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Joe Davis – Announcer [00:01:08]:

The following content is not suitable for children.

George Faller [00:01:11]:

How we make sense of things so important let’s help people make more accurate meaning out of what the hell is going on in these relationships.

Laurie Watson [00:01:22]:

Okay, let’s do it. Welcome to Foreplay Sex Therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:01:30]:

And I’m George Faller, your couple’s therapist.

Laurie Watson [00:01:33]:

We are here to talk about sex.

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:01:35]:

Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Laurie Watson [00:01:43]:

And we have a little bit of fun doing it. Right?

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:01:45]:

G listen and let’s change some relationships.

Laurie Watson [00:01:48]:

We’re doing a therapist training January 19 and 20th online, so please find us on foreplaysextherapy.com. If you want to sign up. We would love to have therapists join us so you can learn more about the sexual attachment and emotional cycles.

George Faller [00:02:02]:

Our therapists listen, and this is a game changer. Again, I wish I would have had this training 20 years ago when I was a new therapist, instead of spending decades not talking about the sexual cycle. Just getting a little bit of help just gives you the confidence you need to lean into this rich area where, I mean, damn, this is where couples need so much help and no one’s there to help them.

Laurie Watson [00:02:23]:

Yeah, we need sex and emotional closeness to be secure and safe. We just want to help you help couples learn how to do that. Okay, when I’m thinking about couples in conflict, George. They say something to themselves. They say something about what is happening, and they try to make sense of it. They try to make meaning out of what their partner is doing, what the behavior their partner is, what they’re seeing in their partner’s behavior. And many times, what we say about that is something that kind of escalates our emotions further. Like, for instance, we say to ourselves, well, my partner does this just because they’re selfish or they’re withholding or they’re angry, and I can’t make them happy no matter what I do anyway.

Laurie Watson [00:03:12]:

And when we assign that meaning either to the relationship or to our partner, many times we’re assigning a meaning that is not actually accurate and further makes us upset.

George Faller [00:03:28]:

All right, so let’s break that down again. I like the focus. It happens quick, right? When we’re threatened, our brain has to make sense of this threat quickly. There’s not a lot of right. We immediately say, why is this person hurting me? They must not care or they must want to hurt me. So we have this quick attribution that we make, and oftentimes what Lori’s saying is accurate. Not only does it see our partner in a very negative light with a negative intent, it then, because we see it that way in the threat, it feels more stressful for us as we start to say, damn, how I in a relationship with somebody who can treat me this way? So that meaning making can really turn into a black hole pretty quickly.

Laurie Watson [00:04:13]:

It can. And it’s often a meaning making, either about the other person’s, our partner’s motives or who they are, their character. Or sometimes we make up meaning about ourselves that isn’t accurate. I was talking to someone recently who said, I’m just not normal. And I was like, you’re just not normal. Because every time they went to a party or they were with their family, it was so disrupted, and they felt shy and anxious. And so the meaning that they made up about it is everybody out there is looking at me thinking, I’m not normal. And when they made up the meaning about that, of course they felt shyer.

Laurie Watson [00:04:53]:

They felt more awkward. Things became more difficult. And I said, well, I wonder how you can make sense of this, because I actually see you as normal. So how do you make sense of my experience of you compared to your own internal experience? So sometimes we put ourselves down, we feel bad about ourselves, or we see the other person as deliberately hurtful, or maybe how do we get out of that? Because.

George Faller [00:05:27]:

Hold on. Because, again, I want to make sure we’re clear on the problem before we get out of it. Right. So what I hear you saying, and I think it’s really important. It’s a double meaning miss. Right. It’s like, yes, you miss kind of interpreting your partner’s behavior. Right.

George Faller [00:05:45]:

Your partner sucks. Your partner is doing something bad. You see them in a negative light, and it not only ends there, but the other part of it is you see yourself then in a negative light. Why am I with this person? What’s wrong with me? I must be stupid or I must be unlovable. It’s two nasty spots of meaning. That’s not great, right?

Laurie Watson [00:06:08]:

How do you like that?

George Faller [00:06:10]:

A double meaning miss?

Laurie Watson [00:06:13]:

I like the alliteration of it. Yeah, double meaning miss. So most of the time, those meanings that we make up are inaccurate. It really doesn’t reflect who we genuinely are, the whole self, and it often doesn’t reflect who our partner is. Are there times that our partner is mean and that that meaning is correct? Sure. My husband and I, sometimes when we have caught ourselves being deliberately pokey at the other one, we’ll say the mean genie came out, and we own up to the part of us that was deliberately sarcastic or mean or something. Sometimes it’s accurate, but most of the time, our partner also has a reason for acting that way or mean. But what they had felt inside was a bad feeling, and they kind of let it out on us.

Laurie Watson [00:07:09]:

So there’s always a way to get to a deeper meaning that probably is more benign.

George Faller [00:07:16]:

So I think the most helpful way is trying to start connecting first to the impact, to the ouch that happens, which is why people then go to these meetings that are kind of inaccurate.

Laurie Watson [00:07:28]:

Yeah, exactly.

George Faller [00:07:29]:

And any good therapist is trying to reframe meaning, which we’ll talk about in a little bit. But how do we connect with. There is an ouch, right? When your partner walks away and you have something really important to say, it makes sense why your brain says, ouch. This person doesn’t care. I mean, I need to talk about this, and they’re walking away from me. They must not care. The impact of the hurt has to make sense of the disconnection. Right.

George Faller [00:07:56]:

So how do we connect with that first? People do have good reasons why they’re hurt.

Laurie Watson [00:08:00]:

Sure they do. And so when we get hurt, like you said, we’re trying to make sense of that. And sometimes our brain, which is kind of primitive in an escalated moment, says, I’m hurt, therefore you hurt me, therefore, you must be mean, you must be bad. I can’t trust you. So, I mean, that makes sense to do it. But the problem with doing that is it further adds to our own internal escalation if we’re making something up about somebody or if we’re making something up about ourselves. I’m not normal. I’m not a good person.

Laurie Watson [00:08:38]:

I’m not desirable. I’m not attractive. Whatever it is, I’m going to feel worse and I’m going to be more likely to be reactive to protect myself with my own protection strategies.

George Faller [00:08:51]:

Yeah, we all fill in the blanks. That’s what our brain is supposed to do, right? And we fill in the blanks. So we’re always differentiating between impact and intent, right. So there is an impact that hurts. And then our brain has to attribute what’s the intent of that? Why would that person do that? And that’s where the inaccuracy kicks in. The person who’s going away is probably going away because they don’t feel safe and they’re trying to find safety and walking away. But our brains can’t see that. We just see them walking away.

George Faller [00:09:24]:

So our brain says they must not care. You see the big miss there in meaning, I think you don’t care because you’re walking away, but you are actually walking away to feel safe. It has nothing to do with caring at all, right? And that’s where the big miss starts to happen.

Laurie Watson [00:09:39]:

Or if I’m haranguing my partner, criticizing, and they seem to be shutting down, I might get bigger and angrier because what I really want is to reach them and to get across a point to them or something. But of course they’re going to attribute to me that person’s just angry and can’t be made happy. So I want nothing to do with them.

George Faller [00:10:06]:

You’re not safe. Your anger makes you not safe. And I think you’re being randomly angry when your anger is really about getting my attention, it’s really about getting me to engage. But my brain can’t see that because I’ve made an intent, a meaning out of your behavior. That’s a little bit exactly.

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Laurie Watson [00:11:26]:

Yeah, okay.

George Faller [00:11:30]:

Trying to get couples to see the opportunity to reframe how they see things. And even if you can’t do it in a moment because it happens so fast, this is the work that you can do afterwards.

Laurie Watson [00:11:42]:

Yes.

George Faller [00:11:42]:

Like, I think my partner doesn’t care or I think my partner is just randomly mean. Is that accurate? Or is there something in your meaning that you’re missing? We’re really trying to expand people’s meaning. We could start with that. I get why you feel that way. But what do you might be missing when partners are curious about what they might be missing? Might there be more intent here that they’re not seeing? That’s usually a nice step towards seeing a bigger picture.

Laurie Watson [00:12:10]:

Exactly. So when we begin to get curious and just imagine for 1 second that our partner is not doing something to be mean or to be critical or to, it basically hits a pause button and our brain starts to think again and we start to cool down, we come closer to yellow brain or green brain because we de escalate just a little bit when we begin to wonder about the truth that we’re telling ourselves, that might not be the truth of what is actually happening. It’s a pause button.

George Faller [00:12:45]:

Beautiful. Yeah, it’s a pause button. It’s a pause button that actually starts to make the room for new options. Right. Being able to see our partner’s behavior differently allows us to have more flexibility.

Laurie Watson [00:12:58]:

Right. Because when we get that escalation, we want to do something about it. We want to move away or we want to push forward. And that’s natural, right. But sometimes we act impulsively. We do whatever it feels like is natural for us to do. And as we know, and we’ve said over and over again, sometimes our survival mechanism, most of the time our survival mechanism is going to trigger our partner who kind of has the opposite survival mechanism.

George Faller [00:13:25]:

Yeah, I love that you’re being intentional about this. I mean, so often meaning follows the action tendency. We need to make sense. It happens so quick. So if I’m thirsty and I see water, my body goes towards the water. It’s just what it does, right? There’s not a lot of choice so we protect ourselves so quickly. Our brain has to make sense of that pretty quickly.

Laurie Watson [00:13:46]:

Exactly.

George Faller [00:13:46]:

And when it makes sense, a lot of times we develop these faulty alarm systems that are too sensitive to seeing things in an inaccurate way. So trying to get people to start even challenging their own attributions right to how they’re making sense of things, I think that is the critical first step to doing it differently. So let’s come back and give an example of what that might look like.

Laurie Watson [00:14:12]:

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Laurie Watson [00:14:47]:

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Laurie Watson [00:15:17]:

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Laurie Watson [00:18:04]:

Go to addie.com and use the code foreplay for a $10 telemedicine appointment to find out if Addie is right for you. So, George, this concept of meaning making that when we’re in an escalated state, when we’re upset with our partner, most of us right, we make up something that explains the upset. Many times we see our partner as bad, and sometimes we see ourselves as not good enough or too much or something. And when we say that to ourselves, in our brain, it further escalates our body. So we get angrier, we feel more upset, and we’re likely to do the thing that triggers our partner. So what we can do instead, perhaps, is first of all, when we’re in a fight, we’re in a conflict. Our body literally doesn’t feel good. All of us feel something, like our heart races or our blood pressure goes up, or we start to feel achy or empty, or something happens in our body and it’s such a bad feeling that we want to get rid of it.

Laurie Watson [00:19:20]:

But feeling states only last a second. So if we can stay with it for just 1 second and start to question this part that says, okay, am I adding to the fray by telling myself something that’s not actually true? Yeah, my partner never wants sex, but it turns out that they actually did. We had enjoyable sex last weekend. It’s been too long for me. So maybe the more accurate thing to tell myself is my partner just rejected me. They’re maybe not in the mood. It isn’t that they never want sex and that they’re not a good sexual partner. It’s just that right now we’re in a different rhythm, we have different needs.

Laurie Watson [00:20:06]:

Right now, maybe they’re just too tired so I don’t have to feel unattractive or undesirable. And maybe it’s just the moment. Telling myself a message like that, what do you think that’s going to do to my body?

George Faller [00:20:22]:

Start calming it down.

Laurie Watson [00:20:23]:

It’s going to start calming it down. Right. I’m hitting the pause button by changing the internal message that I say, they’re not bad, it’s just bad timing. I’m not unattractive, I’m not enough. Maybe it’s just between us, this is not the right night. I mean, so many people, I think, have the tendency to go global in a conflict. You never, you always. Even if we are trained not to say those words, sometimes on the inside we’re saying them.

Laurie Watson [00:20:56]:

And it’s another way that we make meaning out of something. Because as humans, we look for patterns to make sense of the world. And so if I can say, well, this is an unreliable person, they’re never going to want sex with me. Then somehow or another I’m going to be able to develop an action plan based on my worst fears.

George Faller [00:21:14]:

Basically, yeah, I talked about this some in my book, Sacred Stress and Kelly McGonagall. That’s the huge way of reframing stress. If you can see the opportunity, we’re inviting our listeners to challenge their meaning, because two beautiful things happen. If you can challenge it, you’re likely to see your partner’s behavior differently, which will protect your partner and will protect the relationship, but equally as good, it also protects you from what’s going to happen with those negative meanings. Right. Because now you got to make sense of why you’re in it and what’s wrong with you to be in it. So that double miss that happens, being able to challenge your own meaning and saying, hey, is this accurate? Is this serving me well? Or is there more happening here that I might be missing? That openness to explore will start to calm the body down. So let’s give an example of what that might look like.

George Faller [00:22:08]:

Okay, who do you want to be?

Laurie Watson [00:22:10]:

I want to be the sexual pursuer.

George Faller [00:22:13]:

All right.

Laurie Watson [00:22:14]:

Okay.

George Faller [00:22:14]:

So I’m the sexual withdrawal going to.

Laurie Watson [00:22:16]:

Just turn me down, and I’m going to go through what the process that I go through in my head and body for the listeners just to see what it feels like.

George Faller [00:22:28]:

Right. And you’re going to try to challenge some of that, and then we’re going to switch it, and I’m going to be the sexual withdrawal and challenge some of my attributions about.

Laurie Watson [00:22:36]:

I love that. Okay, so, Han, it’s cold out. I’m kind of thinking of fire tonight. I was wondering if we could, I don’t know, grab a glass of wine and maybe make that love nest in front of the fire and take some time with each other. What do you think?

George Faller [00:22:57]:

No, it sounds good, but I got a lot to do tonight. I think maybe in the weekend would be better because I just really got to bang out some emails here.

Laurie Watson [00:23:05]:

Okay. So I want to go through what that rejection feels like and what I tell myself. So he said it softly. He gave an explanation for where he was at that was different than where I was at in this moment. But my body got hit in the gut. It was like, sort of upper abdomen. This arrow goes in, and it’s like, ooh, I just risked. And I made it as soft and fun and romantic as I could, and it’s like he didn’t quite catch the spirit of it.

Laurie Watson [00:23:41]:

And so what I say is, work takes priority over me. That’s the meaning I make up. Work always takes priority in the meaning with me. And you can even hear my language. I unconsciously say, work always takes priority over me. And then it’s like he doesn’t get how hard it is for me to initiate. He doesn’t care about how hard that is for me to have set time aside and do this. And now I start to feel like, wow, I think most men would be like, hey, let’s do it.

Laurie Watson [00:24:16]:

And so maybe I’m not very attractive. Maybe I shouldn’t even be with this guy, right? Because I think most men would take me up on that. And so I’m starting to escalate in my brain. This relationship isn’t that good for me. My stomach is hurting. I’m making up all kinds of things. Even though it was a soft rejection, you globalize.

George Faller [00:24:40]:

It goes from the rejection in the moment to maybe this relationship doesn’t work, right?

Laurie Watson [00:24:46]:

It just escalates inside me. Even though I’m maybe disciplined enough not to say those things on the inside, I have to manage all that. And what we’re suggesting is enlarging the alternative. Like, what are the actual alternatives here? Instead of the meaning that I’m making up about it. So if you were as a withdrawal, and maybe I say back to you, it’s like, forget it. I can’t believe that work takes so much priority over us. It seems like it’s always important. And for heaven’s sakes, I’m only asking for like a half an hour and you want to go work? Okay, buddy, you just go work.

Laurie Watson [00:25:30]:

That can be your mistress. So what if I come back with a real push?

George Faller [00:25:36]:

Yeah. I mean, that’s immediate same threat response. That’s like, uhoh, I’m in trouble. She’s upset with me again. So my brain immediately says she’s angry, she’s upset. I’ve let her down again. We’re back to this sex problem where she’s not happy with me. I just must not satisfy her.

George Faller [00:25:59]:

So I vacillate between, you’re just being unfair and not understanding and kind of bullying of me, or I am really inadequate. There must be something wrong with me because why can’t I find that half hour? Why are the emails so important? Maybe there’s something true. I feel myself massively confused and making sense of this. This is a reoccurring theme that I let you down sexually. And if I really let that go, if I can’t compartmentalize that, then that must mean I must not be a real man.

Laurie Watson [00:26:37]:

And it goes all the way. That’s ultimately all the way down, right? I’m not a real man.

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Laurie Watson [00:27:43]:

Yeah, I love it. And I heard the bullying word, but I also heard it. I just heard in between the lines another b word. Just for the record. I’m like, he’s about to lose it here. I think that when you go to, I’m not a real man. I can, I can imagine a man doing that. That’s so easy.

Laurie Watson [00:28:03]:

Especially because I think men find proof of their masculinity primarily in their prowess, certainly in their ability to earn money, but even deeper in their sexual prowess. So when they’re criticized, it’s like, I’m not a real man. I think that’s really common. And then when you say that, of course it hits you, vacillating between, I’m not enough, she’s too much, she’s unsatiable.

George Faller [00:28:35]:

How could we make new meaning out of it? I mean, both of us, that’s what we’re trying to get you to do, challenge those quick assumptions. So on my end, I could be, wait a second, is this her randomly just trying to criticize me, or is it actually her way of fighting for this relationship that I can fall off my radar? I can get too caught up in work. There’s something so healthy about this part of you that wants to shake me and say, hey, can we pay attention to this more? Because I could sleepwalk through this week, and before you know it, it’s next week and I don’t realize it. And sometimes my partner isn’t being randomly mean, but is actually fighting for something that’s really important that I often don’t recognize.

Laurie Watson [00:29:21]:

Yeah.

George Faller [00:29:22]:

So I can even feel, as I make space for that, my body starts to calm down. I don’t see you as a bitch. I start to see you as somebody who’s fighting for us, which is my body responds very differently to that reframe.

Laurie Watson [00:29:35]:

And we could even enlarge the alternative. Maybe they are upset because this really is a pattern that I’m not seeing in myself. Maybe there is a long standing pattern that I avoid something. Maybe I only avoid when she initiates. Or it feels like pressure and I’m unaware of that. So maybe there’s a truth in what they’re saying to me. And I think I could potentially sort of make sense of it. It’s like one I might tell myself I’m an attractive woman.

Laurie Watson [00:30:09]:

It’s not about me. There’s something going on in him right now. And I know he did tell me there was that big presentation coming up at work or something that he’s doing. And so I had kind of forgotten about that. That was pressing on him. And I think that’s what he’s trying to tell me, is that right now is not the time. But he has set aside a times suggesting the weekend. So I start to modulate my emotions with a little bit of making sense of it.

George Faller [00:30:44]:

Yeah, sometimes it is timing. To remind yourself there are plenty of times I am into it and want it, and maybe even I initiate. But what if the timing is wrong? Can you tap into something in you that knows when the timing is wrong? This isn’t me trying to reject you. This is me just not able to be present. And I want to be present. Making space for that possibility does what to you?

Laurie Watson [00:31:11]:

Yeah. I mean, first of all, the relationship is not in jeopardy. This is a tiny miss, right? I’m no longer questioning the strength of the bond and the love in the relationship. Nice. I’m beginning to wonder about that. I’m also maybe more accurately, and I think you’ve suggested this in what you just said, is. I’m beginning to say it’s not that I’m unattractive or wrong, but maybe I was slightly misattuned. I had forgotten about the big presentation.

Laurie Watson [00:31:44]:

And so in my moment of desire, I let that go. I forgot about all that was on his plate. So that was kind of a misattunement. And now I know that when I’m misatuned, and he’s already told me what’s going on in his life, he probably feels pressured. So maybe in the repair I could say to him, I do appreciate that this is not a good time. Just as you’re talking, I remember you told me about the presentation. That’s due on Friday, and I had forgotten that. And I know that when I ask for sex at a time that it’s not good for you, then you feel pressured and you go down the drain.

Laurie Watson [00:32:19]:

And I just appreciate you suggesting an alternate time. And is there anything I can do to help you right now? I’ll make you a cup of tea or something to eat while you’re working so that I can help kind of take care of you right now while you’re busy so I can shift the whole thing with better attunement.

George Faller [00:32:40]:

I love it. Again, that’s just making space to see different meaning that is actually more accurate. And you’re planting the seeds that we better have sex this Saturday. This is only going to work. Meaning reframing the meaning if it leads to the behavior that both of us need to feel safer. Right. You can’t use this all the time and not get the behavior. But giving yourself the opportunity, that’s your homework assignment.

George Faller [00:33:08]:

Feel what it’s like to see your partner a little bit differently. Maybe these quick assumptions that you make are not so accurate.

Laurie Watson [00:33:14]:

So when I reframe meaning and when I think about it, first of all, I allow myself to know my emotions about what’s happening inside me, I also kind of notice how I might be contributing to the problem. I imagine that there’s actually a motive in my partner who it could be benign or it could even be good. And I find an alternate explanation for what’s happening between us. I think if we can hit that pause button, just remembering the words that I say to myself about my partner, about myself, might be contributing to my upset. So can I change that? Because we can actually more rapidly change our state of mind than we can change our partner.

George Faller [00:34:01]:

Sounds good. Thanks for listening.

Laurie Watson [00:34:04]:

Keep it hot. Okay, so tell us about your cutting edge training that you’re doing on success and vulnerability, Laurie.

George Faller [00:34:12]:

We just keep pushing it. Coming up with a new module on the playbook of a pursuer, playbook of a witcher. Really practical, moment by moment moves of what a therapist can use. We’re so focused on what’s happening in session enough. There’s talk about theories and these global things I think most therapists are looking for. What do I do in this moment? Give me a tool, George. So that’s what we’re trying to do.

Laurie Watson [00:34:37]:

That’s awesome. I am so glad you guys are doing this work. I think it helps us be organized to see you do it. You do demos, you do explanations, teaching. It really is interactive, and I think that so many trainings that we sit through don’t give us an opportunity for that. So what you’re doing is really important.

George Faller [00:34:56]:

No, we try to emphasize to teach it, show it, do it model of learning. You need to have some ideas, so we try to teach those, and then we try to show what it looks like implementing those ideas. But most importantly, you now got to practice it. That’s how they become yours. And that’s what we want our listeners and watchers to do, is become their own moves.

Laurie Watson [00:35:15]:

Find George and his [email protected] call in.

Joe Davis – Announcer [00:35:20]:

Your questions to the foreplay question voicemail, dial eight three my foreplay. That’s eight three three my the number four play, and we’ll use the questions for our mailbag episodes. All content is for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered as a substitute for therapy by a licensed clinician or as medical advice from a doctor. This podcast is copyrighted by Foreplay media.

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