Get The Relationships You Want

In this episode of The Wise Effort Show, Dr. Diana Hill delves into how we can cultivate meaningful relationships without compromising our self-worth. She explores the concept of "big love" in various relationships, offering insights from psychological research and personal anecdotes.

Learn about the Wise Effort Method and how it can help you engage more deeply and genuinely in your relationships, identify and leverage your relationship strengths, and manage energy-depleting interactions. Dr. Hill emphasizes curiosity, openness, and focused energy to help you foster truly nourishing connections.

Transcript

How can you get the love,

The friendships,

The relationships that you want without selling yourself short?

That's what we're going to explore today with me,

Dr.

Diana Hill,

On the Wise Effort Show.

We're back.

I'm Dr.

Diana Hill,

And this show is all about wise effort,

How to put your energy in places that matter most to you.

And you know that I like to change things up on this show.

I'm much more like a hermit crab these days.

My shell gets a little bit tight.

I get a little bit cramped,

And I need to move.

I need to expand.

I need to grow.

And I hope that you feel that way,

Too.

And I hope that this show is helping you move,

Expand,

And grow.

One of the areas that we can continually move and expand and grow in is in our relationships,

In our love.

We're going to talk about big love today,

Big love,

How to get bigger love in your friendships,

In your work relationships even,

In your family relationships,

In your lover relationships.

How do you get big love?

On the show,

Over the next few months,

We're going to be tackling different domains where you can practice wise effort each month.

This month,

May,

Is all about wise effort in relationships.

Why do we want to use wise effort in relationships?

Well,

We know,

We've had tons of episodes on this,

About how important our relationships are to us.

Remember the episode I did with Robert Waldinger,

Who did the Harvard Study of Adult Development?

For 85 years,

This study has been following 724 families.

And they found that it's relationships,

Having strong relationships,

Is a better predictor of health than money,

Fame,

Success.

The health of your relationships at age 50 is a better predictor of your physical health at age 80 than your cholesterol levels.

And we know that lack of connected relationships is toxic.

But you know what also is toxic?

Being in relationships that are subpar,

That drain you,

That suck the energy out of you,

That are energy depletors.

So we're going to talk about how to have more positive energizers in your life,

How to become a positive energizer,

How to use your genius wisely with the wise effort method.

I'm going to give you a specific method that you can follow,

The wise effort method,

Because I want you to play bigger in your relationships.

Let me give you an example,

My friend Alexis.

So I've known Alexis for 25 years,

We were friends in graduate school.

And I recently visited Denver,

Where she lives,

She's a professor of positive psychology there,

To lead an ACT boot camp.

It was kind of a big deal professionally.

So I was swinging with big hitters in the ACT field,

Steve Hayes,

Miranda Morris,

And the great Robin Walzer.

And I texted Alexis on my way to the airport that,

Which outfit should I wear for one?

And I don't have the right shoes.

Alexis swings by the hotel and drops shoes off for me.

I text Alexis that I'm super intimidated about getting on the stage the first night to do live real plays.

What they do at these boot camps is at the end of the day of training,

We go up in front of 300 people,

300 clinicians that are there.

One random person comes from the audience,

You don't know what they're bringing.

And you have to do a live real play demonstrating the processes.

So I'm like in on the stage with somebody who is having difficulty with their kids and anger management with their kids and feeling like they're a bad mom.

And in the background,

They're flashing slides at me.

And I have to demonstrate that process of whatever random slide shows up behind my client.

So I'm doing like a therapy session live in front of 300 people.

And then I'm getting these slides of like acceptance,

Committed action,

Being present.

And I have to monitor that.

It is nerve wracking.

Not only that,

I go after Stephen Hayes.

So guess who shows up?

Alexis,

Unannounced,

Comes and sits in the front row cheering me on,

Cheering me on.

This is big love,

Folks.

This is wise effort in relationships.

I'm exhausted.

I'm tired.

I tell Alexis,

I want to go to sleep,

I want to go back to the hotel.

And she drags me to downtown Denver for a drink,

An amazing dinner,

And to meet her new boyfriend,

Because Alexis needed me to show up for her too,

To meet her guy,

To get to know him,

To get my seal of approval.

It was important that I stretch for her as much as she had stretched for me.

This is big love.

It's an exchange of energy.

So what is happening in our brain when we're in this kind of big love?

I love some of the brain studies on relationships.

Very classic one comes from Gincone out of the University of Virginia.

They put people in an MRI scanner and told them that they might get an electric shock on their feet.

Stressful.

Sort of like how I was feeling on that stage.

I'm going to get shocked any moment.

I actually told the audience at some point,

I feel like you're going to eat me alive,

Which is how it feels that these therapists are going to eat you alive,

Right?

They're going to totally reject you or criticize you.

It's the electric shock of social exclusion.

Here's the twist.

So they put these people in the MRI.

They say they're going to shock their toes.

And when participants held the hand of their spouse,

When they were in a happy relationship,

The threat response in their brain literally calmed down.

Their brain lit up less in areas like the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex,

Which are usually firing when we're scared.

Just the act of holding a loved one's hand made their brain feel safer.

However,

If they were holding the hand of a relationship that was in conflict,

They did not see this.

They actually saw activation in those areas.

Holding the hand of somebody who you're not in a good relationship with makes your brain feel more afraid,

Right?

This is why you need big love folks,

Because we are getting shocked all the time.

Life is full of anticipatory pain and suffering,

And you know,

Whether we actually get shocked or not will create stories that will make us feel like we're going to get shocked by life.

But when you have somebody there supportive with you,

It changes the way your brain responds to life.

Then there's Naomi Eisenberg's work out of UCLA.

And she did a study where she had people do this virtual ball tossing game,

Sort of like cyber ball.

It's like playing catch online.

But partway through,

The other player stopped throwing you the ball,

Right?

So it triggers this deep feeling of social rejection.

And what they found is that the brain responds to being excluded the same way that it does to physical pain.

The same areas of the brain get activated.

And here's what's wild.

If participants thought about someone who loved them,

A compassionate person in their life,

Their brain's pain response softened.

Just remembering connection makes a real difference.

This is big love.

This is the power of big love on your brain.

This is why we need wise effort in our relationships.

So what I've learned as a psychologist,

Decades of working with clients,

Building relationships,

But let me tell you,

Decades of my own really mixed bag relationships,

I didn't really know how to be a friend until my 30s.

I had some developmental arrests along the way as a teenager,

Which I'm sure I've talked about plenty of times.

And so it takes wise effort to build this type of big love,

To have these types of relationships.

And wise effort isn't about being the perfect friend or brother or lover.

It isn't about knowing what to say or even feeling great all the time.

Relationships can be totally rocky.

They can have conflict.

It isn't about having an impressive social calendar or being surrounded by people all the time.

Wise effort in relationships,

Good relationships,

Is about an exchange of energy.

It's about how you share,

Amplify,

Regenerate goodness in the other person and how they do that for you because they're fueled by big love energy.

And I know that word love is a word that not all of us use,

But if you want amazing relationships,

You're going to need to step into it.

I have this hat with a big heart on it that I now have given to many,

Many friends in my town.

And we go about town,

We see people wearing this hat,

And we know,

Oh,

Wait,

You're in my big love circle.

You get stopped on a trail,

People are like,

I love your hat.

Why?

Because we actually crave big love.

We crave love.

We crave this feeling of being safe.

And many Buddhist practices are actually about that.

Some of the higher level Tibetan practices or Jack Kornfield's practice is about stepping back into that field of love that is around us.

And we can do that with our relationships when we use wise effort in our relationships.

So there's plenty out there on how to build relationships,

Books,

Podcasts about communication,

Attachment styles,

Love languages,

How to set boundaries.

These are all great.

I've recommended a number of them for you.

I love Nedra Twab's work on set boundaries,

Find peace.

I think she's fantastic.

I've interviewed her a number of times.

I love Rick Hansen's work on how to make great relationships.

There's courses on how to find your people,

How to network,

Where to meet people.

You know,

You got to like join the newcomers group,

The hiking group,

Start a conversation,

Ask deeper questions.

I love Esther Perel's card deck about conversations.

And I actually had dinner with Esther and she showed me a great way to use that card deck where you pass out three cards from her deck and they have these great conversation starters.

They're things like,

What is the text message that you've never received that you always wanted to receive?

So you pass out three cards to everyone at the table and then you get to choose which card you're going to ask someone and you ask them that question and then they choose another person to ask a question of from one of their three cards.

Deepens the conversation pretty quickly.

We need all that.

Right?

We need that in terms of getting out of the small talk and getting into the deeper talk.

But the fundamental truth is,

Whether it's your friendship or your love interest or your sister or your coworkers,

You need even deeper foundations than that.

You need to look at your own patterning.

You need to look at what you value.

You need to know your strengths,

Your genius.

You need to know where you are wasting your energy and how to turn it around when you get off track.

You need to be open to the discomfort that comes with relationships,

The self-doubt,

The feelings of rejection,

The intensity of loving someone.

And you need to be able to hold it all lightly in the service of something much bigger.

You need to be able to focus your energy where it matters up.

When is it a good time to show up?

Like Alexis showed up for me,

Right?

And letting go of needing it to be different than what it is,

Them to be different than who they are.

You need to know how to meet your own needs,

How to take care of your own self,

How to use your genius wisely.

And that is what this episode is all about.

Just that.

So if you want nourishing,

Life-giving relationships where you feel seen,

Valued,

And authentically connected,

You need more than tools.

We all know the validation skills,

Right?

Repeat back what they're saying,

Validate their feelings.

You need to know how to use your life force,

What drains it,

What feeds it,

And what is worth it.

And you need to know your genius,

What qualities you have to offer.

Because when you do this,

When you engage in wise effort in your relationships,

When you're at your best,

And it can be an area of growth,

Of healing,

Of mutual uplift,

And all of that is going to require you putting big love energy out there.

It means making space for big love energy in return,

Like allowing yourself to receive it,

That flow of compassion.

Celebrating your friends,

Your lovers,

Your family members' successes,

Not competing against them,

Not sucking the life out of the room,

The energy out of the room,

The air out of the room when you're in their presence,

Celebrating and making space for their genius energy too.

It's knowing your friend or loved one's raw spots and vulnerabilities,

And being wise enough not to poke them,

You know where they are,

Don't poke them,

But also wise enough to encourage them to get out of their comfort zone as you get out of your comfort zone too.

You push them a little bit,

Right?

Defining for yourself what a good relationship is,

And then working to embody it with your actions,

Not waiting for them to do it for you.

You do it.

You embody it.

It means not waiting for someone else to make the first move.

You be the one to call them up,

To text them,

To ask them out,

To show physical affection.

You be the person that makes the move towards what you want,

Towards what you care about.

It means investing in the kinds of relationships that nourish your spirit and being brave enough to walk away from those that drain it.

Some of you know that I live on this shared piece of property on this lane,

And we had all of these permitting issues at my house.

We had to just basically tear down my house as a result of the karma of the permits.

We moved a few doors down on the same land,

And the thing that came with us,

Which is true for all of the houses on this property,

Is we have drainage issues.

Our kitchen sinks,

They're like these old houses with kitchen sinks that share plumbing,

And they get all clogged up,

And they get full of murky water.

This is what our relationships can look like over time,

The murky water of stagnant relationship.

It's so bad.

It's so dark.

It's so unfun to have in your kitchen.

We want to just end it,

Get rid of it,

But actually sometimes what you need to do is the slow drain.

You need to allow for the slow drain of this person to kind of like,

Don't add any more water to it,

Clean it out a little bit,

And let it drain from your life.

You can let the relationships that are draining you slowly drain out.

Just stop feeding them.

Playing big in relationships means realizing that they take work.

You cannot fake depth.

We all have those fake depth relationships,

And that is draining in itself,

Right?

You need to build it.

You need to offer your genius.

You need to show up when it matters.

You need to open your heart,

And at the foundation of that is wise effort.

So,

The skills that we're going to talk about today,

The strategies,

The approaches,

Are about wise effort in relationships.

It's the difference between having relationships that are good enough,

That are rolling along,

That are status quo,

And having relationships that blow your mind,

Excite you,

Make you feel loved,

Make you want love,

And open you up to possibilities that you didn't know existed.

Open you up to possibilities that you didn't know existed.

So here are the steps that we're going to take to do it with the wise effort method.

The wise effort method has these three overarching themes that carry through,

Whether it's wise effort with your body,

Wise effort at work,

Wise effort in community,

Wise effort in creativity.

You're going to hear these over and over and over again from me because they are the frame.

They're the framework of wise effort that I want you to get to know.

And the first component is about getting curious.

The second component is about opening up,

And the third is about focusing your energy.

That's how the book is laid out,

And then we do all these examples of it in these different domains.

So,

What are we getting curious about?

We're getting curious about you in relationships,

And there's three things I want you to get curious about in terms of you in relationships.

The first is,

What is your relationship genius?

What are you really good at in relationships?

What are your talents?

What's your emotional intelligence?

What's your character strengths?

What do you have to bring to the table for this person or these people in your life?

And when you start to see that,

You can offer it more because what often happens is we shy away from our genius energy.

We play small.

We put it on the side.

We don't value it.

We keep it contained instead of actually really putting it out there.

One of my relationship geniuses that I've discovered that I didn't know I had,

But I see it now more because I've been doing this work,

Is I'm really good at telling people directly how much I love them and what I see in them.

It's sort of like a boldness to it.

I think it's from being a therapist for a long time because when I'm working in my therapy clients,

I'm often looking for the things that I like in them,

That I appreciate them,

That I want to reinforce,

That I would see that could be possible for them to get reinforced outside in the world.

But it's something that actually Alexis and I share.

We share some of that genius.

And when she came to visit me at boot camp in Denver,

You would think that we were a couple.

It's this sort of like bold expression of love.

That's actually one of my relationship geniuses.

And I think I've been playing small.

I've been holding it back,

But it feels so good to express it.

And I'm hoping that the people that receive it,

If you're one of them,

You feel it.

And maybe you even feel it on this episode,

Some of that degree of more boldness from me.

I'm trying to show up more with this boldness,

This genius of mine,

Because I hold it back and I think it's a detriment to all of us when we hold back our genius.

So what about you?

Maybe you have something,

Emotional intelligence about you.

You're highly intuitive or sensitive in relationships.

You have a way of communicating boundaries really,

Really well.

Maybe you have character strengths of leadership or organization.

Maybe you are like the social glue that ties everyone together.

I definitely have friendships like that where they're just like the center or they are able to gather the group to rally the troops.

Maybe that's what your relationship genius is.

You're a great host like my friend,

Jane Chapman,

Who I've had on the show before.

She's a great host and she shows up in her relationships in that way.

Maybe you have interests that are your genius that really show up in your relationships and gather people.

You play guitar.

You're a great cook.

You are super creative at throwing parties or like being at the parent association and doing all the things that get all the parents organized on the same page.

I know you have relationship geniuses.

You just need to wipe your cup clean and see them because that's what I want you to bring to the table.

Your genius.

It's needed.

The world needs your genius.

Your friends need your genius.

Your partner needs your genius.

Your kids need your genius.

So show up with your genius.

Get curious about that.

Then the second thing to get curious about is what are your relationship values,

Which is slightly different than your genius.

Your genius are your natural talents that just move through you,

The energetic force within you that you have cultivated over time through experience,

Through your temperament,

Through your attachment style.

But your values are what you care about.

Your values are how you want to show up in a relationship and values are different than needs.

There was an episode I did with Russ Harris,

The act therapist a while back on that.

Needs are what you're wanting,

What you're craving,

Right?

I need attention.

I need to show up with flowers.

I need you to be on time.

I need you to clean the kitchen.

I need you to send me a Hallmark card on my birthday,

Right?

Those are needs.

And then we could actually say our true needs are to be seen,

Loved,

Held in appreciation and feel safe,

Some of those really core relationship needs.

But our values are more about how we show up.

If I were videotaping you throughout your day and you were to say,

Oh,

That's how I want to be,

What words would you put to that?

If I were videotaping an interaction between you and your friend on the phone or if I were to screenshot a text and it really highlighted how you want to communicate and talk to someone,

If I were to screenshot a text and it really highlighted how you don't want to talk to someone,

Right,

Your fear that that might get forwarded,

That says something about your values too because you're not aligned with them in that moment,

Right?

We were going early to Sunrise Swim this past week and we couldn't find the towel,

We couldn't find the beach towels,

Couldn't find the beach towels.

And I was so angry.

I was so mad at my spouse.

I was so blaming.

Oh my gosh,

I've been up since 5 a.

M.

And you can't even find a beach towel,

Right?

If you had videotaped me and that went viral,

It would be humiliating.

Why?

Because I value kindness.

So what about you?

What are your relationship values?

How do you want to show up?

If you were to distill it into a few words,

Action words,

Being kind,

Being adventurous,

Being humble,

Being honest,

Being fair,

Being loving,

Being intimate,

Like what is it that you value because that's your direction,

That's your compass that you want to return to when you get off track.

And it's great to have like a few that you could write down if you want,

But it's the qualities that you want to show up with in your relationship.

Get clear on those.

Get clear on those.

Those are your assigned posts when you get off track.

You feel it.

You know what it feels like.

And then the third thing to get curious about,

If you want big love,

You're going to need to get curious about this,

Which is how are you selling yourself short?

Mm-hmm.

I know you are.

You're doing it.

We sell ourselves short when we get stuck in a story about who we are or what we deserve or what's possible for us or not possible for us.

Those of you that are dating out there,

You know this.

We sell ourselves short when we avoid discomfort.

We don't step into that difficult conversation.

We don't repair that rift.

We don't make that phone call.

We run away.

We don't ride it out.

You know,

We don't ride it out when we're in that sort of feeling of rejection to get to the point where maybe we can feel included.

And we hold on tight.

We hold on tight to things staying the same.

We hold on tight to our egos.

We hold on tight to being right.

We hold on tight to our really rigid beliefs about people and how they'll never change,

Right?

And not in an accepting way,

But in a like frustrated way.

Hold on tight to our anger,

Our irritation.

There's so many times when I've been in a conflict with my spouse or partner and I know I should drop it.

I can tell.

Like if I just drop this right now,

Like we could like have the whole afternoon.

And once we were in,

I think we were in Italy at the Da Vinci Museum and we didn't even get to go into the museum because we were in such a big fight that we just like wasted the whole afternoon stonewalling each other and we missed out on the Da Vinci Museum,

Right?

These are the things that you remember 20 years later.

Why did I do that?

I was holding on too tight.

One of the things that we hold on tight to are people in our life who have harmed us.

There's a word that I'll use with clients,

Which is Voldemort,

Sort of like in Harry Potter where he who shall not be named,

Right?

The Voldemorts of our life that even just thinking about them makes us cringe.

We feel horrible about ourselves or rage towards them or we play small because they're still in our storyline,

In our mind of these people.

I know you have a Voldemort.

I have a Voldemort.

We all have a Voldemort.

We have Voldemorts from our childhood.

We have Voldemorts from our adult lives and we hold on too tight to them.

We let that story push us around.

We don't go places or do things.

We see them on our social media feed and we freak out and we go to another page as if they're still harming us,

Right?

That's the nature of the human mind is to create stories and imagery and we treat it as if it is real.

We treat Voldemort as if Voldemort is still here harming us even when Voldemort hasn't been in our lives for five years or 10 years or 20 years or more.

It leads us to playing small.

How are you selling yourself short?

Getting curious about that?

Are you selling yourself short because you're still being pushed around by a Voldemort?

You're playing small because you're still thinking that they have an influence over you or you're letting them have an influence over you?

Are you stuck in a story?

Are you avoiding discomfort?

Are you holding too tight?

Those are the three questions you're going to hear me ask them a million times,

But I want you to ask them for yourself because you will not engage in wise effort as long as you're doing those things.

You will not experience big love.

It's hard to feel big love when you're stuck in a story.

It's hard to feel big love when you avoid discomfort because big love comes with discomfort.

Hate to break the news.

It's hard to let big love in when you are holding too tight,

Which leads us to this second big arena of wise effort.

So we get curious and then we open up.

We open up to playing bigger.

We open up to big love.

And there's a few ways that I want you to do this.

First is getting open to positive energizers in your life.

You may remember the episode that I did with Emma Cipolla where she talked about positive energizers in leadership.

These are the people in organizations where they are in like a subgroup of the organization and they have such a positive impact on their team that their team ends up performing way better.

When they walk into the room,

You feel the warmth of their glow.

So you have positive energizers.

You have people.

They may not be super close to you right now,

But you've been in their orbit who energize you,

Who light you up,

Who make you feel alive.

I want those people to get closer to you in your inner circle,

In your energetic field.

I want you to draw them in.

I want you to work for those relationships.

I have a lot of those relationships in my life right now because those are the people that I prioritized,

The positive energizers.

With that,

Opening up to positive energizers also means opening up to uncertainty because you're playing bigger.

You're saying,

Oh,

I want to be around that person.

I want them in my life.

I'm going to put effort into this dynamic.

And that also means that you may get your heart broken.

They may not have space for you in the way that you want them to have space for you.

And it's uncertain.

We don't know.

But you don't know unless you go for it,

Right?

You don't know unless you go for it.

So you open up to the positive energizers in your life.

And then you get a little bit more space from,

Give less energy to the depleters,

The folks that drag you down.

You give them less of your energy.

Maybe it's less of your time,

But maybe it's just less of your mental energy,

Right?

If you're spending a lot of mental energy thinking about the Voldemorts in your life,

That is depleting to you.

That is that dirty water stuck in that sink that's just like a drag.

Let it go down the drain a little bit.

So that requires things like setting limits.

It requires things like feeling guilty for setting boundaries with people.

You got to do it over and over again.

Guilt is not a measure of you doing something wrong always.

And sometimes,

As Nedra Twaab said,

Our guilt is actually really an indicator of something else that we care about,

Right?

Care about being kind to people.

So you can do it in a way that's kind.

One thing that I do in the Why Is Zephyr book is I have people do a relationship map.

And you could do this by getting just a blank piece of paper out,

Drawing a spiral,

Big spiral on a page.

Put yourself at the center of the spiral.

This is your energetic field.

And then put some names,

Maybe choose like five to start to simplify things.

Put some names on that spiral.

Put the ones that are really close to your energy,

That like impact you a lot,

Close to you.

Whether they're positive or negative energizers,

Put them close to you.

The ones that impact you less,

Put them further away.

And then give them a valence.

Give them a positive,

Negative,

Or mixed.

So a plus sign for positive energizers,

A minus sign for depletors.

So say your cousin is really involved in your life.

Put them close to you in the center of your energetic field.

But say they're like a real depletor.

They really are sucking the life out of you.

You put some negatives next to them.

Now you got to like rip this thing up after you're done with it.

Don't let your cousin ever see this,

Ever.

Actually,

I have the raddest cousin on the planet,

Sarah,

Who works for The Daily Show,

Who did the whole thing around creativity with me.

She's super rad.

She's a super positive energizer.

But actually,

She'd be further out in my energetic field because I don't have a lot of interactions with her.

She'd be further out on that spiral.

And the idea here is that you want to draw people in that are positive energizers,

That have those positive signs.

And then you want to move the depletors further away from your energetic field.

You do that through setting boundaries with them.

You do that through not letting them take up your mental energy and your mind when you're not around them.

You do that through offering compassion and metta.

That is a great way to diffuse a negative energizer.

Offer them wellness.

May you be well.

May you have ease.

Powerful metta practice.

We can play with our energetic field.

We open up to energizers.

We let go of depletors.

And then we open up to the synergy of interconnection.

The synergy of interconnection.

The good feelings,

The big love that happens when we celebrate other people's geniuses.

We work collaboratively,

Not competitively.

An exercise that I have in the Wise Effort book is about creating a genius advisory board.

You have a specific offering and energy and genius that you can bring to relationships.

But it's not going to be everything,

Right?

You can create a board,

Like they have a board for your school.

They have the board for the Compassion Coalition.

They have a board of directors for all sorts of things.

What if you had a board for you?

And on that board were geniuses,

A genius that's super creative,

Right?

You have another friend or another person on that board that's super great at building companies or organizations.

You have another one on there that's super great at gathering people,

Right?

And so you create a genius advisory board of people in your life that are synergistic,

That are collaborative,

That are sharing the space.

This is moving out of the hierarchical model and into a circular one.

We talk about circular economies.

You can have your own personal circular economy of you in relationships where you're strengthening each other.

I'm super down for that for you.

I want you to have that because I've experienced that more professionally recently of just the benefits of collaboration and strengthening each other's geniuses.

It feels so good to give and to receive.

So open up to the synergy and interconnection.

And we know that when we are in relationship,

There was this great study where they had people actually stand at a mountain and use a board to indicate how steep they thought the mountain was.

And when you're standing next to a good friend,

You see it as less steep.

This is the synergy and the power of big love when you open up to it.

And then the final aspect of why I suffer is to focus your energy where it matters.

This involves doubling down and showing up.

You show up,

You don't wait to be asked,

And you double down when your friend,

Your lover,

Your family member needs you.

You figure out what they need,

Not what you think they need,

And you offer it to them.

You honor their genius,

You highlight it,

You hold it up,

You amplify it,

You water their seeds.

So Thich Nhat Hanh teaches this very simple practice of seed watering.

You know when a little flower is like limped over because they don't have enough water,

Like the water's drained out of the vase and you need to add a little water.

Maybe you're sprinkling water on your flowers out in the yard.

And they start to strengthen and perk up,

And there's a little more turgor,

And their little cell walls get a little stronger and stronger,

And then they open up their blossom.

So when you honor their genius,

When you appreciate people,

You do the 80%-20% rule,

80% appreciation,

20% change,

You'll see them open up and you'll see them blossom,

And you'll be able to receive their genius back.

So you double down on that.

And then focusing your energy on not just watering the good seeds in others,

But watering your own seeds,

Meeting your own needs where others can't.

You need to know how to fill your own cup.

You need to know how to take care of yourself.

You need to know how to diversify your sources of support.

There is no one person out there that can do everything for you,

And you need also to do a lot of it for yourself,

Building up your inner resources,

Building up your inner sense of home and goodwill and well-being within yourself,

Taking care of yourself.

The best teacher for me in that has been Thich Nhat Hanh and by proxy,

Brother Phap Phu.

When I interviewed him on the podcast,

He talked about loneliness.

I gave him this question from my son of like,

My son said,

What do I do in the night when I feel lonely?

And he said,

Oh,

Well,

You say,

Hello,

Loneliness,

I'm here for you,

Loneliness.

So you breathe in,

Hello,

Loneliness.

You breathe out,

My old friend.

You breathe in,

Hello,

Fear.

You breathe out,

My old friend.

And you learn how to take care of your own loneliness,

And you learn how to take care of your own fear,

And you learn how to open up to the field of love that is here,

Whether that person that you want to be friends with or be in a relationship is present or not.

That field is already here for you.

There's already big love available to you.

Big love is holding all of us so that we can step into our relationships with it,

Not get it from our relationships.

See the difference there?

And you focus your energy on letting it be what it is.

You focus your energy on acceptance,

Opening up to imperfection,

Allowing for messiness,

Forgiveness,

Allowing for impermanence,

Everything you love,

You will lose,

Being humble.

You don't need to change the other person,

Fix the other person,

Get them to love you differently.

You let it be what it is.

That's focusing your energy where it matters most.

So wise effort in relationships is about entering the field of big love,

And you do this in three ways.

You get curious about yourself in relationships.

What is your relationship genus?

What are your relationship values?

How are you selling yourself short?

You do it by opening up to playing bigger,

Opening up to energizers,

Letting go of depletors,

Opening up to the synergy of interconnection,

And you do it by focusing your energy where it matters.

Water the good seeds in others and water your own seeds.

Take care of yourself.

Let it be what it is.

Those are the steps to hopefully getting the love,

Friendship,

And relationships you want without selling yourself short.

I hope you found this episode helpful,

And I also want you to know that you are in my field of big love.

You know,

I do these episodes for free,

And they take a little bit of time,

They take a little bit of energy,

And it is an energetic exchange.

I care about you,

Even though I don't know who you are,

Really.

I mean,

I know you're my mom,

I know my mom's listening,

And some of my good friends and my clients,

But I also just care about our general well-being as a collective,

But I also care about our general well-being as a collective.

So please feel my big love sending it out to you,

Okay?

I will see you again very soon as we continue this exploration of wise effort in relationships.

We have someone coming on talking about dating after divorce.

We have someone coming on talking about what to do when a loved one gets sick.

We're going to explore all of that in the next few weeks on the Wise Effort Show.

Look forward to seeing you then.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Wise Effort Podcast.

Wise Effort is about you taking your energy and putting it in the places that matter most to you,

And when you do so,

You'll get to savor the good of your life along the way.

Reviews

I needed a refresh - thank you!

Appreciated weaving just enough examples into taking a look at my relationship with my self and with others in a way I could relate and follow along journey - excellent depiction of valence shells - chem rawks! Liked the visualization of cleaning dirty cup so I can re/de?fine my values. Releasing energetic attachments. Great visual of energetic investment and involvement in actual reality

Sending big love back to you! I've really enjoyed all your talks! Thank you! 😊 🙏💚🌟