Bonus - Grace Got It!

My older daughter joins me for a double-length special to finish out Season 1. 

She brings a new voice and a different perspective to our discussion of boundaries, adaptations, inner child work, and how to show up as a wise adult. 

This means: navigating family holiday plans, workplace communication, sibling relationships, how to connect with parents as an adult, and so much more.

Leave us a review, and let us know what else you'd like to hear about on Honestly Ever After!

We'd love to hear from you at www.juliepowellcoaching.com... Use any button to contact us until we set up our podcast connections.

Transcript

Tempo: 120.0

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to Honestly Ever After. We have just wrapped up season one of this podcast. It has been, it feels like a success. Would you let us know what you like, what you want to hear more of? We would love to talk about what you want to hear. I am Julie Powell. I am a relational life coach. I am a mother of eight. On this podcast, I talk with my 20-something year old daughter, my middle daughter, about relationships. I try to weave in, bring in the relational life coaching that I do, and also to hear what her experience is as she's establishing a relationship. This particular episode, though, is with my oldest daughter, who is, she'll tell you, in her late twenties. Her name is Grace, and she very uh kindly and um generously volunteered to join me for a special bonus episode of Honestly Ever After. Here you go. Today, one of my other daughters has kindly agreed to or volunteered. Did you volunteer? Yeah, I think I volunteered. Okay. So this is Grace. She is my oldest daughter. And Grace, do you want to introduce yourself just briefly in generalities or be as specific as you want?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Sure. Hi everyone. Um, I'm Grace. I'm Faith's older sister. Faith is the middle sister. I really enjoyed actually have only listened to one of the episodes, sadly, but I really enjoyed the one episode that I listened to, and it prompted me to request to come on here. I'm 28 years old. I um live in a different state from my family currently. I am a heterosexual, totally self-sufficient. I am totally self-sufficient. Yes, totally, totally self-supporting. Um, I have a career that I have been in since I was 18, since high school, and I love my job. I have a dog that I've had for about eight years now, who is my child. And I am in a relationship that has been just over a year now with a wonderful man. And I'm happy to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah, I was just thinking it's exactly a year ago, you and one of your brothers was coming down and broke down on the side of the road and called, and you're like, Yeah, this has happened, but don't worry, there's somebody coming to take care of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Turns out we were like an hour and a half down the road, and that somebody was already with their family celebrating the same holiday we were journeying to our family to celebrate. Um, yeah, and they turned around and he turned around and came and picked us up on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah. So once I that was not entirely all clear to me, you know, in another state at the time, but once I worked out that, oh, this was this somebody, I was like, oh, cool. Cool. So how did you meet him?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

I met him online. I had dabbled in hinge, I've had relationships previously that I'd met naturally. Oh, naturally.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah. I mean, what do you say?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Like in the wild the old-fashioned way. I'd had relationships previously that I met the old-fashioned way, and I moved to the city I'm currently living in very quickly and didn't have any people or connection. Um, I'm also somebody that can very happily just do my career. Um, so I thought it was important that I meet people and I practice having social engagement outside of my professional life because as you'll probably learn later on, I default to professionalism when under duress.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

So you just like I can see how this is gonna work. Yes, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yep. Um, so I made the decision to go on Hinge, which is a slightly more reputable dating app. It's not quite related to just the physical side of relationships. It can certainly be used that way, but it does allow you to filter a little bit more cleanly than other ones. And I made myself go on first dates quite often, little coffee dates, a little walking dates, and would very quickly decide, usually, that I don't particularly enjoy this person. I have a low tolerance for humans in general, so I would much rather be with my dog. So anyway, I had been on several first dates and like nothing had ever made me want to really spend time with somebody again beyond that, maybe a second date. But there were none that were like particularly egregious. I did have one gentleman that was in conversation, making a lot of comments around like women shouldn't be strong, women shouldn't be muscular. And I'm dude. Yeah, I mean, it was I think I was wearing like a sweater and baggy jeans, so you couldn't see me. I do work in fitness, I do train for an athletic sport, so I am muscular. And so that didn't land well. But anyway, why did it come up?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

You don't just randomly go, I just don't want to muscular women.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

I don't remember. Maybe we were talking about working out or something. My tactic on first dates, I would never tell anyone what I did, where I worked, where I lived, etc. For safety reasons. I mean, if somebody asked me what I did for work, I would say I operate a team in a luxury fitness center, but I wouldn't drop where that is. I met Michael on Hinge. I met him and was communicating over messaging with him for a couple weeks because we couldn't line up a date due to our schedules. And then we finally did line up a date and we ended up having our first date, and it was just so simple and easy and calming. And the first thing that struck me when I first met him was that he did not touch me, he didn't try to hug me, he didn't get in my personal space, he just greeted me at the restaurant door and walked me at the table and didn't come to my personal space. That was big.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

What did that mean for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It meant that I didn't have to go on the defensive, you know, I didn't have to go into almost in professional mode. Like, okay, I now have to play into societal norms. Okay, I'll give you a hug. Okay, I'll let you have your arm around me when I don't want that right now. I don't know you.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah. Has that happened to you on first dates before?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Yeah, I think the norm when you meet somebody for a first date is like a quick hug. And I think that's also like more of a societal norm. Like when you meet, you know, friend of a friend, you give a hug, or like you meet family member of a friend, you give a hug. And I don't mind that, but it does put me into the okay, I now need to act more in societal norms. I can't just relax and be myself.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Yeah. Okay. So this kind of leads into, you know, what were you looking for? You hadn't put on hinge that it was uncomfortable for you to have to participate in these social norms, especially around physical space.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

My main goal going on hinge was to give myself something to do outside of work and to make myself have to build social connection outside of work and to practice those skills because all my social connection had previously come inside work. And I was like, wow, I really need to practice building relationships. And I was also alone in a new city. My my brother actually had moved here with me, and he's a very charismatic person, and he works in an industry where it's very easy to build connection very quickly. And so he built a little kind of group for himself, which was lovely to see. And I'm not that social person, so I didn't build that. So then I was like, oh, I really don't have anyone around here. I need to practice meeting people, and I dating apps was just one of those methods. I also joined a yoga studio and did other things to meet people, but this was one of the methods, so that's what I was truly looking for. And I and I was looking for a partner. My biological clock is ticking, I'm getting older. Not that that is a huge deal, but I do want to have a partner in life. And so I think I was in a very come what may mindset. If I meet a partner this way, I do, and if I don't, that's okay. But at least it will give me some skills and help push me outside my comfort zone and break me out of that professionalism side of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

So did you so you weren't going into this with a list of things that you were looking for necessarily?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

No. I mean, there's definitely things I didn't want. Didn't want people who didn't like muscular women. Um, but yes, I didn't have like a checklist that somebody had to score 85 out of 100 on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Do you or did you at that point have desires or wants or expectations from a relationship? Not just like what the person is like, but what you want in a relationship. So that's the first question. And then secondly, has that changed?

SPEAKER_01 10:02

So I did not have a concrete set of items that I wanted from a relationship. But if I think back to prior to this relationship to list a few, I did not want somebody who could provide for me. I appreciate the fact that I provide for myself entirely. And I wanted somebody who could respect that and match that. I didn't want to support somebody, but I wanted somebody who also supported themselves and then merge that. So finances were not necessarily a driving factor. I wanted somebody who understood my lifestyle. That was a huge thing. I previously found people who said they did or said they wanted to to a certain aspect, but in practice did not understand my lifestyle. Lifestyle being the way that I operate around my job, the level of dedication and input that I put into my career, and then the way that I operate around my movement and my fitness. It is a huge aspect of my life. And it's hard to find somebody who resonates with that in the way that I use it. The people only people I've ever found, and I've said this to people since then, is the only person other than my current partner that I've ever matched with is my brother.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

In the way that my fitness, like the only person that's ever not laughed in my face when I've asked them to do the crazy things that I do was my brother previously. So I really wanted somebody who understood and respected my lifestyle. And then ideally, I wanted somebody who could share in it because it's so time consuming.

SPEAKER_05 11:39

That's a lot of time.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

It's a lot of time. I wanted somebody that could enjoy that and get the same joy out of it that I do. I also wanted somebody who was willing to understand and work with the way that I work with my body. I've gone through some severe injuries, some intense recoveries. I continue to battle those things. And it has a large impact on my mental health. And I wanted somebody who was willing to learn that and understand that and help me work through that and just be not necessarily a pillar to hold on to, but someone willing to like walk alongside me in that and not berate me for it or try to give me answers or try to change it or try to change who I am around it, because that brings out the defiant side of me where I'm just nope, I'm just not going to share it with you anymore. You're no longer privileged. So that was a big piece of it. And I wanted someone who shared my family values. I'm very, very close with my siblings. Um, kudos to you.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Um, because as adults, you do not have to continue that.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

So yeah, yeah, we're very close. Um, we have a wide span of ages. So there's certainly ones that I'm closer with than others just due to natural age and stages of life. But I wanted somebody who could understand that and respect it and also could be a part of that. One of my friends put it really interestingly about their family. She was like, My family's a participation family, and you have to participate. And I was like, Oh my goodness, my family's a participation family too. And I never labeled it as that. So I was like, I need somebody that was going to participate. And this person that I'm with now is such a participator, he'll just do anything.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It's really difficult to come into a large family and participate because there is already so much going on. Yeah. And we have all of these um traditions and kind of rituals, even. And some of them are like really intense. So I realized that we just jumped right in and I did not set the actual ground rules for participating in this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Um, so when I'm doing my coaching work, there's two rules that I introduce, and it's super, super simple. And one is confidentiality. And since we are doing this podcast and publishing it, that is out the window. Um, but the second rule is the pass rule, which means that if anything comes up or is mentioned, or I ask anything, even independent of the fact that I can edit it out, if anything comes up that you are not comfortable going there, addressing, talking about, you can simply pass. And this is what works with um when I'm working with faith, and I need to make sure that I do it up front with my stuff because it just sets that container of like, you know, we're only gonna do what we're comfortable with. Yes. Um and this raises so many questions that I don't want to like get super specific about because some of them are more personal. And even though this is a public podcast, I've learned from you how important it is to protect yourself. You were the first person that I observed who did that really well. First, certainly the first female.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

And I've talked with Faith uh I think in the last episode. We talked about first how I was very socialized to not have any boundaries. That was actually a high value thing in the culture that I grew up in. Not having any boundaries. And then I have this daughter who is so so uncomfortable with my lack of boundaries. And the way that you handled that, and eventually I was able to learn this is good. This is important stuff. And to watch you do that and to learn that was really mind-blowing to me. And uh I will say I am very sorry for the ways that as a parent I blew past boundaries, your boundaries, other people's boundaries. I didn't know, I literally didn't know about them. Um and getting to learn them watching how you did that was pretty amazing. But you didn't deserve that, and I know that it hurt you. And I am so, so thankful that we can now talk about these things as adults. So that was actually my next question is in the coaching that I do, which is relational life coaching, we have this kind of visual of what you tend to do in stress situations. And you either kind of go up, I'm a bit above this person in this situation, or I'm a bit below, go down. One up or one down, and you can become very boundaryless, like you will listen to me, or please, please, please keep talking, please stay with me. Yeah, or you can uh wall off, which would be like I am, I'm just not gonna have this. This is not gonna continue for right now. So that gives you four quadrants, yeah. You can go one up and boundaryless, one down and boundaryless. You get the picture.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Um where do you tend to go in stressful situations?

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I'm trying to like visualize the quadrants right now. So sorry, I kind of dropped in no, it's okay. In stressful situations, I resort to professionalism. I almost compartmentalize entirely, and I go so hard onto fact and logic. And I've done a lot of work around like intent and impact. So I start to break those two apart. So let's say the stressful situation is between family members or even a partner. I break down whatever the action was that's caused the stressful situation. What was the intent? What was the impact? And were they the same thing or were they different? And more often than not, they're different. And then I can compartmentalize what was going on there because if the intent was not bad, but the impact was bad, that's not their fault. That's just a learning opportunity for them. And if I can communicate effectively to them why the impact was the way that it was, that means that the next time that action comes around, it can be adjusted. And there can be clear communication around my expectations on that. So I don't know if I'm answering your question fully.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

I think that obviously I do know you, so yeah, interpret a little bit if and you can tell me if I'm off, is you tend to go when up, I know what's going on, and I'm a little over, I have a little bit more power or whatever. Um not even power, but just like you're not kind of quite keeping up with me here. I'm not saying that to you as a situation. It's like, okay, I got this, so you go up and you wall off.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah, I do, I think I do go up and I wall off, but it's a soft wall. Like I'm still looking for a lot of interaction. Like I don't work well when somebody completely walls off and will not communicate. And that's not and I'm willing to give that person that space if they need that, and then we come back and have a conversation about it, but I'm not one to just completely shut down and wall off and not talk about it. I love conflict, I love to have a conversation about something and figure out what went wrong and how can we fix it and to take the emotion out of it. And I don't elevate, my tone of voice actually drops and slows down.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Um you're very powerful in crisis situations.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah, I do operate well in crisis, but I think I go up and then I protect myself. I put up a a protective shield that is semi-permeable only to items that are not going to harm me.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

That's huge. So that is one of the things that we talk a lot about in coaching is that you do need to have boundaries to protect yourself. It's so important to have boundaries that say this is where I am, this is what I have control over, and this is what I will allow into my space. But they have to be that semi-permeable. And it's important if something's coming at you that is way too much, yes, that semi-permeable needs to like shift to uh no, this is yeah, but but then when that threat or imminent danger, emotional danger is past, then to be able to switch back to semi-permeable, and again, holding the boundary, I will not tolerate this, but I want to connect because when you're completely walled off, you can't have a connection with someone. So my next question is what did you learn without getting into like wildly reminiscent details? What were the messages, what were the ideals and expectations that you experienced growing up? What did you see that you wanted or didn't want in a relationship? I know you've already addressed this as far as needing someone who would match with you as far as finances and independence, and also understand how. Compassion on the things that you do have to really work hard on.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

So, what did I see growing up that I did or didn't want? I did see a lot of work and effort into a relationship growing up. And that was something that I wanted. Like I had friends whose parents split up because it was difficult or decided to be open or something because it was difficult. And that was something that I respected from the relationship model to me was that they didn't just give up. So that was definitely something that I wanted. I want someone who wasn't just gonna wall off and give up.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

But a lot of effort without much skill is still just a lot of effort.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are times certainly that it's better for families to break apart, but I think obviously in our setting, it I appreciate the fact that that effort was put in and the skills were learned. One of the things that I decided I didn't want was like heightened emotion. And I think that's what created my communication style when it comes to crisis or like altercations. I don't like loud, I don't like physical signs of upsetness. Um like even now, like if I hear the cabinet door close, like that makes me nervous. And that was never done in a negative manner, but like if I hear stomping, and this is actually mostly in relation to my brothers, um, you have a little bit of hypervigilance, it sounds like. Yeah, I have very large, very physical siblings, similar to myself, where like maybe they showed their frustration through stomping on the floor or closing a door loudly, and those are things that I did not want. And that's something that my current partner does not do. He's very, very even keeled. He does not express emotion in motions.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

So you wanted someone who was able to regulate themselves.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Yeah, I wanted someone who's able to regulate. I wanted someone who was able to communicate with me in the moment as much as possible and in a regulated way.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

What happens for you if in theory, not necessarily in your relationship, maybe professionally or in other circumstances? What comes up for you and how do you handle it when that doesn't happen, when there is dysregulation?

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Well, for our listeners, Kayla has joined the chat. Say hi, Kayla. Hi, Kayla.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Okay, so you asked what happens when I'm happens when you do have to deal with someone who's dysregulated. First of all, like what's your like what comes up like whoosh? And then what and then what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 24:54

So the what comes up is I definitely like the child in me comes up. Like I get that little bit of a fight or flight, but I've done a lot of work, probably most of it not on purpose, to regulate that fight or flight, or to be able to use it to my advantage. So when I feel that, I can usually feel it as like a visceral feeling in the center of my body. And then I'm able to recognize that that is what's happening, and I can compartmentalize that and then go into trying to regulate with that person or determine whether they cannot be regulated and if I need to remove myself until they can be regulated. So this, thankfully, and I know this may not always be the case, does not happen in my relationship. I'm trying to think of the last time that did happen. Oh, professionally, actually. I had somebody that I worked with that did not regulate and came in on the attack. And I felt that instant fear, and I went into my like rise above, I guess that step up kind of thing. And I followed my normal pathway of like I drop my tone of voice, I slow down, I empathize, I recognize that they are not feeling regulated right now in a non-condescending or my intent is non-condescending, but just saying, I understand that you're feeling emotions right now, I understand that this is alarming you or concerning you, and then providing the fact that I'm here to support or find support if I can't provide it to them. So that's that's where professionally I go. And then that is also what I've done in relational settings. Like there have been times where maybe with like my siblings, because I have siblings that MO differently than I do, and they they regulate up and I regulate down, and I can do that little bit of like step up, empathize, understand, and then try to provide like some logic behind it and help regulate them down a bit more. And I think my siblings see that I do that, and at least from what I can see, and I hope they feel it as a support, because I usually get a pretty good response, um, particularly from the two siblings that I communicate with the most, like they come down quickly when I do that.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I guess that answers the question.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, that's so interesting. Another one of the things that we look at and gather data about in relational life coaching is role in the family. So, since obviously we are part of a large family dynamic, it's actually super simple in relational life coaching. There's uh the golden child, the scapegoat child, and the lost child. And they're gonna be combinations thereof. So as I'm listening, I'm just thinking, okay, what was the role? It doesn't actually necessarily um pertain to the way that the person even functions or acts in the family, it's just a role that kind of gets assigned. Um so I don't know if any of that resonates.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Yeah, I've I think maybe we've talked about this before, or I've talked about it with someone, and it's I find it hard to place myself because I definitely don't think that I'm the golden child. That's definitely my oldest brother, or at least from my perspective, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

And that is an important thing. It's not like we all voted and wrote down rules. Everybody will have a different role from different people's perspectives. Yeah, yeah. I can totally see that he would be the golden child, and you would be I think I would be a combination of the scapegoat and the forgotten child. The lost child, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

The lost lost child, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Well, I can even tell a story about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Well, very well remembered that one time. What? Wait, what was the story? You left me in a parking lot.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I no. Did we leave you in the parking lot?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

No, I know I think it the it was the about me thing when like you wouldn't like hold like I don't know, you got someone out of the car and like I wanted my hand held walking into the store.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, what about me? Like about me, yeah, which is when you think about that two-year-old or three-year-old or four-year-old, it's really heartbreaking the limitations of life with lots of siblings. Yeah, everybody's gonna feel left out at different times.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

But I think it's important to go on record that all the all the things you've said, like me being the forgotten child or not respecting my boundaries or something, those are what made me who I am today. And so I don't by any means blame or shame or no, you never have feel frustration by those things because I like who I am today. I do too.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

I do. And I'm gonna tell the lost child story anyway, because it makes me look pretty goofy. I distinctly remember you would have been under the age of one searching the house so yeah. And we had uh probably three-year-old at that point. I don't know how it feels like it went on forever. I was looking everywhere for you, and I was holding you on my head. Yeah, and part of me is like, why didn't you say you were right here? Yeah, you know, obviously you were a little tiny, but you could have been like, All right, you know, something. But I was just so intent, and you were just this very, very calm presence. And so I can remember the moment where I was like, Grace, you're right here.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Yeah. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Yeah, talk about lost child. I was like, show up. Um but that was where you were at the you know, you it was everything that you had at that time, and you did have a sibling dynamic that was part of that. So yeah, for sure. I love how you said that because yes, there's imperfections in everyone's history. None of our needs can be perfectly met, and they do form us, and I think that they can form us uh for better or for worse.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Right. So there are negatives, but there are also such strengths that emerge from all of that. But I will say, I just have to put it on record, being the oldest daughter in a big family, that's no joke. Yeah, that's a heavy spot. And we've talked before, I don't know if we've got into this in the podcast, uh, that the sibling who was born after you died as an infant.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

And so you at the very, very young age had a totally grieving family, um, especially mother and father, obviously. And that has got to affect and shape how you grow.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

And I think it affected and shaped a lot of obviously how I grew, the position that I now put myself in in the family and the way that I interact with people. Like I am a caretaker, I make sure people are okay.

unknown 32:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

And I think a lot of that from a very early age started from there. It's like I saw people not being okay, and I'm a very empathetic person by nature, and so I was like, Well, I want to make you okay. And obviously, I couldn't do that then, but I think I internalized some of that as like, well, I'm just gonna follow the rules, and maybe if I follow the rules, they'll be okay. And then I found that you know, following the rules doesn't inherently make everything good. And that was when I decided I can do what makes me okay and then worry about making other people okay. And I I still do that, like in our family. Like I'm the person that plans, I plan trips, I plan our groceries, I plan our holiday things amongst my siblings. I plan moving.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Right. I mean, it literally is a role that just you take, you know, it's given and you take, and it's all absolutely silent. And you know, that hear that you value it. And I think that's really interesting and important. And I'm just wondering uh just how that lands.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

That I value the role that I have now in the family. Yeah, I do value it because it gives me a way to serve people and to provide for people, which is something I like to do. I like to be able to provide for people and to protect people. I have, I think I have a very high natural protective instinct.

SPEAKER_05 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah. So I like that I get to that. I mean, I'm the oldest daughter, I have a certain level of type A control. So I like to hold the boarding passes. I do like to be able to know what's going on. I hold the itinerary, and this might sound self-centered, but I feel as though I'm quite capable and I have a lot of confidence in my capability, and I don't always have confidence in everyone else's capability. So I'm like, well, if I'm capable, I might as well do it. Oh, that might be an adaptation. But yes, it works well. I mean, I just think back there's an example of I was traveling with my boyfriend and my brother. And we've so my boyfriend and I have only been together a year, but we've actually traveled with my brother a lot in that year. We had traveled internationally, the three of us, and I orchestrated and organized all of that. And then we were actually traveling within the contiguous United States, and we ended up in a sticky situation where we weren't gonna be able to make our connecting flight, and we had to make a very split decision of like changing terminals in a very large airport and canceling and changing tickets and like trying to figure out which city city we were going to next. And the two of them were like pointing fingers at each other, like trying to figure out up from down, and I was like, I got it, and I sorted it, figured it out, canceled, rebooked, bought plane tickets on my cell phone in the security line, which is absolutely absurd. But they just kind of turned and looked at me like 30 seconds later after it had already all been sorted out, and they're like, Okay, where are we going next? And I was like, Yep, I got it. And they both respect that I do just got it, and they let me got it, which I appreciate. And I think that was another thing that I wanted from somebody in a relationship is to be able to know when I got it and let me got it, but then also be able to read when I don't want to got it, and I can let them got it. And the person that I'm with now is pretty good at doing that.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

That is so, so important because this is one of the most destructive relationship patterns that I see in couples is one partner who has got it. Yep, and the other partner just goes along, and that feels comfortable and supportive and great for you know a year, 10 years, whatever. And then the got it partner is like, I'm all alone out here. And I'm in a partnership with a wet plastic bag, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

They just follow along.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, and they get increasingly desperate actually for their partner to show up. And it's so devastating to a relationship because the partner is still like, well, you've got it. And if I try to do something, you just snap my head off. So I'm not even gonna try. And so, and I'm not describing your relationship at all because I do see that both of you are so, so very capable. And in fact, your partner is actually in a super directive job, like he has these skills, not specific to your relationship, but just from what I've seen in my work. Having skills in a professional setting does not necessarily translate into personal skills, and you see this all the time. In fact, the work that I do, almost everyone is very high powered in their careers. Yeah, they are wildly capable, yeah, and in their relationships, they cannot get out of their own way. And this is what we work with. So, this is again nothing to do with your relationship, just because this is my work podcast. Um spelling out this happens, and you gotta work through what is it that you each need, yeah, and how can you plan, how can you make way for you both to be successful in the relationship?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

And the way that you described it was really beautiful. It's like when you've got it, good, and when you don't got it, then he can.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

Yeah. And I have a really interesting example of that because I've always been somebody that like I can just figure it out on my own. I'm very self-sufficient, and that comes to pretty much everything in my adult life. I I don't know that I've asked for help very often, and maybe I should have, but something recently is that I bought a new car, which is totally outside my area of expertise.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

And it was not something that I had seen anyone do in my life. I'm really good at mirroring. Once I see something once, I've pretty much got it and I can figure it out from there.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Yeah, we never bought a new car.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yeah, I had just never seen that. And that's true. So I was like, I don't know how to buy a new car. I know how car loans work. I I understand what I need from a car, I understand the haggling process to a certain extent, but I've never never done it. And I had somebody here, my partner, who had done it. And I was like, you know what? I am perfectly happy to learn from you in this instance, which is not something I usually do in my personal life. And he was so wonderful at very carefully supporting me through that process and knowing that I still needed to be in control in the process. And it was it was my decision. I was making a very large decision. But I told him, You've done this, I've never done this. And I'm gonna walk in there and I want to lead the conversation, I want to control the purchasing process, but I'm gonna every once in a while look at you and I'm gonna need you to jump in because I'm gonna feel a little bit out of my depth. And I just need you to jump in and then I'll give you a look and you can jump out. And I remember going to the dealership to buy my car, and he went with me, and we had done extensive research on which cars to buy and why, or to even not buy a new car.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

And oh yeah, no, I you don't make decisions without doing the research.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

Yeah, no, we had gone every which way from Tuesday to figure out whether or not it was just the right decision for me. And we walked in there, and he, the car salesman, spoke to him first, shook his hand first. I was like, Great. And I stepped up and I was like, My name's Grace. Nice to meet you. Yeah, um, you're gonna talk to me. And he didn't took such a backseat to the whole process until we got down to like the money side of things, and you know, they'd try to do their whole rig and roll and the different warranties and everything. And I kind of looked at him for a second and I was like, I need you to jump in. And he did very gracefully jump in and then jump back out when I didn't need it. And the whole time the men that we were speaking with kept trying to change the conversation to him and speak to him about it. I don't know that they realized that maybe we aren't married and our finances aren't tied, but he kept passing it back to me so gracefully until there was a moment where I was like, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. And then he jumped in for just a second and jumped right out.

SPEAKER_00 41:12

And that was really set that up going in for success.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

And this is a person whose adaptations were not driving the show. He didn't need to be in control, he didn't need to um be at the center of this, and he was able to be the wise adult for when you needed it. You were able to stay in your wise adult because actually asking for help is one of those flexible, generous things that an adult can do that often when we're in our, we call it the adaptive child. Yeah, that's when we're being more rigid in our thinking, we're being more um binary in our thinking, we're being less flexible. So it sounds like you were able to empower each other to stay in that wise adult situation. But I did ask you, and I know we need to wrap up, if you had a suggestion for our grown-up move segment.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

So grown-up move, I think you'd said an example of when I felt my childlike reaction coming out, and then I decided to take the grown-up route.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

Yeah, or even if you didn't, what you would do if going back, because that's one of the adult things that we all need to grow into is I messed up there. Can I do that over again?

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah. I had a hard time thinking of an example when I really let my like child slip for a second, because I think I've suppressed that for so long. I mean, I'm in my late 20s. I said that for the first time the other day, and I was like, ooh, I'm in my late 20s. So, and I've been suppressing that for a while. But an example that came up was around the holidays. This past Thanksgiving and Christmas, there was talks about what are we doing for the holidays? And I don't think I'd ever had a significant other come to our homestead for the holidays, at least not for like the entire thing. Maybe I'd had somebody come for dinner or something.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Right. But anyway, but this was gonna be a weekend thing or the days thing because you guys don't live in the state.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Yeah. So I had for our listeners, I've always been home for the holidays. Thanksgiving and Christmas, they're very big to me at least. They're very important in family times. We have a lot of loose traditions, and a lot of those traditions are just being together. It's not even like we light candles or anything, but there's a lot of food involved. There's a lot of food involved. It's a lot of choices on food. So it's very important to me to be with my family for those holidays. And this was the first instance where I was like, oh, I have somebody now where we are a partnership and we need to figure out how we're going to split this. And my first reaction was, you go to yours, I go to mine, because that's what it had always been. And then he was like, No, we're a partnership. We spend the holidays together. Like, I don't want to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas without you. And I was like, oh, wait, you're right. This is our first of all, our first Thanksgiving and Christmas together, also. And I was like, You're right. I don't really want to spend it without you either. So then we had to have many conversations about how we were going to make that work because his family lives in the same state that we live in, really, only about 35 minutes down the road. And my family lives like three hours from where we live. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

So it's more practical, it's easier to just be with his family. Yeah. What I heard from you as you were describing it was actually that adaptive child thing is okay, we just separate and we just kind of put that wall. Okay, fine. And it I love that you were able to recognize, but that's not what I want.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Yeah. And I think it was more habitual than that. It was just like, I go to my family and I be with my siblings and my parents because this is what I've always done.

unknown 45:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

And that was another step in my adulthood of I now have a partner that will be a part of this. So then when when we had the conversation of, no, we want to be together on these holidays, I was like, okay, great, come to the homestead. But it didn't even really fully dawn on me. I mean, obviously, I was aware that he needed to see his family as well, and I wanted to see his family. But our family has young siblings. We have a lot of tradition around holidays. His family, the youngest sibling, is late in their college years. It's not as much of a hoopla, we phrased it.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

So I was like, We really do have some pretty amazing holidays.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Yeah. So I was like, the clear choice is the hoopla, right? That makes sense. Right. And he was fine with that. But we had to take into account the emotions in his family. So we came down to we're gonna compromise and we're gonna go spend Thanksgiving at the homestead with my family. And then Christmas, we split, which was something totally new. I'd always had it in my head and I'd always said it out loud. Like, I don't drive on Christmas, I don't go on the roads. Christmas is not a day for driving. And then when I was like, Oh my goodness, we're gonna have to drive across state lines on Christmas. That's just so weird to me. And I had to have like a little conversation with my inner child. This is an exciting new step in your adulthood to drive on Christmas because it's you being with your chosen family, your partner, and my dog. But like now, that's something that's special to me about holidays is like we got to see both families and enjoy both families. And I'm really glad I got to have the experience to have that conversation with my inner child of like my holidays are not always going to look like what they looked like when I was five and 10 and 15 and even 22.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Right. Actually, I like you said, this is a good thing, this is a new thing, and it's a positive. I'm really glad that you brought this up because uh, since this podcast is like specifically talking to people who are establishing partnerships, this is a big deal, and people can get very heated and very in their adaptive child around holidays. Holidays bring that out in us, and you've described really well recognizing what it was that you were working with, your old assumptions, your feelings about it, and being able to recognize, accept that, and say, and this is what fits what works for us now.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Because if one of you is all in their inner adaptive child and can't shift that, then the relationship will suffer one way or the other. Either one person will cave, fine, we'll spend the whole time with yours and then be resentful or hurt.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Or you go your separate ways that day or whatever. Recognizing taking that pause. That's the other thing that you've described really super well. I think, especially when you're talking about conflict in a professional setting, you've described the pause. And that's what we coach people in. It's certainly not anything I ever learned. I was taught you need to be right immediately the first time. And learning to take that pause. Okay, there's dysregulation. Somebody is not feeling flexible, warm, and nuanced and generous here. It may be the other person, it may be me, but we can take a pause, and that gives us the opportunity to make a choice. How am I gonna show up?

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Yeah, and I think taking that pause and then also verbalizing that that pause is being taken and why it's being taken. And that's something that I practice in my personal life and in my professional life. And I encourage those that I manage to practice. An example just popped up the other day. I was discussing something with someone in a professional setting, and I was becoming dysregulated. And I said to them, I'm gonna take a second. I appreciate you working through this with me because I'm feeling heightened. And that helped them. They were like, Oh, I didn't even realize you were feeling heightened. And when I was able to say that, they're like, Oh, I'm I'm coming in hot right now. I need to take a second, she needs a second. I now realize I'm coming in too hot because they thought their communication style was fine until I said to them, Oh, so that it wasn't just a pause.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

By calling for the pause, you gave you were giving feedback.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Yeah. I gave the feedback of I appreciate you navigating this because I'm feeling heightened, and you're going to notice, and I think I used the terms my hackles are up. Like you're going to notice that my hackles are up, and I appreciate you taking the time to navigate this with me. And that person adjusted how they were communicating. And then I was also able to adjust the way that I was communicating because I didn't feel like I was under attack anymore. Because I I had called it out basically.

SPEAKER_00 50:44

You had made the implicit explicit.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

Yeah. And then around the holiday thing, I did the same thing. When we had the conversation of, no, we're gonna have to split it. I did feel like a little bit of resentment right off the bat of like, oh, I have to give up my family traditions. I have to give up this or that. And I said that I'm feeling a little frustrated. I think we're making the right decision, but I need to sit with this and work through this because it's gonna be new for me. And part of it was in my head and part of it was out loud of like, okay, what is truly happening? And I was like, all right, so we're gonna miss the second half of Christmas. What happens in the second half of Christmas? We all sit on the floor, we all sit on the floor and fall asleep. I'm like, that's okay for me to miss that. And my family respects that I can miss that. And what would I be gaining by missing that? I'd be gaining the joy of seeing someone else's family traditions and being with someone else's family, a family that I've been accepted into.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

Yeah, you're investing in a new partnership.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah. And in the end, when it came down to Christmas Day, I didn't feel any resentment leaving. And I also felt very supported by my family, which was a concern. I was like, is my family gonna be like, oh, you're leaving? But you weren't at all. You were like, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

And I mean, as a parent of adult children, getting to spend, and I've said this to you all before, but getting to spend time with you or even the fact that you would want to spend time with us, yeah, just is such a wonderful thing. And also when those feelings of, oh, but so and so isn't gonna be here come up, recognizing that they're there, recognizing that why they're there is I'd like to be with this person, I want all the time with this person, but that's just not gonna work for us, for both parties, and really respecting your time, effort, energy, commitment, space, and respecting other people's relationships is really important. We have family members who are out of state, and they make the effort. It's an effort, it's an effort for you, even the investment and the setting it up so that everybody gets a win. That's a weird way to put it. Everybody gets at least a good solid chunk of what they want and need. That's the other aspect of being in the wise adult state in our brain. That it's not a zero sum, it's not a win-lose, and it's not if you get this, then I'm losing that.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

It's both and. And that's something that I've always really admired and appreciated and valued in you is your choice to look at the world that way. And I think it is born out of born out of hard things. And you could have made different choices, but that is a habit that I think that you have cultivated.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Yeah, and I had someone at one point in my life that told me to read a book called Zen and the Art of Happiness.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

And it's a really quick read, and it is such an interesting story. I read it while I was in college, and it really shifted my perspective perspective about what makes us happy and how we get to choose to be happy and what that means. And it has a little bit of that like let them mentality, which is something that I really utilize.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

If somebody's doing something that doesn't directly impact you, let them not only that, it's literally not your problem. It's not your problem.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

Yeah. And I think that's such a big thing. Like, people get so worked up about, oh, this person that and this person this. I'm like, and right. Yeah. So that's a big part of it. And then a big tone in that book is also like every pathway or step that happens along your life is what's meant to happen and what was designed by God, our creator, whoever you believe in, that was designed for your life to happen. Like nothing happens by accident. I was raised in a religious home that saw God as our creator and our designer, and that is still something I hold. So everything that happens, whether it's good or bad, it was it was on purpose. It was a mistake. I'm not a mistake.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

No.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

And that's something that I hold in every area of my life, in my interaction and relationships, in my interaction with my work, with my athletic endeavors, with my injuries.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

It's well, and that's why I'm saying that your perspective is born out of some very, very hard things. Like you have been through some tough injuries, surgeries, recoveries. It's just you've learned some tough lessons. And I was just saying to a friend today, religious culture that I've been in, there's a lot of concern about what is God's will. Am I gonna mess it up? Am I gonna find it? And this friend was wrestling with some of some of the they don't believe that, but some of the echoes of it.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

And to just say you're an adult, you get to choose. There will be consequences whichever way you choose.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

Consequences can be good and bad.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

That's right. That's right. There will be sequeli, there will be something that follows, whichever way you choose, but consequences does not mean punishment.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

But there's not this, you must somehow magically work out what it is that you're supposed to do. You know, you make a choice and then you work that out to the best that you can. And I've watched you do that a lot, and um, it's pretty amazing to watch. So um, I feel very privileged to have that window on your life. As we finish, thank you so much for being on.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Is there anything that comes up for you that just is like or nothing, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Yeah, I don't think anything huge has come up. The thing that struck me, because I listened to the first episode of this podcast and then I immediately called you after, which is something that I don't normally do. And I think I told you this on the phone. Like, I kind of grappled with like, do I call her? Is she gonna think that I'm in the hospital?

SPEAKER_00 57:28

We do keep in touch in other ways, like you know, that we're still more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

We do keep in touch, but it was like a Thursday night. I'm like, do I just call her out of the blue? And I decided to call you. And the thing that struck me was I I called you to tell you that every answer that Faith gave was almost the direct opposite of what my brain answered in that moment. And I think that that's just so interesting because I'm watching Faith now navigate life, and I remember being Faith's age, and I really try as a sister to not pull that, like I was your age once, and back to We do have some really kind of crazy age gaps in our family, yeah. Yeah, Faith and I are seven years apart, and and so I try not to pull the like when I was your age, but I tried to really provide a lot of spring chicken, yeah. My hips work. I try to provide a lot of context, and here's what my experience was, and take what you will with that. Um it was interesting to hear her and the way she navigates relationships because it's so different from the way that I do. Um, but maybe that's how I navigated them then.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Um, you're just such different people, yeah. And this mindset of okay, how do I be a wise adult? How do I make warm, generous, flexible decisions and show up in my partnerships? Uh it applies whatever your personality type or introvert, extrovert bent is or whatever. So thank you for bringing that up. And thank you for calling me and talking and talking through stuff because I value that. Obviously, I talk a lot. And the privilege of having adult relationships with my adult children is never ever lost on me, ever.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Yeah, I think that's really special. And like the privilege to me to have an adult relationship with obviously my adult parents, but then to have that adult relationship with my adult siblings is so amazing, and it's constantly pointed out in our lives how rare that is by colleagues, friends. It fascinates people. People are like, you like each other. My brother and I are very close. We live in the same city, and we spend time together, quite a lot of time together. And people always point that out, and they're like, that's so weird. You just hang out with your brother. I'm like, he's a really cool guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:03

It's super, super, super cool. So thank you, thank you. And the way that we try to always finish our episodes is something around the phrase that there's so much to look forward to.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

So I'm really hopeful that you would come on again at some point, and we could have a topic or a theme that we want to explore. How does that sound?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Yeah, I'd love to come on again and keep navigating this, and I'd love to talk more about our relationship and then about how my relationship develops and right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Yeah, okay, there is so much to look forward to.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

So much to look forward to.

unknown 1:00:46

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

Thank you so much for joining us on Honestly Ever After. If today's conversation resonated with you at all, would you like, share, follow, download, and reach out to us on Julie Powellcoaching.com. Building great relationships takes honesty and intention and a whole lot of kindness to yourself and the other person. We'll see you next time.