00:00 

Hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 434, "Closing the Loop." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale, and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright, here we are again, another great podcast episode we prepared for you today, and just excited to share with you these pieces that I've been putting together. Couple of things before we start. Next Talk with Tanya is November 10th, and that's just a free webinar. This is where you can get some free coaching from me. You've been listening to the podcasts. You've been getting my Weekend Win emails, at least I hope you have been. If you haven't, get signed up for those. You know about my coaching. You wanna see what it really looks like and sounds like and feels like, come to a Talk with Tanya. This is the place for you to engage with me, ask me any questions, get coaching on things, dive deeper into concepts. We have some amazing discussions there. Go to my website, tanyahale.com. Go to the Group Coaching tab, and you will find there, um, a Talk with Tonya option where you can sign up. You will get an email with the link. You're not gonna wanna miss those if you want to get an idea of what it is like to work with me one on one. 

01:27 

The other thing, I am doing a master class, and this is gonna be a free master class on people pleasing. Here's the thing about people pleasing, so many of us know that we struggle with it. In fact, some of us are like, "Hmm, I'm not sure. Is people pleasing really all that bad? I get a lot out of it, and people are happy." Well, yeah they are, because you're sacrificing yourself. We really have got to get a handle on people pleasing, so I'm doing this free 90-minute master class, and you can get signed up for that at the exact same place, tanyahale.com. Go to the Group Coaching tab, and you will find a place there to sign up for it. Or if you get my emails, look in your emails. There will be a link there for you to sign up for it. It is going to be on November 18th in the evening, okay? It'll be 8:00 Eastern, 6:00 Mountain. 90 minutes long. It's going to be great, and you're not going to want to miss that. 

02:30 

So get signed up for that, and then make sure that you come. I mean, I will send out a replay, but the replay will only be available for a short amount of time. And if you have any questions, that will be available during the actual live presentation of this. And also, I have a special deal for those people who come live, okay? So if you are there, you're gonna want to, to check out this and if you want some help with people pleasing, 'cause people pleasing is destroying your relationships, and that's the context that we're gonna talk about people pleasing in. How is it destroying your marriage? How is it destroying the relationships with your children? Okay? Because people pleasing is not a good thing. 

03:20 

Alright. Let me tell you something I love about the work that I get to do with my clients. I love helping them create the relationships that they want. I love helping them get clarity on relationships that are not what they want them to be. I love helping them learn to develop a stronger sense of self so that they can show up in all of these relationships as an equal person. 

03:49 

So much of us, especially I think for women in our generation, we were taught to show up in a one-down place. We were taught to put everybody else's needs above our own, and that will never create an equal partnership. It will never create this intimacy and this deep connection that we want. And when we don't get that and we want it so desperately, our relationships can be really, really difficult. 

04:18 

So as I've been working with one particular client on this lately, we have been chatting about this, and I had this aha when working with her, and this is a piece of the work that I love so much, is that as I work with you, it opens up portals to my brain and I go, "Oh my gosh, I just saw something that I haven't really connected before." And, and that's what we're gonna talk about today; I'm calling it Closing the Loop. 

04:47 

There are so many of us out there who have difficult relationships, and we struggle in them because we have different ideas of what we really want, and we don't always know how to communicate that. And when we try to communicate that, sometimes the other person does not seem to be interested or invested in having the same kind of relationship that we do, okay? And we can often think that it is their job to see us and to hear us, right? And we say, "I just don't feel seen. I don't feel heard." Now, we cannot control whether the other person chooses to see us or hear us. And, I wanna be clear on this part too. That is kind of a victim mentality because the other person is responsible for making us feel seen and heard. I will feel better when they see me and hear me, okay? This reason it's a victim mentality is because I'm focused on the problem, I'm not being seen or heard, and somebody else has to fix it. They have to see and hear me, okay? So that's why it's a victim mentality. 

05:56 

If we are going to move into the hero mentality, we have to take responsibility for that and we have to say, "Okay, it's my responsibility to be seen and heard." Which means I have to learn how to stand up and speak up. Now, we can't control whether the other person chooses to see us and hear us or really listen, but we get to learn how to be seen and heard by ourselves. And this is what I talk about when I'm saying we have to show up as an equal in the relationship. 

06:29 

Now, here's what's fascinating. As I work with clients and as we identify a one-up or a one-down dynamic, I will often say, "Okay, tell me what it would look like to show up as an equal in this particular situation." And probably nine times out of 10 they're like, "Ooh, I don't even know. I don't even know what equal would look like." Okay? So we're gonna talk about this. 

06:53 

Part of closing the loop is showing up as an equal, being seen and heard, being honest about what our experience is with this person so that we can either create something different or get the data we need to make the decision that we need to make, whether that is to stay or to go. Okay? So a huge part of what we get to learn how to do is to really honor the other person's agency. I think we grew up in the '70s and '80s, most of us, that especially in a church setting, we were taught that our agency was so important, but the piece that we were not taught so much was that part of our job in God's plan is to learn to also not only honor our own agency, but honor other people's agency, and learn how to use my agency to respond the way that I want to to other people's agency. 

07:55 

Now, other people having their agency, they get to have any kind of relationship that they want, okay? Some people want a deep, intimate, emotionally connected relationship. Some people don't want that. Some people just want somebody to live with, somebody to watch movies with, somebody to be in the house so that they're not alone. And I don't think either one of those is right or wrong for anybody, but we have to start understanding what we want and what they want, and realizing that we both get to want what we want, and me honoring their agency to want what they want, okay? And also honoring my agency to want what I want. 

08:41 

And a big piece of this is us learning to honestly speak up and ask for what we want. Now, some of you say, "Well, I do that all the time, and then I become a nag." Let's talk about that word right there. I have serious issues with the word nag, because in my feminist brain, this is what I think. Nag was a word created by men who want women to shut up. Because you tell a woman she's a nag, and she feels shame, and she shuts up. So I don't want you ever to call yourself a nag. "Oh, but then I'll be a nag. I don't wanna nag him." No, let's stop talking about being a nag. 

09:23 

Because guess what, girl? You get to ask for what you want. You get to ask all day long for what you want. It does not make you anything except a human who wants something. And we were created to want. We were created to have desires. I think that our desires and our drives are our personal spirit saying, "Let's grow. Let's do this. Let's become. Let's contribute." That's why we have these desires. That's why we have this. 

09:57 

So if you want a deeper, more intimately connected with your relationship with your spouse or with your children or with whoever, you're not being a nag by asking. You are honoring your wants and needs. You are honoring your agency to be an individual who gets to want what you want. What we get to learn how to do, and what I talk about so much here on the podcast and in coaching, is that we're going to learn how to do it with love. 

10:28 

And the first step of this is honestly knowing that you are an equal with every other person out there. You are different than others, and yet you are an equal, and we have to get to the point where we really believe it at our core. Alright? Now, sometimes this takes work. There are times where I still catch myself stepping into a one-down position with Sione. It's just so natural for me. I have done it for so many years that I still do it. 

11:02 

And as soon as I recognize that I've done it, I circle back around with myself. I go, "Oh, look what we did. Okay, that's not the person I wanna be anymore." And then I circle back around with Sione and I'm like, "Hey, Sione, when we had this conversation, I recognize that I showed up this way. That is not an equal partner, and I want to be an equal partner with you. That's not the person I wanna be, so if I could circle back around, this is how I would respond to this comment. This is what I would do. Can we revisit this conversation now that I see how I was not showing up as an equal?" This is what we still get to do. It's going to take work. 

11:45 

I am still working at it, and I have been aware of this and working on it for years, and it's okay that I'm still working on it. Of course, I'm still working on it. It can take time to dig, sift through all of this crap when we have been socially conditioned to show up not as an equal. But the first thing I have to do is really start leaning into this belief that I am an equal, that my wants and needs matter as much as their wants and needs. 

12:18 

Now, they don't matter more. We're not gonna throw us into this, "I'm a woman, hear me roar. You listen to me, you ornery cuss," right? We're not gonna move into that place. We're gonna move into, "Listen, we are equals here. Your wants and needs matter. My wants and needs matter. Let's see what we can do here together." Okay? 

12:39 

We get to learn to speak up, to ask for what we want. Now, we don't wanna demand, right? Like so many of us, it's a very easy transition to go from, "Okay, I'm always less-than. I always make myself small. I never ask for what I want," to when we get a little bit empowered, we go, "Whoa" and we do a major swing shift to the other end of the spectrum. And then we go, "You listen to me. I'm gonna get what I want. I'm done with this." And we don't wanna do that either. 

13:09 

We don't want to get demanding, because then we're stepping on their agency. We want to gently move ourselves into this middle space that says, "I am an equal, and I get to request what I want." So we don't want to demand what we want, but we get to request, okay? When we choose to be in relationship with another person, I think many of us went into it with the idea that I'm finding somebody who is going to make my life better, and I think that that is a harmful way to show up in our relationships. I think it's very harmful, because then we are always looking to the other person. It's a very victim mentality. Are you making this connection? Victim mentality that says, "You need to do this, and this, and this, and this, so that I can feel good." 

14:06 

I think the way that would be so much more helpful and beneficial for us is to step into relationships saying, "I want to make this other person's life better. I want to learn how to love like I have never loved before. I want to learn how to be honest, how to be equal, how to show up, to be seen and heard. This is why I'm in relationship, so that I can become a better, stronger person, so that I can have somebody to love." And when we can start going into relationship with that mindset, rather than a "what will the relationship give me, what will I receive," moving in instead to this "what can I give, what can I share, who can I become," okay? So when we start having these difficult conversations, keeping in mind that the goal of the relationship is for us to learn to become a better person, okay? 

15:09 

So we're gonna make these requests. Now, I want you to imagine you're playing pickleball, okay? I'm gonna hit the pickleball over the net, and I'm gonna say, "Hey, I would like 20 minutes every night that you and I can sit and talk without distraction, without the TV on, without our phones, just where we can connect and just really see and hear each other." I get to hit that  over the net, okay? I get to ask for what I want, and then I need to start learning to honor their agency. That's me collecting data, collecting information. Okay? So I ask for what I want, 20 minutes, right? 

15:48 

Now, if they hit the ball back and they say, "Wow, that sounds like a great idea. Let's do it. In fact, let's set our clocks for 8:30 every night so that when the alarm goes off, we stop what we're doing, we take that 20 minutes. Let's do it." If they engage, then we're just like, "Hey, this is a good want match. We want the same thing." So if they engage, great. That's an easy one. 

16:16 

Now, they might hit the ball back and say, "Yeah, no, I'm not interested in doing that. 20 minutes is just too much. I don't want to give that out of my night." Okay? Then we get to say, "Listen, I honor your agency" which means we want to stay out of the drama response. Okay? Now, that's not to say that we can't feel hurt, or we can't feel sad, or we can't feel frustrated. They get to say no if they want to say no. That is good data for us. Then we say, "Oh, they don't want to have that kind of engagement with me." Okay? Or people-pleasing would say, "Yes, okay, let's do it," and then they won't do it. Okay? This is the people-pleasing person who is like, "I want to avoid the conflict. I wanna make you happy, at least for right now," right? "I want the..." It's this space. 

17:15 

So how do we work through this piece, right? When they say no, or when they say yes and don't do it, how do we engage with that? And this is where I'm going to start talking about closing the loop, okay? Because this is where we've done good work. We've shown up. We've asked for what we've wanted, okay? And they respond no. So oftentimes what we will do is we'll just back off. We'll just say okay, and we let it rest. We might be stewing. We might be creating resentment, but we don't say anything. 

17:51 

We assume that they know that we're upset. In fact, our body language might be so clear, we might emotionally disengage, physically disengage. We might not talk to them for two days. We might whatever, right? We can assume that they know that we're upset. But gosh darn it, friends, we have to learn to use our words. We have to learn to be honest, okay? So this is where we get to learn to close the loop, and that to me means that we help them to see the impact of their choices, the impact of their no, or the impact of their saying yes and then not doing it. 

18:35 

Okay, so let's review the AABC really quickly because this is where we want to start in having a conversation about it. Remember, the AABC is accuse, attack, blame, criticize. Any time we have a conversation and we start doing one of those four things, the relationship is gonna break down. The communication is gonna break down because the other person is going to most likely put up defensive walls really quickly, and they're gonna start saying, "Yeah, but you do this," and, "You're always so demanding," and, "You're just nagging me," right? 

19:13 

Like, they're gonna start going into this place, so we have to be very careful. We're not walking on eggshells here. We're going to rock the boat because we're going to have a conversation, but we don't wanna create a tsunami, and the AABC, the accuse, attack, blame, criticize, that will start a tsunami, right? We're gonna rock the boat, so we're gonna do the own your own, and I know I've talked about this before. If you wanna dig deeper into a lot of these concepts, check out those show notes. This is where you can get all the information from me that you need, okay? 

19:46 

But here's how the own your own works. I might say, "When you said you would commit to 20 minutes a night and then you have not engaged for the last four nights..." Okay? Facts, facts, facts. That's what that first part is. We're just sharing the circumstance. I feel... What's the emotion? I feel dismissed. Because... What am I thinking? Because I'm thinking that our relationship isn't a priority. 

20:16 

Now, something I want you to recognize about this. Notice that there was no part in sharing that that I was attacking or accusing or blaming or criticizing. Okay? And this is because I avoided saying... I didn't say "I'm thinking that our relationship isn't a priority to you, or that you don't care about me, or that you don't prioritize me. As soon as we throw a you in there, they are most likely going to get defensive and things are gonna go awry. They're gonna start spinning out of  control, okay? 

20:49 

So we have to be very clear to avoid the you. "I feel dismissed because I'm thinking that our relationship isn't a priority." Okay, we're rocking the boat. We're bringing up the difficult topic, but we're not creating a tsunami because we're not doing the AABC, okay? And then we can follow up with this. "Now listen, I might be wrong, but will you help me understand what's going on for you that you keep watching TV instead of engaging with me like we talked about?" 

21:20 

We are owning that I don't understand this. Here's the deal. When you get one piece of information, he's not showing up for our 20-minute chatting things, your brain wants to invent all of the other pieces of that, okay? So your brain's gonna say, "Well, he's doing that because he doesn't care about me. He doesn't love me. He doesn't respect me. He thinks I'm ridiculous." Like, your brain is going to start making up all of these reasons. That's what your primitive brain does, right? It likes a complete story, beginning, middle, end. And if you only have a beginning, it'll make up the middle and the end. If you only have the middle, it'll make up the beginning and the end. If you only have the end, it'll make up the beginning and the middle. Your brain makes up crap all the time, okay? 

22:10 

So you get to ask them, you get to say, "Listen, the story my brain is telling me is that this relationship isn't a priority, and I think I'm wrong about that because here you are with me in the relationship, and yet I'm having a hard time reconciling these things. Will you help me understand, you know, why you keep watching TV instead of turning it off and coming to enjoy those 20 minutes with me?" 

22:40 

And listen, maybe they have good reasons. We don't know, right? But this is the time to get curious, to really seek to understand them, to ask some really great follow-up questions. This is the time that you are gathering data and information. You're looking at their actions. You're listening to their explanations. You're trying to understand as much as you can so that you can understand them, right? And the piece of closing the loop is letting them know how your thoughts and feelings are impacting you. Okay? 

23:17 

So not only are we saying, "When you don't show up, I feel dismissed." Okay? But we also want to let them know, how is that impacting me? We would say something like, "Listen, when I think I'm not a priority, I..." Listen to all the I's in here. "When I think I'm not a priority, I struggle to stay engaged. It hurts to feel lonely, and I want to protect myself by disengaging with you and shutting down my feelings. And listen, I don't wanna do this. I love you. And when I feel I'm not important, I get scared and protective and start to shut down." 

24:01 

Now listen to the lack of accusing, attacking, blaming, criticizing, and this is how we close the loop. We have not only asked for what we want, but then if they continue to stay disengaged, if they're struggling, we help them to see the effects of their behavior on us. Okay? We get to help them see our feelings and our behaviors as well. 

24:34 

This is the second huge part. We have to see ourselves as equals. We have to ask for what we want, and then when things fall short- We get to help them see how their behavior is impacting us. Now, we're not doing this from anger or contempt. We're not gonna say, "You're a horrible person because you make me feel dismissed." No, we're not doing that. Like, they're not making me feel dismissed. It's my interpretation of their behaviors that is making me feel dismissed. 

25:11 

Now, I'm collecting data, right? Do they want the same thing I want in a relationship or do they not? Okay? But when we respond with an AABC, attack, accuse, blame, criticize, they will very often shut down, get defensive. Possibly they will AABC in return, right? They might do that. Okay? And when we're having these important conversations, we want to keep our communication as clean and as productive as possible. 

25:45 

Is this a lot of work? Yes. I almost said darn tootin' but I don't know if that works, but here we go. Yes, it's a lot of work. And some of you are, are over there saying, "Okay, but this isn't fair. Why do I have to do all the work?" Okay, first of all, I'm gonna remind you, fair is one of the four letter F words in a relationship. We have to get rid of fair. 

26:08 

The other one we've talked about is fine. Okay? But why do you have to do all the work? Here's the most important reason: because you are the one who wants something different. You are the one who wants a change. And listen, you think it's not fair that I have to do all the work. 

26:27 

Well, listen, if you do the work and they see you in a way that they've never seen you, and you show up as an equal, and they start acknowledging you like an equal and treating you like an equal, and your relationship changes, are you gonna be sad that you did all the work? I don't think so. It would be a win for you. You would be getting what you want. And guess what? They would also be getting what they want. Because if they're willing to engage, there's a piece of them that wants the same kind of relationship. Okay? So why are you doing the work? Because you're the one who wants the change. 

27:03 

You're the one who is courageous enough to step into changing the pattern of behavior. It is a win for you and it would be a win for them. And it's a win for you even if they don't shift and change, because then you're getting the information that you need. But when you, when we don't close the loop and help them see the impact of their choices, then they can just go on thinking everything's okay. 

27:31 

If we ask for things and they say yes and don't do it, and we ask, and yes and don't do it, and we ask, and yes and don't do it, over and over and over and over, their brain's gonna start thinking, "Oh, this works. I don't have to step into being vulnerable and being honest and having tough discussions and working through this." Okay? So they're gonna start thinking that. When we don't close the loop, they can think that, "Oh, I guess everything's fine. They didn't say anything about it." 

28:02 

So again, a huge piece of this is us learning to ask for what we want, to communicate in specific and loving ways. And many of us, this does not come natural. Many of us did not see this modeled ever in our lives, and so when I say, "What does equal look like?" We're like, "I have no idea," because we've never seen it. We don't see it in movies. We don't see it in TV. We don't see it in our own parents' relationship. We didn't see it in our friends' parents' relationships. We don't see it in our married friends' relationships. We just don't see it a lot. So learning to be an equal partner is a whole new way of engaging, okay? 

28:45 

So we're going to learn to communicate in specific and loving ways, and we're going to be collecting good data all along the way. When we consistently hold them accountable, right? If three times a week you're like, "Hey, you know, I, when I asked for this and you said you would do it, and you didn't do it, I felt this way because I was thinking this. I felt dismissed. I felt unimportant. I felt overlooked." And when they consistently see the impact of their choices, then the ball is in their court, and they get to start saying, "Do I really want her to feel like she's not important to me? Do I really want her to feel dismissed by me?" Okay? 

29:37 

Because closing the loop is then letting them... Remember, letting them see the impact. And when we don't address the impact, they can erroneously think that all is well, that it's not a problem that I blew that off and didn't do it. They can put off the difficult work of engaging when we don't pull it back around and say, "This is how you're ignoring me, or you're dismissing me, or how you're not showing up like you said you would. This is the impact of that on my life." Okay? 

30:17 

It often comes back to patterns of behavior, and if your pattern has been, "Don't ask for something," but get mad, then they're over there just going, "Oh, what? I don't know. If she doesn't ask, then I don't have to do it, then it's not hard," right? Or if, whatever, however it works, we have to learn to ask. But if our pattern has been never asking, or if our pattern has been ask but don't help them see the importance of the ask, or if our pattern has been ask, help them see the importance, and then if they don't do it, we just drop it. Listen, your brain wants to do what's comfortable. It wants to do what is familiar. It will unconsciously resist what is difficult. What is difficult is changing patterns of behavior. 

31:08 

So while your brain is pushing back against stepping into closing the loop like this and having these honest and open discussions and really saying something uncomfortable, your partner's resistance or changing of a pattern is they don't wanna do what's uncomfortable either. "Oh, she didn't remind me tonight about 20 minutes, so I'm off the hook." Right? Their brain wants to do what's comfortable and what's familiar as well. We have to give them the grace to know that their primitive brain is looking for the easiest way out. Okay? We will unconsciously resist what's difficult every single time. 

31:51 

And when we are looking to change a pattern, like watching TV for four hours at night, not engaging with each other, not having to have vulnerable and comfortable discussions, our brain is like, "Woo-hoo, I got away with it," right? Unconsciously very often. And so to create a new pattern, even a helpful and better pattern, it is difficult to step into. For example, let's say that you want to cut out refined sugar from your diet. There are so many studies about refined sugar and how difficult it is on our bodies and on our brains, okay? And you've probably read some of them, and maybe you've had a thought that, "Oh, you know what? Cutting out sugar would be a really, really good thing for me." We know that it would be a helpful new pattern to not eat as much refined sugar as we do. And yet, ugh, it's just so freaking hard. At least it is for me, right? And often that change in cutting out sugar is not going to occur, for me at least, until I see the extent of the damage done. Okay? 

33:03 

So let's say that I go to the doctor and the doctor gave me some news and said, "Hey, listen, this sugar is feeding this disease that's starting up in your body, and the only way to get rid of this disease..." I'm just making up a pretend story, right? "The only way to get rid of this is to stop eating sugar." How difficult would it be for me to stop eating sugar? It might still be challenging, but it will not be overwhelming because my brain will say, "No. No sugar. Like, we're just at this place. We're not eating sugar. Not a big deal." Right? When I can see the extent of the damage done, then I can oftentimes have the insight and the courage and the desire to deal with the discomfort around a new pattern. Okay? 

33:48 

It is the exact same in our relationships. The status quo feels okay. It feels familiar. It's comfortable even if it's dysfunctional, even when we see that it's damaging. And so you might be at a place where you're like, "Listen, I am ready to deal with the discomfort. I want something different." And this is where, yeah, it's your job because you're the one that wants something different, and this is why we start with the own your own. "When you don't engage with me, I feel lonely because I think that there isn't interest in having a relationship with me." Right? That's the own your own. We have to be willing to have the difficult conversation. 

34:34 

Again, not creating a tsunami. Are we rocking the boat? Of course we are. This is uncomfortable. It's hard for everybody to engage in change. But just 'cause it's hard doesn't mean that we don't want it. Even your spouse, their primitive brain might be over there resisting, resisting, resisting, but their, their prefrontal cortex might be saying, "You know what? I really would love to have a better relationship with her." Okay? But we have to be willing to have the conversations. 

35:05 

And then also, as we talked about, help them see that, be consistent in showing them the consequences of their choices, the effect of their choices, and then also ask for the actions that you want to take, right? "When I feel lonely like this, I see myself disengaging, feeling hopeless, shutting down, not wanting to talk to you, not wanting to share with you. And listen, this isn't how I wanna be in our relationship. I want us to be great friends, to have this connection, and yet it's difficult for me to stay engaged when you consistently say you'll do something to engage with me and then you don't." Going back to the circumstance, right? 

35:57 

So we are just being open and honest and raw and vulnerable about the impact that their choices are having on us. Okay? We might even say something like, "Listen, my brain makes it mean that you don't love me enough to invest in our relationship. I know I'm probably completely wrong with that. I know that you love me, and yet that's the story my brain wants to tell me. Will you help me understand why you're not stepping into these 20 minutes with me?" Okay? 

36:35 

And part of this might be that we have different want matches. We might not want the same type of relationship. Okay? A want match means that you want the same thing. A want match means that we're on the same page. Okay? So you may want a deeply connected relationship with intimate conversations and all of that kind of stuff, and they may not. They just might want a home to live in with little to no relationship responsibility. They might just want somebody to just sit in the same room with them so that they're not in a house by themselves. They might want somebody to travel with occasionally or maybe sit on the rocker outside. 

37:20 

Listen, they get to want what they want, and if that's what they want in a life and a relationship, they get to want it. And you get to want what you want. If you want that deeply connected relationship, which if you're here on this podcast, I'm imagining that that's where you are. You want something deeper. You want something more intentional, okay? You get to want that, and they may not want it. And they get to want what they want. 

37:51 

So coming to understand what you want and also coming to understand what they want is good data for you. And then you get to ask yourself, "Can I live with that level of engagement and investment?" When we don't close the loop, when we don't help them see the impact of their choices, we are not being honest about our wants and needs in the relationship. And I'll tell you what, honesty is hard. It requires vulnerability, and for me, there's a fear of rejection. And yet here's the interesting thing: I'm already being rejected. If I was asking for that from Sione and he wasn't doing it, I would already be feeling rejected. I would already feel like I'm not being chosen. 

38:47 

And so stepping into closing the loop and saying, "When you don't engage this way, this is difficult for me. It's hard for me. I'm struggling. I feel hurt. I feel lonely when you don't step into this with me." Okay? We're already feeling rejected and not chosen. So this closing the loop though is going to give us the data. Avoiding it isn't going to create what we want. It's just leaving this open-ended story dangling out there in the universe. We have to close it up by helping them see the impact, the effect of the choices that they're making. 

39:31 

And listen, it is okay if we want different things. Every marriage is going to have things that we want that are different than what the other person wants, and you get to decide what matters most to you, right? What can you live with? What can't you live with? I have clients who come in and they're like, "Listen, very lonely, very isolated in my marriage, and I don't want to leave it. I want to stay married," knowing that their spouse isn't going to change. So we talk about how you can show up equal, how you can show up honest, how you can do your part and find peace with that. 

40:14 

And then I get other people who are like, "Listen, I do not wanna be married unless I can have this deep intimacy," in which case those are the clients who would more closely look at divorce as an option because to them that matters most. I don't think there's a right or a wrong in either of those. I think we just get to know what we want, and the more we ask questions and get curious and have these kinds of open, honest, serious discussions with our spouse, the more we come to understand what they want. 

40:52 

Because both of those matter. What they want matters and what you want matters, and sometimes what we want in the most important aspects of our marriages, sometimes what we want are different, and that's okay. Our job, what we can control, is do I step into equality? Do I know what I want? Do I know that it matters? Do I ask for it? And do I close the loop by helping them see how their behavior impacts me? This is a huge, huge piece of what we're doing here. 

41:34 

Okay. I love this work so much. This makes all the difference, and if you are ready to get to work... Listen, some of you are here just going, "This is good stuff. I kinda like it, but I don't really want to engage." Okay. Good for you. I love that you're here. The people that I am ready to work with are those people who are hitting a place where they're just like, "Listen, I'm sick and tired of the status quo. I do not want to live like this anymore. I want a change. I'm ready to self-confront. I'm ready to figure out how to show up better. I'm just ready. I'm ready for the change." 

42:15 

If that is you, if you are done piddling around, as my mom used to call it, and you're ready to get to work, this is what coaching is about. This is what I do. I help you see these patterns. I help you understand how to show up better, how to be an equal in your relationship, and if you're ready to really tackle that, then let's get to work. You can go to my website, tanyahale.com. Go to the Work With Me tab, and you can sign up for a 45-minute call where we will get you set up. 

42:53 

Listen, I'm gonna be honest with you. Coaching is not cheap, okay? If, if you just want... I have so much free stuff here. I have 434 podcasts for you to listen to, and about the last hundred of them have show notes with lots of podcasts that you can look up. I have my Talk With Tanya. I have my Weekend Win that comes out. I have so much free content there. There's so many places for you to get help, and yet if you are ready to go next level and figure this out and clean it up, that's when you call me and that's when we get to work, okay? 

43:34 

This is brilliant work. I would not change this element of my life for a billion dollars because of what it has created in my life. And I can help you see what's going on for you. I can help you learn how to show up as an equal. Let's get this work done, my friends. Okay. Have an awesome, awesome week. If you have not left me a review, please go on and leave a review, and let's help other people find this. This is a way that you can benefit and serve the world and share things without even having to talk to anybody else about it. But if you do know people who need this information, share it with them. Please, please, please. This is such good stuff. It is life-changing. It is relationship-changing. I love you. I hope you have an amazing week, and I will see you next time. Bye. 

44:28 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "Weekend Win" Friday 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 to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.