else. And my brain is always trying to perceive danger, right? And intimacy creates a perceived danger for our brains because intimacy says, "they know me too much. They understand me too much. This is scary. They have the power to hurt me." And so intimacy always feels dangerous to our primitive brains. Okay. There may be a time when maybe your spouse is overwhelmed with work responsibilities. They're gone a lot. Even when they're home, their brain is doing all kinds of different things and your brain starts to freak out. Okay? Because the situation is different and your brain wants to say, "hey, you're not safe. They're not safe." So we have to constantly be paying attention to what our brain tells us. 

10:24 

My brain, even though I feel very safe with Sione, sometimes is like, oh, I don't know, girl. Maybe we should hold off on having that conversation because my brain is like, it might not. What if he rejects us? What if he decides, even though I have zero context for that in my marriage, my brain still wants to be telling me that I'm not safe. And so we have to constantly be paying attention to what our brain tells us. And often it doesn't tell us true things. Because remember, our primitive brain has no good, bad, right, wrong, moral, immoral filter. It has nothing along those lines. It's just like a data processing center, right? Information in, information out. And what our brain also loves to do is to create stories. And it loves a full story. It wants to know the beginning, the middle, and the end of a story. And so if I just have one piece of evidence, my brain will create a story. 

11:24 

So for example, if Sione comes home and he's distracted and I ask him a question and he doesn't hear and he doesn't respond, what does my primitive brain go do? It goes, "he's not safe. He's not paying attention. He doesn't love you. He doesn't..." like my brain starts going into this thing. And then it becomes very easy for me to start wanting to lean out. Oh, well, then I'm just going to shut down. Then I'm going to go to bed without saying goodnight. Then I'm going to not tell him this thing I wanted to tell him. 

11:57 

Notice, the leaning out comes so easily. And if I'm not paying attention, my brain will take one piece of evidence and create a story that if I'm not paying attention, my brain's just going to believe that story. I have to be aware of what my brain is thinking and what my brain is telling me. Often I don't catch it in the thought. Often I catch it when I find myself wanting to lean out, wanting to shut down, wanting to not engage. And then I go, "wait a minute, what's going on here?" And then I have to intentionally choose to step back in, to pay attention to my thoughts so that I can think a different thought and have a different feeling and then engage differently. If I'm not paying attention, then I stop listening. I dismiss. I get judgmental. I stop getting curious. I disengage. Right? I start leaning out. I start leaning away from the relationship. 

13:02 

And listen, we are all smart humans. Every human has the capacity to tell when someone is leaning out. And your spouse can tell, your children can tell, your friends can tell. And that triggers their brain to believe that it's not safe for them. And then their unconscious response is to lean out as well. And now we're both leaning out. Okay. And then we spiral and things get worse and worse. The challenge is to not listen to our brain when we're not really in danger and to lean in even when our primitive brain is screaming that it's not safe. 

13:44 

So what does that look like to lean out? It looks like your brain wanting to say things are fine, fine, everything's fine when they are not fine. It's your brain wanting to avoid a difficult conversation. It's your brain wanting to avoid discomfort. And it wants to avoid somebody having a different opinion than you. All of these things feel dangerous to our primitive brain, but friends, they are not dangerous. They're uncomfortable, but they're not dangerous. Primitive brain wants us to believe that they are dangerous and they're just not. We just don't always have the tool set to show up the way that we want to when our primitive brain is freaking out. 

14:31 

And this leaning in that we're talking about in this podcast, it requires courage. It requires a tool set. To lean in, we have to be willing to feel discomfort. We have to have the challenging conversations. We have to make space for a different opinion. And it requires vulnerability when your brain is screaming, not safe, not safe, not safe. And it makes your body feel like there's a feral cat in there scratching and crying to get out. Anybody else felt that before, right? Like this is what it feels like when we're not safe. And of course it's uncomfortable. That's what leaning in is. Yes, there are times that it feels amazing, but sometimes leaning in is super uncomfy. It's doing the difficult thing even when it feels counterintuitive. 

15:28 

And of course it feels counterintuitive because it doesn't feel safe. Our primitive brain is telling us that it's not safe even when it is. It is safe for me to lean into my relationship with Sione anytime, even though I have times that my brain is like, "I'm not so sure this is safe." He has never shown me, isn't it fascinating that with all of the evidence, over four years of marriage, and it has always been safe, notice that my primitive brain still wants to tell me that it's not. 

16:06 

Fascinating, right? So learning to lean into our relationships is a skill set. And I will say that in the time that Mission and I have been married, that I have grown in my skill set, in my ability to lean in over time. And it has taken a lot of practice, a lot of conscientious awareness of when I start intuitively leaning out and intentionally choosing to lean in. It is training my brain through experience to not interpret vulnerability as danger. Like I said, we're over four years in and it's easier and I still have to call my brain out sometimes. 

16:52 

So let me share a very current example. Sione and I just moved to Hawaii and we want to paint the walls in our home. Probably I want to more than he does and that's okay, but we're going to paint the walls, right? So the home currently has some accent walls that Sione loves the color of. He's so enamored by this color. And I just don't. I don't love it. I don't hate it. It's just not what I would love for my home. And I have to keep reminding my brain that us not liking the same color and not wanting the same thing isn't a dangerous thing. 

17:32 

And to be honest, I keep forgetting to go into curiosity because I really don't want that color left on the walls. It's this stubborn part of me that's like, "I'm going to dig in here," right? And digging in is a way of leaning out. So leaning into love and getting curious would probably help me understand better what he loves so much about this color. And that would absolutely be a better starting point than both of us just saying, I don't like it. I do like it. I don't like it. It's too bright. It's not, you know, it's just perfect, right? Whatever. But what my brain wants to do is lean out into my perception of what's the right choice here and dig into the thoughts that he just doesn't understand what's important. But I have to remind myself there is no right choice here. My brain wants to get all judge-y and prove to him why he's wrong about this particular color. 

18:29 

And this is leaning out. Are you seeing this? How I'm not seeking to understand? I'm leaning out. Because ultimately, what I really want is for him to admit that I'm right. I want him to go, oh, I see what you're saying. Yes, this color is not a good color for our home. But guess what? This is a preference thing. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. But since he's not doing that right now and saying, yes, I love your ideas, I get to sit with the discomfort of wanting different things. And I get to practice leaning into this discomfort rather than leaning out. 

19:12 

Leaning out is me digging in my heels. Leaning in is me getting curious. Leaning in is me remembering that we're partners, that we're on the same side. And leaning out is gravitating to our own sides of the table and seeing each other as the enemy. Leaning out makes the other person the problem, whereas leaning in makes the paint color the problem. And it makes us partners. See, we have to remember leaning in means that we scooch our butts around the table. We sit side by side, cheek to cheek. And it's him and me against the problem. It is not us on opposite sides of the table fighting each other. It's us against the problem. We are partners. And one reason that personally in this situation that I'm finding it difficult is because I want the process to be quicker than it is. 

20:15 

See, if he just acquiesced to what I wanted, that would be super quick. I would already have the paint in my house. I could start painting small walls. I could start doing that kind of stuff. But guess what? We don't have any paint yet. You know why? Because we have a different opinion. We have not come to a place that we both feel good about right now. And as it is, it will require me slowing down, asking questions, and then asking more questions, sharing thoughts and ideas, and listening to his and another trip to the store to get even more paint color samples. I want to have started painting yesterday, last week, so that we can get this home set up and feeling amazing. 

21:02 

And to be honest, a part of my brain, this is where I don't always love how I show up, right? A part of my brain wants to push me to believe that if I lean out, that I can manipulate him to come over to my side, to acquiesce to my demands, so to speak, so that he's doing all the work to repair. And I don't like this part. It was just while I was preparing this podcast that I was like, "oh, that's manipulative." When I lean out, I sometimes use that as manipulation to get him to change his mind, to do what I want him to do. And I don't like that this is what I'm seeing in myself. 

21:57 

So now I want to double down on practicing leaning in because something like this could create a downward spiral that creates a momentum all of its own. This space of my brain wanting to manipulate and Sione acquiescing when he doesn't necessarily want to, just to keep the peace, so to speak. Now, we're not fighting about this for sure, but we're just kind of keep revisiting and keep revisiting. But I'm watching my brain. I'm watching my brain want to lean out rather than lean in. 

22:36 

Okay, once we start this downward spiral that starts picking up momentum, it gets really difficult to slow it down and to change the direction. If I keep not listening, I mean, let's say I've tried to, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Why does he like this color so much? It doesn't make sense. So if I really were to seek to understand his point of view, if I'm willing to recognize and admit that there isn't a right or a wrong here, there's just preferences and perspectives, and we both have really good reasons for believing that ours is the better one. We have a reason for liking what we like. Leaning into the relationship will mean that I accept him for who he is with all of his preferences, paint, color, and all. Leaning in reminds me that he is more important than the color of that wall. That loving him, seeing him, accepting him is ultimately my goal in our relationship. 

23:40 

And it can be easy to be seduced by the idea that having our home the way I envision it will create the relationship. But in actuality, it's the other way around. Focusing on the relationship first will then create the home. It will create this beautiful space regardless of the color of the wall. So what do I want more than anything? I want to choose Sione every single day. I want to lean into my love for him first and foremost. I want to lean in when it feels uncomfortable and when I may need to adjust my own vision. I want to have a relationship where he feels loved and chosen and accepted every single day. And making this realization right now as I'm recording this podcast is hard. It's hard to see my stubbornness in this area and realize that my stubbornness is leaning out. Tell you what, I really, really want what I want with the paint color. And it's getting me distracted from slowing down and leaning into my relationship with Sione the way that I want to. It's keeping me from loving him the way that I want to. Leaning in means that I choose the relationship first and foremost over everything else, even paint colors. 

25:14 

So as we've talked about leaning in today and as I've shared my ahas about how I'm leaning out with this paint color situation, what are you seeing in your life? What is coming up for you? And how can you choose to lean in rather than lean out? What does that look like? What will it take for you to recognize where you're leaning out and overcome your fears that you have in choosing to lean in? How can you courage up and lean in with fierce determination to choose the relationship first? Regardless of how your spouse feels, you will grow in your sense of self when you show up in alignment with your values. Your spouse doesn't have to change anything for you to show up in a way that feels amazing to you. 

26:05 

And leaning in, though it can be frightening and uncomfortable, feels amazing. And for most of us, it lines up right along with our values. You've got this, my friend, and I've got you. And next week, we're going to dive into more specific details of what leaning in looks like. So you're not going to want to miss next week if this one was intriguing for you. This is all part of growing up, learning how to lean in. You can do this. I know you can, right? This is part of it. If you want more information, go down to the show notes, look up some of those podcasts, listen to them, build your vocabulary, build your knowledge base of this type of information. It's going to help you. And if you want to fast track your work here, if you want to see things that you don't see, one-on-one coaching would be an amazing option for you. You will see things at a quicker rate and be able to adjust things quicker just because of your awareness heightens. 

27:08 

Okay, it's my job not to be your friend when we coach together, although I do love my clients desperately, but my job is to tell you the hard things, to help you see things that you're not seeing. Okay, so if you want to set up a free consult call with me, you can go to my website. You can go to tanyahale.com, click on the free consultation tab, and you can get signed up on my calendar for a time that we can sit down and chat. We will do some coaching and then I can talk with you about how my program for coaching is set up and what it's going to take for you to fast track your growth and move more into the space of healing and helping your relationships. Okay, have an awesome, awesome day, my friends, and I will see you next time. Bye. 

28:01 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekly motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com and learn more about web coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.