You are currently viewing Episode 446: How to Stop Pointing the Finger

Episode 446: How to Stop Pointing the Finger

Join Dr. Laurie Watson and George Faller in this compelling episode as they explore the critical dynamics of relationships and how to navigate emotional cycles that often lead to conflict. In “How to Stop Pointing the Finger,” our hosts delve into practical strategies for creating space in relationships to foster calm, reasonable conversations that enhance intimacy and connection. emphasizing the importance of identifying relational cycles and taking responsibility within these patterns. They introduce listeners to “demon dialogue homework,” a powerful tool designed to help partners recognize and name their moves in confrontational cycles.

Through insightful discussions and real-life examples, they share their expertise on relational dynamics such as withdrawal and pursuit, which can perpetuate negative cycles. 

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Show Notes

Creating Calm Conversations-

  • Importance of creating space in relationships for calm, reasonable conversations to foster greater intimacy and connection.
  • Practical strategies for avoiding heated arguments and instead focusing on constructive dialogue.

Identifying and Changing Relational Cycles-

  • Recognizing typical relational cycles, such as withdrawal and pursuit, that perpetuate negative dynamics.
  • The “demon dialogue homework” to help partners identify and name their recurring moves in confrontational cycles..

Naming Negative Cycles-

  • Using metaphors like “demon” or “monster” to describe negative forces affecting relationships.
  • Strategy to encourage couples to externalize issues and recognize their shared dynamics.

Transcript

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Disclaimer [00:01:14]:
The following content is not suitable for children.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:01:17]:
Okay, school of love. We are going to be talking today about how to think about your cycle, emotionally organize you, and then help you find kind of common ground with your partner.

George Faller [00:01:30]:
Nice. This is the whole key to what we do as therapists in EFT, right. We’re trying to get a couple to externalize the problem as the cycle they fall into to stop pointing a finger at each other. Both people think if the other person changes, they’d be better off, and they’re right. But what are they not saying? Is this interdependency, this cycle, this feedback loop that they fall into? And that’s really what we’re trying to name and externalize.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:01:57]:
Great. Let’s talk about it.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:02]:
Welcome to Foreplay sex therapy. I’m Dr. Laurie Watson, your sex therapist.

George Faller [00:02:06]:
And I’m George Faller, your couples therapist.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:09]:
We are here to talk about sex.

George Faller [00:02:11]:
Our mission is to help couples talk about sex in ways that incorporate their body, their mind, and their hearts.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:19]:
And we have a little bit of fun doing it, right G?

George Faller [00:02:20]:
Listen, and let’s change some relationships.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:02:24]:
Okay? And we just, again, we thank you so much for your support. Our patrons, who have been so faithful to us, to support us financially, that’s a way that helps George and I. There’s a lot of costs associated with this podcast, and anything you can do if you have means, that would be lovely. We also want to bring your attention to October. We are doing a couples retreat on October 4. The signups are available so you can get an early bird sign up right now, which is great. And we’re doing a training for therapists in January in Nashville. And George’s gonna wear a cowboy hat.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:00]:
And we’re gonna cowboy boots too. What’d you say?

George Faller [00:03:04]:
Here we go. I’m gonna wear my cowboy boots too.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:07]:
Oh, and his boots.

George Faller [00:03:08]:
So southern boy comes out when I come out in Nashville, y’all.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:13]:
Yee haw. It’s gonna be fun. So think about January 23 through the 25th. We’re doing three days for therapists and October 4 for couples. The October 4 one is on Zoom.

George Faller [00:03:25]:
Yes. And new listeners, please consider being patrons. That is a big way of helping support us. Laura and I often times will be like, this is so much hard work. Why are we doing this when you know it’s great? We get this feedback, and you can make a difference in changing lives, but it does come at a cost, so people that are willing to support us, it does make a big difference.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:03:50]:
Yep. Thanks so much. And thanks to all the people who do support us, also in our staff. Okay, George, let’s go back to organizing people in the emotional cycle so that they’re not pointing fingers and they’re thinking about it in a different way.

George Faller [00:04:06]:
So let’s just organize it with the steps. I know this is for therapists, but couples need to understand, you know, what we’ve been doing in the school of love. That first stage, which is trying to get couples to see cycles, has those four steps. The first step is building alliance, helping people feel safe and connected. The second step is to understand how do you protect yourself when threatened? Do you push? Do you fight? Do you get angry? Do you go away to feel safe? The third step is access. And what’s the vulnerability underneath the protection? You know, there’s always an ouch, which is why you protect yourself. So we need to know what the vulnerability is, the ouch, and what the protection is. And then this is that step forward.

George Faller [00:04:43]:
We zoom out. We’re saying, all right, couple, can you start to see this? The reason you get hurt and how you protect yourself. And putting both partners moves together to start showing them the stadium view of their dynamics. Right. When you’re in it, it’s like you play in tennis, the ball’s coming at you 100 miles an hour, and you just react. You don’t really have much time to think. There’s no choice. But if you could slow it down and you can get people to zoom out, then they could start saying, wait.

George Faller [00:05:09]:
Every time you say this, it lands that way, and then I do this, which lands that way on you, and you start to see this pattern develop, that becomes really clear. And that’s what we’re trying to start to blame is the problem. So let’s do an example of what that looks like. Lori.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:26]:
Okay, good. Let’s do that. So let’s pretend we’re a couple.

George Faller [00:05:31]:
Okay.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:32]:
And we’re going to be talking about our emotional cycle. And I’ll just take the. My true role, which is an emotional pursuer.

George Faller [00:05:39]:
Maybe you can take my true role as the withdrawer.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:05:44]:
Exactly. And let’s pretend that, you know, we have, what we’re trying to get to in marriage or in partnership at this point, is a way that we can talk rationally about things because we feel a little safer with each other. We’re identifying things rather than you’re my problem. It’s like what we do to each other is the problem. This. I trigger you, you trigger me. It’s just an endless cycle. And now I want to.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:14]:
I want to see it differently. So maybe I would start because I would be the pursuer. So I would definitely be bringing up this conversation. So you be Joey. I’ll be Janie.

George Faller [00:06:25]:
All right.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:06:27]:
So, Joey, I know that we’ve been working so hard at getting along, and I do appreciate, you know, many of the things that you do for our family that you do for me. I mean, you’re a huge support in my life. And I know you’ve been working on listening to me more. And I’ve really been trying to think about, like, what happens between us and what I do. And I know what you do, but I wanted to kind of fess up to you what I do because I’m sure it triggers you. And, you know, I tend to get really anxious. I tend to be kind of scrutinizing you about every little move, mostly because I want to be close and connected to you. But then when I do that check in, like, you know what’s wrong or it’s almost like I think it lands on you, like an accusation.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:07:27]:
And then, you know, I kind of see you pulling back, which it does make sense to me because if you’re feeling accused, of course you’re going to pull back. But then sometimes for me, like that pullback, it’s like the very opposite of what I wanted to have because I am anxious. And then I’ve just pushed you away and I’m like, dang it, I blew it again. I pushed him away. And all I really wanted was for you to talk to me or tell me what that look on your face was or why you seem distant or what’s going on in your head, and just. I want you to tell me your problems, and I just keep messing it up. By the way, I seem to ask you. I guess I don’t want to do that anymore.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:08:11]:
And I’m honestly not exactly sure how to do it better. What do you see between us?

George Faller [00:08:20]:
No, I agree. I think things have shifted. I felt like I had tunnel vision. You’d ask those questions, I’d freeze up. And I felt like, on the witness stand and, like, I just wanted to get out of those conversations, and I never really tied back me wanting to get out of these conversations, kind of what that does to you. It puts a burden on you to bring them up and keep bringing them up. And I guess it’s been really helpful to start seeing that bigger picture, like the chicken before the egg. It’s like you asking the talk or me not wanting to talk.

George Faller [00:08:55]:
It really doesn’t matter where it starts, right? When we both kind of in that space, we both lose it, right? I’m feeling like I’m failing. You’re feeling like I’m not interested, and like, it doesn’t matter what the hell we’re talking about. We’re just, like, dead in the water when that happens. So I’m not sure either what to do, but I definitely think, like, that makes me feel hopeful that. Wait a second. Really isn’t your fault, and it really isn’t my fault. It’s just something that happens between us that just has this life of its own, and it’s. It’s strong, and it just takes over.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:09:26]:
I can’t tell you how much relief I feel by you even talking about this, even. I mean, even wanting to have this conversation, but also just starting to see, like, when you say, you know, when you tell me the little bit about how you feel on the witness stand, like, I didn’t know that before. I really didn’t know that before. All I saw was the walk away. I didn’t know what you were feeling. So it just feels better to me right now with you telling me how it. I mean, I don’t want to do that to you, but it feels better that you tell me that that’s how what I do to you, you know? I even like that coming from you. Anything.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:10:08]:
And I just appreciate you staying with me in this conversation.

George Faller [00:10:13]:
Yeah. Feels like I can do this. A lot of times, I don’t know what to do, but now I’m starting to see. Wait a second. I know what I’m going to do is probably not going to work. It’s going to lead to the same thing. So I’m in the same places. Like, wait, we got to do something differently.

George Faller [00:10:29]:
That’s what I’m trying to figure out.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:10:31]:
Yeah, that feels good. Feels really good to me.

George Faller [00:10:36]:
Nice. So let’s take a break and. Okay, come back, just zoom out and kind of try to process what Laurie and I are doing right where it is a shift to start. Even if you don’t know what to do, to start feeling like, wait a second. There’s something we can do together. We could unite against this thing. Right? That’s what we mean by externalizing. You start to blame.

George Faller [00:11:03]:
This cycle is what’s screwing things up. It’s not Laurie’s fault or George’s fault. And that really makes a big shift inside the body.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:11:10]:
It does. It really does. And, I mean, I think when I listen to that withdrawer, I mean, I’m relaxed. It’s like he’s participating in the conversation. I feel good. My husband says, my withdrawing husband to, to his pursuing wife says, you know, as long as I just do the opposite of what I think I should do, we’re much better off, you know, because our instincts, our survival instincts are going to be the one that triggers our partner, you know? And I think that, too. Like, sometimes, you know, I want to keep chasing. I want to keep asking questions, you know, and it’s like.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:11:46]:
And. And I get more frantic on the inside, and so it’s like I gotta just take a breath, you know, I gotta really hold back, modulate my voice, make sure I’m, you know, coming in soft, make sure that I’m making requests instead of, you know, like, the questions, I think questions sometimes, you know, especially why. Questions, you know, why are you doing that? Or whatever. Just create so much defense.

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George Faller [00:13:14]:
Yeah, that’s. We talk a lot about yellow brains, right? All a negative cycle is two yellow brains, two people in a fight or flight response that can’t see the other person’s perspective and just surviving. What’s so nice about externalizing a blame in a cycle is that’s a green brain. You’re able to see the bigger pitch and say, wow, I didn’t really see how we both lose here and how we’re both needed to change this. We both need to come up with new moves. We both need to do things differently. Look at that shift in language from, you know, I or you pointing a finger towards. We need to do this together.

George Faller [00:13:48]:
We really encourage couples to name it, personalize the cycle. You know, me and my wife call it the California, because every year we have the same fight where we go to California. Some couples call it the rattlesnake or the merry go round or the tornado.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:01]:
I like when people personalize it, like you said, because they’re owning it, you know, they’re making it theirs, and it’s like their little monster pet.

George Faller [00:14:11]:
Monster pet’s a nice one.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:13]:
Monster pet.

George Faller [00:14:14]:
A lot of people use names like that. It’s the demon. It’s the monster, it’s the, you know, the terror in the closet.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:22]:
I sometimes do talk about it with people, like a demon. Like, there’s this thing that has a evil life of its own that’s trying to take you down, you know? And it’s trying to destroy the connection between the two of you. And if you think about it like that, like there’s a force outside yourself trying to take you down. It’s like, okay, we got a war against that force. And that kind of language often works with a lot of my Christian clients who. Who believe, like, in spiritual warfare.

George Faller [00:14:50]:
I like it. Laurie, you’re preaching. Bring it on, baby.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:53]:
You know?

George Faller [00:14:53]:
Bring it on.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:14:55]:
Exactly. It’s like, it is sort of this. This thing that is out to destroy our connection. So thinking about it that way might help.

George Faller [00:15:03]:
Yeah. Beautiful. All right, let’s come back and talk a little bit more about our versions of it.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:15:08]:
Okay.

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Many of you reach out to me for couples counseling and personalized help if you want to dramatically improve your intimacy in a short amount of time. I do offer privately scheduled couple counseling intensives. It’s like a private couples retreat. It’s twelve to 16 hours in Raleigh. Maybe you need to get through the emotional cycle where one of you is suffering, feeling rejected, or the other one is feeling abandoned, or maybe you need a jolt to your sex life. Together, we can work through this. We set goals. We dive deep into your dynamics, figure out your negative cycle.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:40]:
We work through the sexual and the emotional problems, and then we often have a dramatic breakthrough. So you can call my office or you can contact me at awakeningcenter.org.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:18:55]:
So let’s come back and talk to people about what we go through. What do you go through?

George Faller [00:19:02]:
Well, you gotta go back to 9/11 for me. So, you know, when I first was exposed to EFT, I mean, it was a wild time in my life, wherever. Not only did I lose a bunch of friends and co workers and the world was turned upside down and I didn’t know what was going on with my life. And, you know, my way of dealing with that was to just pull back and retreat into my own world because that’s what I’ve been taught to do when emotions get big. You know, my wife was trying to respect that and trying to give me kind of support. And we have a brand new newborn and she kind of needed my response the most, and I was checked out. So it was super stressful for our marriage. And, you know, we were both trying to protect each other, love each other, and yet we were in trouble.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:19:49]:
Right. A world catastrophe that you’re facing, you know, a life event that is kind of turns your life upside down with a new child, which I have a lot of sympathy for these days. And, you know, just how. How difficult the intersection of those two things and the injuries, the loss. Yeah, I can only imagine that. And you were young, young people trying to cope with all of this pain and stress. You didn’t have the maturity that you have now. And we know, like, you were kids.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:20:29]:
That’s so much on your shoulders and nobody really there to point the way and who could have, because this was an extraordinary event in the world.

George Faller [00:20:41]:
I could still see the image of me driving away to go to work. She’s, like, sitting in a doorway holding my son, like, waving goodbye. And God only knows what’s on her mind as I’m going down to ground zero and whatever I’m going to be doing down there for the next 24 to 48 hours, when I come back exhausted, the last thing I want to do is to talk about it, you know? And yet she’s been waiting for 48 hours to finally talk to me. And it’s like, you know, what a setup. And that’s what a cycle is. It’s such a setup for both people to just feel so kind of alone and then blamed for how you’re trying to protect yourself. So.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:19]:
And I might add, just, you know, my. Whenever you tell this story, like. Like, I feel tearful and stuff for both of you just. I mean, you were traumatized, certainly, but I also imagine Kathy standing in that doorway letting her young husband go with a baby in arms. It’s like, that’s trauma. She doesn’t hear from you. She doesn’t know. It’s like both of you endured something really difficult.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:21:44]:
And then probably, maybe she wants to talk about it or needs to talk about it, and you’re like, I just am trying to cope with the overwhelming stimulation of what I’ve just been through. I got to shut down. That’s how I. That’s how I cope.

George Faller [00:21:59]:
I mean, she honestly doesn’t know if she’s gonna see me again some of the time.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:04]:
Exactly.

George Faller [00:22:05]:
After 9/11, we were talking about secondary incendiary devices, and there’s gonna be another terrorist attack. And, you know, so she has no idea that fear is there, but how is she supposed to talk about that? And when I come home, I’m not gonna open up because I gotta go back there the next day. So there’s, like, we were set up with this distance and really loving each other, but really feeling pretty disconnected. Like our needs for support really skyrocket, but our capacity or ability to respond to those needs really decreased, which sets into motion the need then to protect yourself. And she started to protect herself with some anger, and I started to protect myself with some kind of further putting up walls. You know, that cycle really kind of took over pretty strongly in a. In a short period of time.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:22:56]:
So painful.

George Faller [00:22:58]:
Yeah. Which is why I’m you know, forever indebted to sue Johnson and eft because, you know, it was in that climate of desperation that I found out about EFT, and I never forget, that was what clicked. It was like this, this description of a cycle. And I was like, holy shit, that’s awesome. This is what we’re doing. Like, neither one of us are bad for doing it. It’s not her fault. It’s not my fault.

George Faller [00:23:22]:
Wait, there’s a cycle here? Like, my brain, my strategic military bay was like, whoa, why is the whole world not seeing this? This is a big deal. And I still remember that hope that came up for me that said, wait, we can do something about this. We could name this and we could then change it. So that’s what we’re trying to get our listeners to kind of see here, the power that, the power externalizing, the.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:23:45]:
Power of externalizing and having a new plan, a new map, a new way of thinking about it that is a pattern. Like, oh, we’re doing something over and over again. That, to me, for myself as well, felt so helpful, you know, like it’s, I can solve a pattern. I can’t solve all these one off fights. You know, we’re fighting about this, that and the other thing, and you just, it begins to feel like you’re fighting about everything, but it’s really the same thing, right? You’re doing or your actions are the same that caused the fight. So that was very helpful. I think in my own life, we kind of were young and had a disastrous time in our marriage. And I was kind of the person who was, I was literally keeping track on the calendar of the hours that my husband had a spent time with us and the family.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:24:40]:
You know, like, I wanted to prove that it was not enough time. And so I would calculate every day, you know, you were only here for an hour. You were only here for 2 hours, whatever. And at some point I realized that I was strangling the marriage. And I was really frightened. I thought, well, there’s no other path, because if I don’t do that, if I don’t keep pushing for this, you know, my needs are not going to be met, my children’s needs are not going to be met, and it’s going to be terrible. But I wasn’t absolutely, positively certain that if I let go, you know, it felt like I was falling off a cliff. I stepped off a cliff backwards and there were rocks beneath, but I didn’t know how long it was going to take to hit the rocks.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:27]:
So I thought, well, it’s going to be really ugly. But I have these few seconds, you know, of maybe good stuff. So I let go. I remember consciously saying, I’m not going to do that thing anymore. I’m not going to count. I’m not going to watch. I’m just going to let go and see what happens. And it really did feel like a death for me inside, like, letting that go.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:25:55]:
And I remember for two years, just like, kind of holding my breath, like, when am I going to hit the rocks and what’s going to happen? And in about two years, I’m not exactly sure what my husband was going through, but I think my change of stopping doing that, strangling, counting, managing and anger over what I didn’t think I was getting, you know, in two years, it was really quite different between us.

George Faller [00:26:27]:
Yeah, no, you can just appreciate the desperation and how counterintuitive it is to want to do the opposite move. Every part of your body saying, just fight, just keep going. That’s what my body was saying. Just put up that wall. You’re going to get hurt. You don’t have the energy to load that wall. Bad things are going to happen when you start recognizing, wait a second, there’s a bigger picture happening here. And your ability to kind of let go a little bit, even though it took a long period of time, it gave the space for some new moves to start emerging.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:27:01]:
And I didn’t have eft at that point. I knew attachment theory, and I understood pursue and I understood withdraw, but I really couldn’t have had that conversation that you and I just pretended to have, you know, like that lovely, de escalated conversation. Like, I just didn’t have language for it. I just knew what I had to do. And I think many people often say, well, I’ll do it if my partner will do it. And I didn’t have any of those guarantees. And I think it’s given me a lot of hope that one person can change things. I’m not saying that my husband wasn’t trying and changing himself, but without the language, without the conversation, I just made a decision, I’m going to stop doing that thing.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:27:46]:
And it really did change.

George Faller [00:27:49]:
I think a lot of people do get their move when they’re protecting themselves, but they don’t see the bigger picture and how their move fits into a feedback loop. And that’s really what we’re trying to get our listeners to start seeing now. It’s like, can you get your move? But then to see how your move pulls a move from your partner, you know, my withdrawal just pulled the unfairness, you know, the frustration for my wife and her frustration just put up the wall. I mean, they were so interdependent, those moves. Like, we. I think we all see things linearly. Like there’s. It’s just this person that’s doing it, my partner.

George Faller [00:28:25]:
We don’t see that circularity. And that’s the true gift of a cycle. It just raises the frame for both people to see what they normally can’t see in a tunnel vision of their own protection.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:28:36]:
Yeah. And I saw the. The squeezing of my husband as basically making him back away and get smaller and give less. You know, I saw that I wasn’t able to articulate to him what I was doing at that point, but I certainly saw that between us, the harder I squeezed, the less he could give.

George Faller [00:29:03]:
And that’s a really good sign, though. When you get to a place where both people are saying, we can see it, it’s not working, what do we do next? Or we don’t know what to do next. It’s like, yeah, because that’s the new moves, but really recognizing the old moves that lead to a very predictable cycle where both of you lose. That’s the starting point of change, and that’s really what we’re hoping. Our listeners can just put a name to it. What is it? The cycle that you fall into, and it might move sometimes. One person might push and the other might go away, and then maybe they switch roles. Every couple is a little bit different, but what we can guarantee you is there is always a cycle.

George Faller [00:29:43]:
100% of the time when you’re in protective states, there’s always a feedback loop, and you are always both losing. It might feel like it’s the other person’s fault, but when you could start to kind of start to see that bigger picture, it really is the starting point of change.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:29:59]:
Yeah. And if they could have that conversation that we had with both couples, both of the people taking ownership for their move, that really is the beginning.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:13]:
It’s hard to get there.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:30:15]:
It’s hard to get enough space in your relationship where you can talk about that in a reasonable, calm way. But if you can get there, then the awesome thing is now you’re ready, really, to take on more connection and intimacy, to go further together. It’s that point where we can identify our cycle to each other, taking responsibility for our part. And that’s, I think, what we demoed, and that’s what we’re hoping people get to, to be able to have the conversation in a calm way. Where both of them do take it on because, like, while in my own relationship, my husband and I didn’t have that conversation at that point, like this, this little role play that we did is kind of, I think, a marker and makes us feel calm.

George Faller [00:31:04]:
So we’re going to leave you with a demon dialogue homework.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:31:09]:
Okay.

George Faller [00:31:10]:
You could all come onto our website and check out is a way of just naming both of your moves in the cycle. So here it is. I’m filling it out for me. When you talking to my wife, criticize me. I do not feel safely connected to you. I then go away in the hope that things are going to calm down. When, you know, my wife, things are not going to calm down. This does not work.

George Faller [00:31:33]:
I decide we’re both losing and it seems like the more I withdraw, the more you get angry and the more and more we’re cut off from each other. The cycle is winning and you want to do the other one. You want me to do for the pursuers?

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:31:50]:
Oh, I want you to do the pursuer one, too.

George Faller [00:31:52]:
All right.

George Faller [00:31:52]:
Just to leave this as homework for you. All right. This would be Laurie talking to her husband. When you walk away from me, I do not feel safely connected to you. I then tend to push after you and try to get you to talk. I do this in a hope that you’re going to engage when, you know, Derek, that’s not likely to happen. When it does not work, I decide that you must not care. I’m starting to realize that the more I get angry, the more you seem to go away, the more we’re both losing and the cycle is winning.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:23]:
Yeah. Awesome. Thank you, Chi. And we’re going to put a blank of that on our website and then you can kind of fill it in with your partner. So thanks for listening.

George Faller [00:32:34]:
Let’s beat up those demon dialogues.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:37]:
Okay, so tell us about your cutting.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:32:41]:
Edge training that you’re doing on success and vulnerability,.

George Faller [00:32:44]:
Laurie., 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. And 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.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:09]:
That’s awesome.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:10]:
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 [00:33:29]:
No, we try to emphasize the 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.

Dr. Laurie Watson [00:33:47]:
Find George and his teaching at successandvulnerability.com.

Closing Announcer [00:33:51]:
Call in your questions to the foreplay question voicemail, dial 833-My$play. 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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