The Think Free Rebellion

ROB MCPHILLIPS:  So, when two people get together in a relationship. 80% of the journey of that relationship is already set, So, what I mean by that is that, so, you have, you have a person like, say you and a partner, now you have all of your framework of assumptions, beliefs, expectations, all of these things that are wired into your neurology. So, for everyone who wasn’t here yesterday. What we talked about was that by the age of 7, 70% of all your neural pathways are already set. So, they’re already connected. So, what that means is, and we also talked about the Triune brain theory, so we have a reptilian brain and reptilian brain is about danger and hunger. The limbic brain is about emotions, it’s about belonging, status, power, control and then we’ve got intellectual brain. So, when we are here talking about things rationally, it’s easy to talk from the intellectual brain but in a relationship, you don’t have the space or always the emotional balance to respond intellectually, So, most of the time, because we are short of time because, we have other stresses going on, we respond emotionally and so we respond to what’s wired up in our neurology,  So, where we talked about, what we understand before the age of 7 is kind of like a fairy-tale framework, where you can see in,  where do people spend their money in relationships? They spend on, like on average people spend £32,000 on a wedding, they spend like £3/£4/£5000 on an engagement ring and yet no one spends anything on preparing for the relationship. So, when people, like people feel a pressure like you have to be beautiful enough, or they have to be like the man who’s like the provider or whatever enough to be loved and yet relationships don’t break because of looks, almost never or it breaks down based on how people feel in the relationship. So, So, the future problems that we have are based on the flawed assumptions and beliefs in the frameworks that we have today. So, when two people meet, they might consciously talk about what they wanted a future, they might consciously talk about these things. But there’s a lot of unstated assumptions and expectations, and fears anxieties and It’s, these will only, many of these will only become revealed through different challenging life events, so, when people have children it’s suddenly a lot of extra stress that reveals some of those assumptions and beliefs, so when people are like, their busy with their jobs or they are threatened with redundancy or something like that, so a big threat, that’s when you start seeing more of the assumptions. So, the fairy-tale is fairly universal programme that we have but each of us have our own programmes, we have our own defining moments that have either observed of others or something’s happened that’s has made a great impact on us, or there is some kind of lesson either someone we really respected when we were young, told us or in some way has driven us. So, if you look at the most driven people, they usually driven, sometimes because they have been poor and they have decided they never want to be poor, sometimes because they need to prove something to their parents, they felt that’s how they need to be loved or some other thing has driven them, So, I remember years ago I was on a course, like a therapy course and  I was talking to, I was with this bloke who was,  he was like super successful, he had be  CEO of lots of different big companies and he had achieved great success and it was all because his dad once said to him “do your best” and he was now an age of like 60 and he had come to the end of his career and he said  What does that mean? How do I ever know that I’ve done my best? And so many people are driven by, they are driven by something so, everyone’s relationship journey follows whatever the things are that are key to them.

Right, does this make sense? Or have I gone too abstract? 

P: No, it makes sense. The thing is, how do you then kind of reconcile one part? What drives one person? And then what drives the other? I mean is that our meeting point or is it conflict or 

R: So, it’s really about understanding, but it’s, it’s, So, we talked about connection and connection being more important than the relationship and the way that you connect Is by someone’s sharing, so, when there’s a problem, every problem that you have is underpinned by all of this. So, the big fights that people have are about money, sex and children. But they’re not really about money, sex, and children. So, John Gottman talked about, when people fought about money, he asked them what does money mean to you? And he stopped, He stopped at 100 different definitions of what money meant. So, to some people, money means freedom, money means love, money means control, money means obligation, Money means security. So, when people are fighting about money, they’re not really fighting about money. Money is the symbol of what it means to them, So, in the same way that I said connection is more about the connection is more important than the relationship because what we’re looking, when we talk about relationship it’s kind of lazy thinking, because what we really want the relationship is a symbol for connection, because all of us, our core drive Is to connect. How we make sense of the world, it’s How we feel not alone, so if you look at, look at football, football supporters, they are so their team and it’s because the team represents, like they identify with their team. People like Justin Bieber, what his believer’s, they will follow him round because he represents something, something in their identity. I think the most successful band is Iron Maiden of Grateful Dead or something like that but they are not a big band, like a chart topping band, but they have the most passionate fans because they identify with them, like I have seen lots of things about the Grateful Dead about what they mean to people and so it creates like this tribe and this sense of identity, and that’s why, That’s why like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi get like £30 million a year because they mean something to people, there is some sense of identity.  What happens in most relationships, So, I talked about like the relationship curve goes down like this, and it goes, so the relationship curve goes, normal relationship, you just do nothing and you just follow the normal programme, it goes downward like that and it goes downwards because, . Because, like we’re running on these programmes and so we get resentful, we get angry and so we get disconnected. And what breaks the relationship is usually someone says were incompatible, we grew apart or someone cheats, or there is a betrayal or they just end up not being able to live together without arguing, and it’s not actually those things that broke the relationship there, just the symptoms of when they’ve lived,  So we said there is a line, somewhere along there is a line where the relationship enriches and where the relationship drains and what happened was that they got drained from the relationship for so long that eventually one or the other triggering things, which was the thing that triggered the end of the relationship, So, when you have conflict, conflict is either an opportunity to connect because behind the conflict is what does this really mean? What am I threatened by, what, what am I fighting for? And so, so there’s two, two people really, really, so question, so we talked yesterday about Sue Johnson says, two people are like two children in a relationship, asking can I trust you? Do you love me? Will you be there for me? And so often when we were arguing when we fighting, it’s really about, it’s really about looking for reassurance And Howard Markman talks about it’s basically 3 key arguments that people have, it’s like care and concern, respect and recognition and power and control. So, people are really fighting about whatever, they kind of life thing is will determine what they’re fighting for and so when you go deeper into it and like, what would normally happen is we’ will just argue, and we will argue about the toothpaste, we will argue about the place not being tidy, we will argue about the toilet seat being up, but we are not really arguing about that and if all that we do is argue about that then that is the curve that we will have. But if we talk about what does that really mean? What are we really fighting for, what does that mean to you and then it’s an opportunity to connect and then when you connect, you go deeper and it’s through, Like the way that you find problems in the flawed assumptions. Is by seeing that happen in real life and then the awareness of understanding what drives it and, and being able to share that and what really creates connection is when we share human to human. 

So does that make more sense? 

P: yes it does thank you 

Rob: And so, we talked about, we talked about the scale, really the scale is, I said we’re living in the age of confusion and so when people get confused a lot and there doesn’t seem to be an answer, they become frustrated and when they get frustrated a lot then they begin to despair and when people despair for long enough, they start to get bitter and that’s where they decide that men, women are the problem.  So what we have been talking about this week s about clarity, what are the steps but clarity is more intellectual, it can help you see where your going but it’s really about capacity which is the point at which you’re capable of doing all those emotional things and capacity is about overcoming your, your neurology and the things that are in your operating system that are holding you back from having the relationship that you want because, so, we talked about is there will be more access to single people, there is no problem in finding a partner,  the problem is that somewhere in all of our neurology, is there something that stopping us and so it’s it starts with awareness of the clarity of it and then it’s about building the emotional capacity to do it and once you have the emotional capacity, then you have the foundation to build the skills and once you have the skills, then you can become, you have the confidence, so, we also talked about, many people want to jump from confusion or frustration or even despair to being confident but you have to go through that process 

P: Rob, excuse me, you mentioned sharing within a relationship but that is only successful if the sharing is equal and on the same plane, so there has to be clarity between both parties or clarity of understanding rather.

Rob: Yeah, yeah, we talked about there being the spectrum and it’s, so, if you’re vulnerable and some goes,  yeah, yeah, that’s interesting okay, then that’s not a partner  that you can create that the atmosphere, so, if you’re vulnerable,  in a good partner that would create empathy, in a bad partner they could, there are people, for example there are people that learn that not to be honest in relationship because when you’re honest someone can take advantage, but if someone takes advantage of it then it’s a  signal that they are someone that you can’t have this kind of relationship with because if they don’t if they don’t respond with empathy and then you don’t have the ability, so there are limits with people but it’s about how you navigate that and so equally there are other people that may not really have thought about that but in the right environment will, will relate with empathy, if you think about, I don’t know, if I say like, if you think about what’s driven your life thing, can you think of any incident, so,  if I give you,  if I give you mine, If I give you one from my life,  so when I was,  I had a very dramatic big sister,  so when I was about three or four I remember us standing by the door and  um and dad were somewhere else and arguing and we kind of heard them and I remember her saying you know they’re not our real parents she said,  they stole us from our parents and their murderers and they’re going to kill us and images and so then they came in and like you got you know ask them and your like 3 or 4 and thinking is it true, isn’t it true, so what that meant was I was never, I was never completely sure and I knew most of the time but like you lie in bed at night and not be sure, so what it meant was that I disconnected and detached and so I never fully trusted anyone and so when you look at like what I talked about yesterday, comes really from someone who’s quite detached and he looks objectively rather than being in the system and so it meant like I, I hid who I was so, I didn’t really, don’t,  even now it’s more difficult to connect to people because that’s the opinion in the  neurology so it meant that if I had a problem,  I had to go and resolve it on my own so, I thought  more independently and  I learned very young to resolve my own problems, it also meant,  it was like, I meant, like there were certain things that I felt I couldn’t show because that would show weakness  and show I felt like being fully vulnerable would be weakness and would put me in danger so,  so,  yes so that has, has driven a lot of things in my life like which I didn’t even think about until later when you look at why did this happen,  what happened there and you understand that the impact that it has on, on your life,..  

Can you think of an incident that may be for, some people it’s that and for some people, they have had traumatic childhood,  so,  I didn’t have a traumatic childhood but I had a dramatic sister and suddenly there’s other things that I say, say if you like I give a lot of detail and I think of every problem when I’m doing this and I probably over explain my daughter says I mansplain, and what it is, Is because, if you did, like with my mum, if you would disagree she would try and like shame you, it  was like, oh everyone knows this, it’ ’s  true and I like, I know it’s not true but there was that pressure and so people who over explain,  it’s often because they were told like your wrong or something like that so,  I’m trying to think what else, but equally I remember when, when I, being young and my mum would say, like really young, and she would say well if they can do it you can do it and so I always had this belief that caused me to have a confidence in myself or in my ideas,  so, does that makes sense, so,  I think what we are really looking at here is awareness of yourself and the ability to be vulnerable and the ability to express what’s going on for you beneath the surface and be able to share that with someone in a way that connects, if we go to a breakout rooms and the breakout room, if  you notice we’re not really doing groups for this week and reason is because you can have a deeper conversation one to  one and it’s a little bit more intense  The question like to have a conversation around is what,  what would you think without the defining incidents in your life and just to set up the conversation, the level at which we connect is the level at which we’re capable of being vulnerable but that’s individual, that’s down to everyone’s choice and we can’t force someone to be vulnerable and we shouldn’t need to feel more vulnerable than we want to be, so if we are just respectful than anyone wants to be probed,  OK So what would you think without the defining incidents in your life and what is driving your relationship neurology,  like in the operating system

P:  I don’t understand, I’m really sorry, I don’t understand what question is. 

Rob: OK, OK, do you get the idea of what we’re talking about, there’s something, there is something that’s happened somewhere in your life which is related to like that whole operating system, OK so if you had different experiences, how would that change how you live your life, how, how your relationships, like the patterns or things that happen in your relationships. 

So another way of looking at it is if you think of conflicts that you have in your relationship, conflicts that really matter really affect you emotionally,  what’s triggering you it’s probably something that means something to you and so why does that matter so much and it’s probably because someone you looked up to said it was really important, it was something that some situation made you feel like people who have been in bad situations can feel,  be scared to trust, so people someone who’s been in a bad relationship is going to be afraid to trust in another relationship, does that make sense,

Okay, so, so thinking about so, it could be a simple, a conversation could be a simple, if you didn’t go deep is money, sex, children, careers, dividing up chores, these kinds of things are things are things that we, that are the most common fights in relationships, so, what does money mean to you,  what does a parenting style mean, what does it mean about equality of sharing domestic chores or being left to deal with the chores or having to do chores, does that make sense, but really it’s about conversation and wherever you want that conversation to go so, we will go for about 15 minutes,  

these are the kinds of things that are really deep and really underpin relationships and if you looked at what caused the relationship to go as it does, it’s,  this is really where it’s like these are like the tectonic plates that are underneath all of the dynamics and all of the situations that we encounter, you can understand it from like in just examining yourself, like, why, why, what makes that happen, why, why, why and also from conversation, it’s like we can find ourselves in conversations with others.

Rob: So, did anyone get any insights or have anything they want to share from the conversation

P: we didn’t get to that point, we were just getting to know each other

P: It was really interesting chatting with Julie because we realise that this fight growing up in different continent we had very,  very sheltering parents and because they sheltered us even into our adulthood, we tend to look for partners who will provide us the same shelter and freedom and not question about it so the problem is that what they best characteristic that I grew up with might not be what is stuck as normal in most of their relationship for example,  I can just go right now and ask my dad for money without necessarily having to explain to him why I need the money, I’ll just say this is how much I want and he will just give it to me no questions asked but can I do the same with  a man I’m in a relationship with when because you know finance one of the things that I need to be accountable with, no and it’s just taking at least some time for me to be able to realise that yes, your Parents do spoil you but you cannot come with that to a relationship, you need to be able to lower your expectation about what you can expect from this individual because we were all raised differently.

Rob: It’s,  It’s very, because we are used to a family relationship and particularly parents and for some people have really loving parents and parents that really want to give to them and parent/ child is really the most uneven relationship because like we love our parents because they loved us,  because they loved us so much before we loved them,  if that makes sense like we talked about the baby like, that you love the baby and the baby loves you because you, you give it so much love and then what we’re looking for in a relationship with someone to do that and it’s a completely different dynamic because we’re all looking for that and we don’t necessarily, so sometimes we don’t love until we are shown that we are  loved. Anyone else have any different thoughts.

P:  I was with Betty, we both and had seemed to have grown up in a household where mother’s particularly weren’t very sort of loving towards us and  we have both sort of grown up now almost feeling that we’re not good enough and the other thing that just came to my mind was I grew up in a very violent household my dad was very violent towards my mum and finally went off when I was about 11 with another woman, but I never felt like when I see the girls adore their dads and they have got a great father daughter relationship, I never had that with my dad and I think it’s made me grow up longing for a man to love me like I want to be loved and I think it’s because I didn’t have that from a father.

Rob: Yeah 

P: but it’s interesting this session really for the impact, it’s like, I know childhood and things that happen to you, do impact on how you are as an adult but I hadn’t really kind of thought about that too much before 

Rob: We talked a little bit yesterday about attachment style,  so attachment style alignment but yeah if you grow up and you felt unsafe in your home,  if you felt not good enough that’s probably the hardest thing to, to overcome because if you have that start because on the one hand, on the one hand you have like if you have these loving parents,  there you look,  like there is a spectrum of parenting, there  like some parents, there are some parents that want to give everything and I think if they give everything that will help child and then there’s other parents that may be done and some parents that are struggling themselves so I mean I was lucky with my parents, but  my mum was, came from a home where, like  my grandad was drunk and abusive, would come home drunk and violent and so there was all that and I can see how that impacted my mum which impacted me in our bringing  up so, yeah, here’s so much and.

P: Sorry Rob, I think as well we used the word needy both Betty and I and I’ve been called needy before, but I get some therapy and was told there’s no such thing as needy, we all have needs and those needs need to be met in order for you to feel secure etc and I think that that was another thing and I think that might neediness comes again from, from what I was just talking about sorry to have interrupted you there.  

Rob: No, No, it’s a great point, we talked a little bit about that yesterday about doctor Mario Martinez who says that the wounds that you get from a relationship need to be healed in a relationship and he talked about like shame,  so what was it, shame, betrayal and abandonment and shame is  healed by being honoured, abandonment is by loyalty and  shame, honoured, I have a terrible memory but Dr Mario Martinez has that, those things, he’s got some really interesting stuff on YouTube. 

When people say needy what they’re really talking about is,  we are talking big picture, so like people talking in broad strokes and people think, aw that’s too much trouble, that’s too needy but it’s understanding the details and what can help is, when you understand that and if you really go into it and you go ok, what do I need, what do I need to feel, and so if you say to someone okay,  this happened it makes me feel like this,  So what I really need is to feel like this and if you can express that it makes it easier because what a lot of people are saying, aw, it’s too needy is, is that someone presents with this like, so, ok what it can be is that if you are t use the word ‘needy’ what’s going to happen in that  interaction is that your anxiety is going to want reassurance, now if you’re not clear about it I and say look, I’m feeling anxious and what I want is reassurance because of this , if you’re not upfront and honest about it what you are doing is you’ve got a surface level interaction but you’re trying to get this currency from them and that’s not clean and people feel that as manipulative and people feel it is,  like people can sometimes feel that kind of energy that your trying to get something from them and  it feel it can feel like manipulative and overwhelming and so when you have the understanding of it and you say this is what I need and why I need it then that lets someone be able to help you, so the basis of non-violent communication is the assumption that people want to help you, so the formula for non-violent communication is something like, when you do this I feel like this, could you ….. and So what you’re doing is you’re saying is I feel like this because of this and it’s not you that I feel this,  is cause it’s not, that’s not automatic there’s something between what someone does and how you feel and that is like that whole neurology in your operating system and when you say you do this you, like people normally say, when you do this I feel that, it is comes across as blame but when you give someone the explanation it’s not your fault but it’s because of this , what I need is this and someone can do it on or not most people particularly if you’re in a relationship generally will want  to help you, so like for example men,  one of the big like,  like, if you’re looking at why men leave a relationship  because what most men will say I couldn’t make her happy a lot of the time,  I couldn’t make her happy because implicate in that whole fairy-tale thing is that men have to play the role of being the Prince and so  a man feels if a woman is unhappy it’s because he’s not good enough, so when men leave a relationship which even just checkout of the relationship is often  because they feel their lacking because as a reflection of the woman not being happy so the more that you can communicate and explain and the more,  so when I say broad strokes, so what I mean,  it’s like you know you get modern art and it’s just, it’s  is just big lines well like fine are is  just  like the fine little details and the more, the more details you can get,  the more connection you have, the more awareness you have and the more,  the richer the relationship will be.

P: But if men are conditioned to give, to think of themselves as providers and that’s their forte, that’s their strength, that what their expert in, that’s their expertise, that’s what they can do and the woman does not need those things in terms of it being the most important things in their lives, it’s important but that’s not it, she is not dependent on him for those things, the things that she needs, the men, if they have not been, erm, exposed to, practiced in, how can they then deliver those things that they are in kindergarten, at the Kindergarten stage in, so, to my mind that is part of what need to be corrected and it’s then, if they lady has to become the coach, the teacher then that’s a, becomes a very difficult situation because after a while, it’s like of you have a sick partner you become a carer and then the romance kind of goes and you become like a mother, erm, how do you get that person to make that shift, it’s one thing to say but how do they then equip themselves with those tools to be more caring if that’s what you want or etc etc, the soft skills then. 

Rob; So that really a big dynamic today, isn’t it, so the broad strokes is that men are set up to be the provider and typically men know how to do that quite well, yet now we have a lot of successful women and successful women are finding it difficult to find a partner because, no 1, that  broad strokes thing of being a successful woman who mainly earns more than the man is threatening, so it’s threatening on the big strokes if you go in to, to use the analogy that we used before like if you’re here and you say I’m going to New York and I say, like a couple can say ok, we are going to New York but when you get closer they got different ideas of where they’re going in New York, so, zooming in and like broad strokes he’s like, going to New York and the fine details is exactly where are we going in New York,  so your question is how do you, how do, how does the woman deal with that, ok, so so like, it’s not really about coaching,  it’s not really about you’re going to help them, its about the willingness to do it, emotional, so emotional growth and what we are talking about is overcoming your neurology, so, it’s the willingness, so it’s the  willingness to look at it and most people who won’t it’s because of fear, so, it’s not the  woman’s job to look at it, it’s a woman’s job to not be judgmental, to make it safe, to look to,  because when people judge that’ when people close down, when people seek to understand that’s when people feel seen, so it’s really about the being seen and in all areas of relationships there’s going to be a time someone who’s better at, it’s going to be someone who’s better at seeing someone , there is going to be someone who’s better at supporting someone, there’s going to be someone who’s better at making someone feel safe and someone who’s better at making someone feel satisfied. so it’s not necessarily that you have to coach someone, but you, you have to first of all make it safe for someone, you have to navigate, as in who will dance with you on that, so some people will dance, some people will take that safety and that encouragement and that prompting and respond and some people won’t and so where you train, where you set up as a coach is really where you set up with a goal and you have the agenda and when you have the agenda people could feel  that and there is control and, so it’s more about offering people, so and that’s really where vulnerability and being present and respect and all of that comes in and it’s also the kindness, the kindness of allowing someone to stumble 

P: Well to my mind I’m thinking that a partner who shows or demonstrates willingness to explore other areas of their being so to speak,  that is an encouragement for the partner who is feeling short changed to you know be become part and parcel of that growth,  you know to respond to be as you say, to be kind to you know, to be willing to allow for growth etc  and,  and,  and,  and support but if somebody doesn’t see that,,  that,  that is a missing part of the of the relationship then how does one even begin that discussion in a safe way without getting angry , you know, without shutting down,  those kinds of things.

Rob:  OK, so why would they get angry and why would they shut down?

P: Well, their defensive, there’s, there’s fear, maybe they think if they do this they may fail and it may still not be good enough for you know, so that’s one thing.

 Rob: Yeah, so it may be that they don’t want to in which case you have navigate round that as in you  can’t probably have that relationship because  some people just won’t, some people just won’t want to, some people will talk about wanting to but they are talking the game rather than doing it , so I think if all you can do is offer someone the invitation to and then it’s about , so there is  like threshold, like, you can make it you can make it easier but you can’t, like you can’t, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink and that’s an individual’s choice  and so it’s really about,  because that’s about how vulnerable they are willing to be and if they’re not willing to be vulnerable, because really emotional stuff is not hard to get intellectually, it’s  just are you willing to be the vulnerable, to be,  are you willing to do that, so it’s fear that stops people and sometimes it’s just timing  Aswell, like the time of day,  so you know like you have the time of day, if you’re,  if you feel enriched and then like this the personal line of how happy you feel happy you feel the more willing you’re going to be , whereas if you’re down in fear and anger and those kind of things you’re not going to want look, so that’s why it’s that capacity, because it’s not just your capacity, it’s their capacity, because capacity is really what’s going to drive the relationship, that’s the point where people will disconnect, that’s the point where relationships will break.

P: What did you mean when you said emotional capacity earlier Rob? You said you need awareness, emotional capacity and the skills which lead to confidence but what is emotional capacity mean?

Rob: Basically, the willingness to be open, the willingness to be vulnerable so, if you if you really want to connect it’s about really connecting person to person, it’s dropping that facade, it’s really being honest about what you want and that’s really what’s going to drive the relationship does that make sense or, or is it too vague?

P: Yeah,  thanks 

P: But it comes back down to trust to be that vulnerable you have to have trust 

Rob: Yeah, and so people have different levels of trust and some people will, 20 years they still won’t open up, so, it’s on one level is trust of you but the real defining thing is trust of themselves.

P: What do you mean when you say trust of yourself? 

Rob: OK, so to be vulnerable is to share who you are regardless of what other people think people sometimes think vulnerability is weakness because they think, I say this then it’s embarrassing and I’m going to look stupid, erm, and so, so they don’t, whereas what’s really strength is the ability to say this is who I am whether you like me or not, er, because weakness is really needing people to like you, sorry, what was the question, did I answer the question or is there a bit more to it.

P: Yes, I think that answers it

Rob’:  This is quite difficult because it’s, it’s really what we are looking is what are the tectonic plates that are going to move the relationship, because how all this neurology stuff is what as it moves, is what is going to cause a crack in the relationship that creates the relationship to break, I know it sounds quite abstract and vague but does it make sense how that would impact a relationship?

P: Can you say that again please Rob

Rob: ok, so, the neurology you have, what’s in your operating system, your beliefs, your assumptions, your expectations, as, they are their when you meet someone, so that, like the 2 of you have this and these are like the tectonic plates underneath your world and as you go through life and there is like, you have babies and there is more challenges, you have financial problems,  as you have health problems ,as your parents get older and you then have to deal with them. All of these are extra stresses and what they do is they change the landscape of the relationship. And so, then the tectonic plates change of how you relate to each other like, underneath the surface, and this and it’s these moving that is what creates the cracks that breaks relationships.

P: I can explain to Betty another way, this is trusting that you are lovable the way you are. You don’t need to hide about yourself. You don’t need to fear being judged by others about who you are, we have all made mistakes and that show we were all products of both nature and nurture, neither of which we had control over. So, it wasn’t our fault. It was our nurture that’s mostly prompted us to make those mistakes, so we should forgive ourselves and after we forgive ourselves, we love ourselves so we don’t fear being judged and no fear of sharing ourselves with other people.

P: Thanks 

Rob: Ok, so there another part the think free and I just want to share this. This is really about; we have a blueprint of kind of who we are. Which is like genetics it’s like Fayu said, it’s our cultural experiences, it’s our parents or experience, all the things that we’ve seen and experienced in life and then there is like, Yeah, like the wider cultural understanding of what we are, like the blueprint is what we think would think would make us happy, is like the bounds of what we would become of, it’s what’s true to who we are, but we learn, So, most of us have learned from school, from parents, from experience, Like don’t do this, don’t do that, that’s wrong and so, what this does is it takes us off the course to where we would be originally and we  become distorted by it, so, for example, if we if you look at the biggest fear that we have is public speaking, and it’s because public speaking is exposing who you are, because most of us have this social mask.  If you look at Facebook and Instagram there, they’ve accentuated this social mask that we even have filters, so that we look our best and people put their best , like perfect family, perfect couple on Facebook and Instagram which is different from the reality and so what they’re doing is they’re trying to portray an image that’s different than reality. So that people think that they’re better than they are and the fear driving public speaking is that once you get up and you start talking, People are going to realise you’re not as good as the mask of what you say. Like of what you or how you want to be in your head. Like I would love to be really smooth and slick in my delivery but I’m not and so there’s a fear of public speaking because it exposes who you are, So, there is that. So, one, so one level is dogma, so this is like all the stuff that we get the religious ideas or ideas from a culture, from our school, from everything we are taught, so even if we look at, we all go to school, we all learn a curriculum. But the curriculum is different from every country to every country and if you look at our curriculum here in England, our curriculum has like Vikings as thugs, the Romans as the invading things, and it’s got, there’s always a rivalry between countries that are next to each other, so like there’s a rivalry, England and Scotland, England and Ireland, England, Wales and it’s because there’s so much tension between invasion and things like that. and so, the story that we have, so like Christopher Columbus is this hero who discovered America, but Christopher Columbus was the man that was directly or indirectly responsible for like 35 million deaths, erm, Russia, in the time of Starling, thought that Starling was this huge great hero. Nazi Germany thought that Hitler was, I mean, they were even taught that he was the God, erm, so, everything we learn is shaped by the person who wrote the narrative and when you come from a patriarchy, it’s men that have written narrative, when you come from religion, it’s whoever’s been like. It’s the type of religion has set the narrative. When you come from, like, cultural like, Social it’s going to be the government and the political parties, so all of that taints, so we become filtered through that and sometimes we become distorted. So, where we become unhappy is where that doesn’t fit with what’s natural and like our natural blueprint, So, then the other thing is sometimes it’s what we don’t know and the biggest problem of our problems is usually not what we don’t know but what we know that isn’t true, so, it’s the assumptions that we are working on that we think are certainty which were actually not true. OK, so, so there’s ignorance, there is dogma, but there’s also a motion. So, if you’re. Blinded by lust and you see this person who is just amazing, you, there’s like the Halo effect where you assume they are more intelligent, they’re more confident, they’re more, all of these things are better because of one thing and so there’s a lot of people who are dating, they have idealised, idealisation and they put someone on a pedestal that they’re wonderful, Three/Five years later, their like, Who’s this person? You know, they can’t do this, they can’t do that, but they were so blinded that they, that’s what, what drove them into the relationship so, there are all kinds of things like what we were afraid of, we look for excuses. We talked about lottery, myth and the myth of the one, and that is driven by a wish that would be easy. So, so like if you look at like the pharmaceutical industry is driven by the hope of medicine, by the hope that one pill so everyone hopes there is going to be one pill that will cure cancer and heart disease and all of these things when really their lifestyle diseases and that can be caused by an accumulation of factors, but we don’t want to make those changes so the easy example is what we want to be, we want to lose weight but we don’t want to not eat what we like and that’s why there’s a thousand different diets, because some of them allow us different, different things to eat, so we get swayed off course by dogma, by what we know not to be true or not knowing what’s true, by our emotions, So what happens for most people typically who go through the whole  Cultural, schooling and whatever is this run, ongoing running programme of not being enough and so most people feel like, who am I to, to know this? Who am I to say that? Who am I to stand out? So, there’s this ongoing sense of inadequacy. I’ve forgotten where I was going, but there’s, we get, so, it’s basically like because of dogma, because of emotion and whatever we don’t live to our blueprint. Yeah. So that so think free is about, like, everything that you’ve been told in dogma is because someone else, because that serves someone else, so for example, school, the idea of school is about creating productive citizens, and it comes from like, allegedly, comes from the idea that if you sit in rows, it was really the train feral kids who are used to working on the farm to be good factory workers who could sit and produce widgets. So, school generally doesn’t create, teach creativity and independent thinking, it teaches follow the herd, be a good worker. Erm, so, thinking free is examining is it really true or is it fitting someone else’s story. So, think free. So that’s the think free bit, but the second part is be strong and most people, if you look at most peoples, like the most common emotional problems, stress and things like that is because they’re not, they are telling a story that doesn’t make them strong. If you tell a story like this happens to me because I’m not good enough at this, I’m not, I’m lacking this, I’m low on self-esteem, all of these things are because you’re telling a story that doesn’t make you strong and when we blame and complain, we don’t, first of all, we don’t make ourselves strong, but we also villainize other people and so. if a relationship doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean, typically it’s demonize the ex, it’s because he was shit and she wanted this and whatever, but people are people, they’re all running that programme, none of us are perfect, all of us are flawed, and it’s understanding what the flaws are and what the flaws you can cope with, erm, but blaming them, complaining never works because it doesn’t make us stronger and it doesn’t make them stronger, so it’s more important, like if we can think free, and really go to the fine strokes rather than the broad strokes, if we can understand someone else, we can make them strong too because a lot of the reason why people don’t want to be vulnerable, the why people don’t want to go into the emotional stuff, it is because it feels bad, because most relationships, when we look at most relationships don’t work. They don’t work because they come from controller manipulation. When people feel controlled and manipulated, they’re not go open up. And so, if we create a relationship that’s based on freedom, if we create a relationship based on the invitation to grow, then more people will feel, will take that invitation and be ready to grow, some people would say that men don’t open up, well, men don’t up because there’s already this programme that they’ re running that, I should be better, I should be better and  if my if my partner is not happy then it’s because I’m not doing enough then, they’re already starting from a place of judgement and blame and the complaints from someone else just make them feel worse, and so they’re not going to open up. So, we need to think free be strong and make others strong.

P: Is that where the awareness comes in then Rob, you know that list you said awareness, emotional capacity and skill.  Does the awareness mean be aware of the story you’re telling. 

Rob: Yes, yes. So, clarity comes with your, like clarity is the awareness and so most people look from, if you’re looking on the surface, they did this, they’re a shit, So, it’s like what, there is a difference between who someone is and the behaviour that they do and we have to understand what, So, this is where having awareness of what drives the behaviour and if we understand what drives the behaviour and we have a choice to change it. If we, if we judge the behaviour and we shut down the awareness and we shut down the ability to, to grow from it. 

P: Yes, yes, yes, thank you.

Rob: So, it’s really about start with clarity, build capacity and then like the competence, so the emotional capacity is once someone feels safe, when someone feels confident, when someone feels strong. It’s much easier and It’s not like, it’s not like doing a PhD, it’s just, doing it and feeling awkward. It’s a bit like learning to drive a car, it’s like it’s going to be difficult and awkward and clunky to start with but eventually it becomes easier and so it’s really, anxiety is the fear of what might happen., but once we actually do something, we overcome anxiety. So, we stay stuck in anxiety if we don’t do the thing because it’s like anxieties like this thing, it’s like this burning flame, and you will you get nearer and it feels hot and so you keep coming back and then the fire grows until there’s more and more things that you’re going to be anxious about whereas actually if you go to the anxiety you realise that nothing really bad happens because anxiety has to go once you moved into it, Because anxiety is that future fear of what might happen and once it’s happened, it can’t have that impact on you anymore.

P: The best way to come, to conquer fears by confronting it.

Rob:  Yeah, I and all fear starts with us, all fights start with us, so it’s our inner conflict, so, when, when there is emotional, like when there’s a row, often it’s because this thing has been bugging you and it’s bugging you, it stirs up more and more resentment, and it has more emotional charge. If you’re just really honest all the time. OK, that this is bothering me because of this, there is less emotional charge to it, and so what usually happens is things build up, build up, build up and then when we have that like, our emotional tolerance level was raised, we say it, but we say with his spear of venom because of that charge and so then, like, no one reacts to being accused and attacked well, okay, so that is think free, be strong and then the last part is really about share joy, which means, lots of people get into relationships to be fixed or to fix,  Come on, the only place a relationship has strength and strong foundations are from joy and we want others to make us, often, people want to be in a relationship for someone else to make them happy but it’s down to us, we have to heal our hurts and like we’ve talked, there are relational wounds which need someone else there, but in terms of, So, one of the things men will often say about vulnerability is, they will say, oh, I tried that, I tried that and people just don’t have any respect but there’s a difference between processing something and sharing it where it makes sense to someone and the other thing what a lot of men will typically do, they won’t understand is they’ll just go, they just spit out a stream of consciousness because they haven’t processed it and because they haven’t processed it they get t all these emotions go and this way like, you know, like women can say man up and all these kind of things and it’s because like,  first of all we ,we are the only one responsible for ourselves , our partners not responsible for us,  So we have to heal,  this is this is the think free, be strong. You start from a place of strength and then when you’re from that place of strength you share your joy. So, we have to be happy individually, if we are not happy in ourselves, if we can’t heal our own, I’m not talking about relational wins, but our own, like if you’re in a row and someone hurts you and you know, normally that’s just retaliating the same level so you just hurt each other. So sometimes it’s about you have responsibilities to go away and fix your, how you feel and come back when you’re stronger, So the ability to self-soothes, the ability to regulate your own emotions is important so that you share from a strength of, no one wants to be the relationship with someone they have to pull up, you want to be in a relationship, in a relationship with someone who’s equally strong so that you share the good times.  

OK, So, that was Day 4 

As We have, we will just go round, anyone who’s got any insights, perspectives or thoughts they would like to share

P: When you say self soothe Rob, how do we learn to do that, Is it just practising?

Rob: So, something happens and it bothers me, so, it’s understanding, Yeah, it’s, its practicing, it’s finding what works for you.  So, if something bothers you, it might be that a run works for you, it might be that understanding it works for you, it be might be, this is where capacity is, it’s finding the ability to resolved the pain. So, a lot of capacity is proactive, as in, think about the big six, six as in sleep, if you don’t get enough sleep, you’re operating on less capacity and therefore we are going to react more negatively. 

If you under a lot of stress, if you have a poor diet, if you have a lot of sugar, that creates the chemistry for a lot of anxiety. If you’re not in shape, so then in fitness there is like stamina, strength, stamina, strength and suppleness, so if you like, if you sit a lot and you never done any kind of stretching or yoga or anything like that, you can get aches and pains and bad backs and things like that which impacts your mood. So, there is all these things of being strong physically and emotionally that make you, and just generally feeling good about yourself which make you better able to handle emotions and then it’s also whether it’s mindfulness or meditation. Or, and the big one is having some kind of sense of meaning. So, whether you are religious, whether you have some kind of spiritual view or you just have some view of what your life is about and what that has that gives you some sense of why things are important, puts things in context, so yeah, it’s just being able to look after yourself emotionally. Keep yourself above the line.

 P: Okay thanks 

Rob: Okay. Well, thank you everyone, so tomorrow we have a last one, which is basically, so just to summarise, we had day one which was the game of relationships, which means connection is greater than a relationship, more important than a relationship, nurture the relationship, pilot the plane don’t drive the car. 

Then day two was deliciously nutritious relationships, which means relationships that are about, which means relationships are, you are seen, safe, satisfied and supported. With showing up with vulnerability, integrity, presence and kindness and your partner did the same and also responding to each other, responding to vulnerability, to presence, kindness and integrity in a way that creates a positive atmosphere so that the relationship becomes one of freedom rather than control. 

Yesterday we talked about the fairy-tale framework where the fairy-tale framework is written into our neurology which creates expectations and assumptions that mean that relationship, we have no way of dealing with problems in the relationship, which means that most people don’t know how to fix a relationship, and so generally don’t try they like think the relationships over when it really could have had more legs. We talked about the four relationship truths, of relationships are a struggle and it’s about our narratives that determine, that create our relationship problems and that, and changing the narrative means that we can change the nature of the relationship and tonight we talked about thinking free, free of dogma, free of emotions and free of things that we’ve miss learnt, of ignorance and we talked about being strong, telling the story that makes us strong and also making others strong and sharing from a place of joy. 

So tomorrow I’m going to talk about, there is 7 basic problems in the relationship journey and seven basic skills and so we’re going to talk about what those seven are tomorrow, okay, thank you everyone. Have a good evening

Last 4.29 mins is chattering about the screen share poster 

P:  Before you go, I just wanted to share something. I’m working on your chart. I don’t know if you can see it, . No. Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t. But your chart, satisfied, supported. Seen safe one. I wanted to check with you. If you’re changing anything in it. I’m trying to create a poster of it. So if you wanted to change anything on it before I do it and then I’ll adjust it