In the June Month in Review, Through a Therapist’s Eyes revisits three powerful episodes that challenge how we love, connect, and grow in relationships. From strategies to stop taking things personally in your marriage (Ep314), to exploring the deep emotional and psychological healing power of relationships (Ep315), and finally asking the age-old question – what is love: a fleeting feeling or a lasting commitment? (Ep316), this episode brings together practical tools, honest reflection, and clinical insights. You’ll learn how curiosity and self-awareness defuse conflict, how empathy and trust foster emotional safety, and how love – when grounded in intimacy, passion, and commitment – transforms lives.
Tune in to see June 2025 Month in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/relationships?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/monthinreview
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #317Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Chris Gazdik with Through a Therapist’s Eyes. I am your host on June the 26th, 2025. We are going to be doing the June month in review, which is where we kind of go through all the shows that we kind of did this month. Check out the highlights, add a little bit here and there with what comes into our mind, and have a good conversation with Mr.
Adam Kluger. How are you, sir? Good. Hope you are. I like your hat man. Foley Beach. That’s a fun place. Yeah, I
Adam Cloninger: was just talking about that a little while ago with my sister. Right? I think it’s about time for me to go back.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, you and me both, man. Let, let’s do a beach trip. I haven’t been there in a while, dude.
I need to see the ocean. I’m, I’m down like this weekend. Whatcha doing? I need I, I’ll be in West Virginia. I figured that might be the case. I need to go see the beach. And Mr. Neil Clon. Neil Clauder. Neil cer Hey, hey, we’re brothers now. Adam, stop bro. How about that? He is hanging out with [00:01:00] us from behind the curtain.
Neil Robinson. This is where you get insights usually from a panel of therapists in your home or in your car, but knowing it’s not delivery therapy services in any way the have hey man, we got the marriage book out. And you start poking that out and selling that thing, man, through a therapist’s eyes on Amazon.
You can buy a book that helps you understand dynamics of marriage becoming, re-understanding your marriage or becoming your best sp self as a spouse. What is the title anyway? I always get that tongue twist. It’s a lot of words. But that’s okay. Subscribe. Click the bell. Listen, we try to give you fee pre content that you enjoy.
Hopefully we entertain you a little bit. We wanna blow up stereotypes, stigmas, and myths about mental health and substance abuse. And we wanna give you information, disseminate that to you. So your part is to give us the five star reviews. Spotify. Apple gives some, some written type reviews. It makes a big difference for people to find us, and we’d really like that so we can offer this to more people.
Contact it through a therapist.com is the [00:02:00] website email to contact us, and then understanding this is the human emotional experience, which we endeavor to figure out together. Neil, I love, love
Adam Cloninger: line not to. Provide. I
Chris Gazdik: said it. Did you, did he
Adam Cloninger: say it?
Neil Robinson: I did say it. He keeps saying he does, but I must be distracted typing.
’cause I had, I don’t hear, but he is like I said it
Chris Gazdik: absolutely, I said it. That goes with the you know, get personal time in your car, in your home, and we just send me the information to you knowing it’s not delivery. I do it. Okay. It’s in there. What’s up man? How’s your week been? It’s been busy too. Yeah, I know.
Neil was
Adam Cloninger: talking about being busy. I’ve been busy too.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So on the month in review, we start the month in review show with what we call down the rabbit hole with Adam. He brings us a crazy topic, a fun topic, an interesting topic, something hopefully to do with mental health and so, and or substance abuse.
Sometimes that’s questionable, but recently you’ve been doing really, really well, man. Where are we going at today? Where’s the, [00:03:00] where’s the rabbit hole today?
Adam Cloninger: Okay, so today I, I think this is more of a, a happier thing. So I’ve heard this before and I, I figured y’all probably had to, but I, I actually saw a little documentary on it, so I got some notes here on my phone that I’ve kind of wanted to go back and just mention to and kind of get y’all’s feedback.
Okay. And I have, I have some pointers on it about what happened, but I’m just gonna kind of, so there’s a hypothesis that dog domestication led to human self domestication. Hu Say that again. There is a hypothesis that dog domestication led to human self domestication.
Chris Gazdik: Dogs got domesticated before humans.
Adam Cloninger: No,
Chris Gazdik: I do not under even understand.
Adam Cloninger: Okay. So the hypothesis proposes that potential, there’s a potential feedback loop between the two processes. So basically they’re saying in the breakdown, the key, the key ideas here that dog dome, the dog domestication as, as dogs were the, the first domesticated animals.
They developed unique [00:04:00] adaptations and humans on hu impact on humans. Close cohabitate cohabitation with wolves. Dogs might have influenced humans in several ways. And the kind of the key things here is a reduced aggression enhanced social sociality and cognitive development. Y’all never heard this before?
No. I, I’d heard of it years ago, but I just,
Chris Gazdik: sociology is where this is coming from and that’s fascinating. What, so, but I’m not understanding you. What I think I hear you saying, okay. Is that humans, of course, domesticated themselves in homes and caves and whatever, and the homeostasis or the whatever, when cavemen were coming us, and then when they started incorporating dogs into their community or into their relationship, that changed humans.
Mm-hmm. In clear and dramatic ways. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.
Adam Cloninger: Well, and that, now it started from, from the documentary I saw, and this is the part I wasn’t familiar with, there, there was a study done, it was years ago. I don’t remember if it was in the seventies or [00:05:00] sixties or whatever, but they were doing some some research on foxes and they were.
They were breeding foxes and they were picking foxes, picking out different attributes on it, kind of trying to domesticate foxes. And they started noting different things about like the size of their face, the floppier ears, the less aggression. And that’s where this kind of hypothesis finally started from.
Chris Gazdik: So, you know what’s fascinating about this, Neil, is I, clearly Adam was listening to all the June, 2025 shows clearly, closely the whole time, because this has to come Adam from the show that we did on the Healing Power of Relationships, right? Yes, that’s exactly, I was listening to show, and that’s the
Adam Cloninger: first thing I thought of
Chris Gazdik: because we talked about similar concepts actually in, in that you know, that’s where my head went, Neil, right?
We were talking about like dogs and, and you know, man’s best friend and how that really does have an impact on relationships.
Neil Robinson: Yeah, I mean that’s, I mean the interesting part is ’cause it started making sense, right? [00:06:00] If, if mankind is always hunting, gathering, all of those things, and then you bring in a partner like a dog to come in and one, take some of that responsibility off of you.
Now you don’t have to, you know, be always on guard. We talk about reduced aggression, right? And then you also, dogs have a natural pac tendency, right? With relationships and building things. So you, now that you bring them in, they become your, your pals and your buddies and you build that relationship too.
I mean, it makes a lot of sense that it
Chris Gazdik: really does.
Neil Robinson: While we did domesticate the dogs, it still comes back. Like it does create a cycle. They impacted us too. They, they heavily impacted us because of that thing, and that’s why dogs are awesome.
Chris Gazdik: I, yeah, I, I think that’s absolutely more than likely Adam and I, you know, man’s best friend, is that statement comes for a reason.
And you know, we can get into, and we’ll get into it on that segment honestly, maybe we should reserve a little bit combined the, the rabbit hole with. What was that show? Three, I think. Right? So this is actually one of the ones you’re gonna
Adam Cloninger: be reviewing. Seriously. It [00:07:00] really was. Really? Yeah. We,
Chris Gazdik: we did a show on the second, what was it?
Where’s it at? The Healing Power Relationship. It was three 15. Yeah. Is the second show that we, we were gonna review is talking about the relationships that we have with people and how important those relationships are to our wellness and our mental health. ’cause the reality of it is we are so splintered in a lot of ways now with social media and whatnot, and I think that we’re losing that a lot, a, a lot of that closeness.
And so when you’re living with and communing with an animal, though they’re not speaking a language or developing a human to human relationship, they’re absolutely developing a relationship with you. It’s our pet. And and that’s disturbing when they get hurt or when they get upset and their mannerisms are going to be a part of the culture of the group.
So, yeah, I could see how that naturally coalesced together.
Adam Cloninger: Of course there’s, you know, people who are saying it’s all a bunch of bull and they have reasons that they think it’s not, but I thought it was, those are dumb people. I thought it was really interesting. I really did. [00:08:00]
Chris Gazdik: Those are dumb people. No, that is fascinating.
As a matter of fact, I haven’t studied a lot on sociology and, you know, the study of cultures from, from, you know, different areas of the world and different ages and times and compared them all and whatever. But I, I think that stuff is fascinating. The humanistic nature of the way we developed socially and emotionally is, is is a big deal.
Am I missing something? You guys are looking at the book and like using phones? No. What’s, what’s going on? I’m confused.
Neil Robinson: No, I was looking at something else from. From something early that we’ll bring up later. But I was looking up something else. No,
Chris Gazdik: I was like, he’s looking up here at the thing you guys are put on.
No, I’m just, I was like, what happened? Man, I, I
Neil Robinson: was looking for the, the comment I told you, we had a comment on one of our shorts and I was gonna bring that up when we talk about, so I was just pulling it up. Oh yeah, that’s a, that’s a cool thing to do actually. I.
Chris Gazdik: Kind of intended to do that on a couple comments we had on some shows, ’cause there was another really good one.
So
Neil Robinson: yeah, so, so if you do catch anything of our shows, feel free to comment. Chris, Chris and me are always on these, Chris is really on top of these comments, [00:09:00] so he’ll give you his feedback. So if you don’t agree with him, tell him you don’t agree with him and, and tell him why he, we have actually really, I’ve seen a few conversations start from these things.
That’s been really fun. So if you listen to the show, comment on our lives, comment on our shorts, you know, give us your 2 cents on it so we can either agree, disagree, or just agree to disagree.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. We did the one on love recently and we were talking about the language of love and that kind of thing.
And some people had yeah, it was a cool, it was a cool little discussion. I didn’t make copies of it. No,
Adam Cloninger: that was last month, wasn’t it
Chris Gazdik: last week
Adam Cloninger: actually. Didn y’all do something last month that was similar about that though, I thought, mm, I thought we reviewed something last month that had something along those same lines.
Chris Gazdik: Did we? I don’t know. Sure. It all blur together. Sure. I, yeah. There’s too many shows to bleed together. It just blurred to, to put me on the spot that quick is, is, is difficult. So shall we go in then? ’cause this will come back up it real quick on the re and what show are we on
Adam Cloninger: now?
Chris Gazdik: So we are on, the first show is episode three 14 that we did Don’t take things [00:10:00] personally in your marriage.
This should be a fun conversation with three guys. I think I first of all, I, I will say I feel as though I’m gonna do the same project with book number two that I did with book number one and book number one. What I did was I took all of the chapters and I came up with categories and it ended up being like four of them that sort of whittled the whole book down into like four categories.
They were stop and reflect on emotions, value yourself, focus points and action points. And so I. It was just kinda neat. It wasn’t all of the chapters, but it was most all of the chapters fit in in some way or another to one of those four categories. And I’m gonna do the same thing with the marriage book.
So I’m gonna take all the chapters together and kind of bunch ’em together and play around with what are the themes, because those are going to whittle down the entire marriage book into like these themes, which I think is really pretty cool the way it worked with book number one. So one of these I know is gonna be, don’t take things personally in your marriage.
So that’s a bit of the [00:11:00] bit of the genesis of this. ’cause it is a huge area in a marriage that if you’re doing a lot of this, you’re probably gonna be struggling. If you’re not doing a lot of this, you’re probably gonna be in what we call a healthy relationship. I think this is a really pivotal concept in the concept of marriage.
What do you think about the show when we recorded that, Neil? I. Don’t take things because it too long to remember. Too long ago for you? No, sorry. That was rather rude and aggressive, wasn’t it?
Neil Robinson: No, I, I think I remember parts of it. I definitely remember the parts where John and Victoria said important stuff, but you know, just not your part, just not your shots fired.
I think it’s, this is so critical, right? I think that’s when it comes to a healthy relationship, like. You guys did a really good job talking about, you know, how do you balance, how do you fight with those things? Because if you, if you live in a relationship that everything that happens is taken personally, [00:12:00] it’s gonna cause a lot of issues.
And so I think you guys did a great job talking about how to not do that. Where, you know, where do you go with these pieces, how to help remediate some of those things. And I think you also talked about like past traumas and stuff, right? Where you’re talking about past traumas can lead to a lot of those things.
So that was a really, really good show. So I, you know, to me, if, if you are struggling with that in your relationship, go back and watch it. ’cause it does help you get to the root of why do I take the, what, you know, when my wife says something, what triggers me? Or if you say something to your wife and it, and she gets triggered on it and she gets defensive, she just like.
There’s more to this than people understand. So it’s a great show to start trying to help you understand like, why do I react like this? Or why did my wife or my husband react like that? It’s, it was a really good show.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, that’s, and, and you know what, honestly Neil, that’s a wonderful quick little activity or question to ask yourself.
Honestly, that’s a cool teaching moment because when you’re in a close attachment and something’s going on and you feel so, so some sort of way, as the kids say you are, [00:13:00] get in your feels. The that’s what the kids say. You’re in your feels. So if you ask yourself the question, why am I thinking the way that I’m thinking about this?
Or Why am I feeling this way? Just simply looking and pausing like, what’s going on with me here, you will probably find out that you’ve taken something personally. And then you could pull yourself back off of that ledge and, and correct it.
Neil Robinson: There. There’s one book I read at one point where the guy had a, a thing where when you find yourself getting worked up about something, you, you ask yourself, is it true or was it true?
Yeah. You analyze it and then you ask yourself again. So it’s kinda like the seven why’s or whatever. It’s the same thing. You ask yourself three times. Seven, is it true? There’s something about that. Like so many why’s that you have to ask. Five. There we go. I’m a
Adam Cloninger: five. Whys it’s five, seven wives. Why wives, wives whys I want seven wives?
Neil Robinson: Do you? Sorry. But it’s that same idea, right? When I’m getting triggered this happens. You know, is it true? Is really, did she really attack me with that? Did she really? But you ask [00:14:00] yourself that and you rationalize the same thing. It’s just another way to process through those things. And instead of me reacting, well, did she say that because she really doesn’t like my hat that I have?
Or is there something else going on? Or, or
Adam Cloninger: is she just mad at me and wants to like. Lash out, wake me up. Wants to say something. Be because
Neil Robinson: I said something that reminded her of an ex, ex-boyfriend or something. Like, she, she
Adam Cloninger: likes my hat. Yeah, but not tonight
Chris Gazdik: at all. And your beard sucks too, Adam. Yeah, no, I hat there’s a lot of nuance.
Neil, I think you’re right. There’s a, there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of things that kind of go on with that. And, and if you’re not paying attention, you will blow somebody up over a hat and not even realize it.
Neil Robinson: When, when I were at corporate, one of the things they did as a team building thing, and one of the things they told people to do is assume positive intent.
Like, ’cause a lot of times in corporate you get a things where someone does something and then another person gets mad because they, they think they’re trying to sabotage ’em, and it’s like, well, we’re gonna work [00:15:00] on assuming positive intent, whether there is malicious intent or not. The fact that you assume positive changes how you react, right?
Yeah. That
Adam Cloninger: keeps you nicer,
Neil Robinson: right? It keeps you nicer, it keeps you, it
Adam Cloninger: does, yeah. It keeps
Neil Robinson: you from overreacting. It, it keeps things from escalating too fast. So it’s, it’s one of those things, it’s kind of the same idea if someone says something to you or your spouse says something to you or your partner says something, assume positive intent.
Like they’re not really trying to get mad at me. They just, that hat clashed with your, clashed with your eyes at ’em and it just didn’t work today. Right. It’s not, it’s not because you’re stupid and ugly and all that other stuff. Right.
Chris Gazdik: The glasses are a little ugly though. You know what you think? Someone who wears glasses, they’re not really like, I think they’re great.
Neil Robinson: Huh? I think they’re great. They’re good glasses.
Chris Gazdik: Well, they’re awful thin.
Neil Robinson: Well, some people don’t have that bad advice.
Adam Cloninger: I think. I think he’s still mad about the political conversation we had before. This
Chris Gazdik: Adam’s gonna come in next, next time he’s gonna have like no beard, no hat, no glasses,
Adam Cloninger: no, that won’t happen.
I’m gonna have the beard. He, Julie, [00:16:00] loves the beard.
Chris Gazdik: So what about the questions? So let’s, let’s try to answer these with the, the, the provocative questions to think about while the show was going on. How do you typically react when your partner offers criticism or feedback? Can you identify specific triggers that lead you to take things personally in your marriage?
And then what strengths have you found effective in maintaining emotional balance during conflicts? So what do you think, maybe not for yourself individually, but you know, how do people typically react to their partner offers criticism or feedback, right? So somebody, so your partner’s coming at you with an idea.
We’re actually getting a message. Sound is jacked up today. We need to, is it, wonder about that?
Adam Cloninger: Just any, any everybody Or just one person?
Chris Gazdik: Everybody. Or one person? Julie. So yeah. Curious. It’s all
Neil Robinson: right. Do a quick check. Everything. All right. I’m getting the bars, so everything seems fine.
Chris Gazdik: You’re getting the bars.
I’m gonna say that’s you dear. Hopefully [00:17:00] anyway. What, so what happens generally when people come at us with criticisms and feedback and this type of thing, when you’re in some sort of discussion,
Adam Cloninger: some people can’t deal with any kind of criticism regardless at all. At all. Yeah. Can get pretty rough.
Like my, I can say from experience my ex, you could be agreeing with her. And she thinks you’re attacking her dude. Like that’s
Neil Robinson: what I’m saying. But you didn’t say it the right way. That was the problem.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, I hate that phrase. I will get that sometimes too. Like you just, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
Like, shut up. I don’t wanna stop. It’s, I’m sorry, I didn’t put that around the world. Did I say that out loud or is that just a thought? Well, shut up.
Neil Robinson: Well, that, well, that goes back to the difference in like the north versus the south part of America, right? You look at the New Yorkers versus the Southerners and just they can say the same thing, but [00:18:00] because the way they’re said, it’s taking completely different because of the relationships, the people that they have with how they communicate.
Like it is how you say it. Yeah. That that changes the whole thing, right? I guess. Well, there was a, well, by
Chris Gazdik: the way,
Adam Cloninger: you’re coming
Chris Gazdik: in and out,
Adam Cloninger: Neil. There was a guy that I used to work with that a lot of people thought he thought he was a jerk, but then, and I kind did too, and I had some kind of heated discussions with him.
Then one day I realized. Okay. I said something and he’s saying he’s agreeing with me. He sounds the exact same way. It’s like, it’s like he was passionate about the stuff that was going on, but the way he talked about it is like this. The pressure. Yeah. I just,
Chris Gazdik: the pressure, you know? Yeah. I think there’s, generally speaking, I find that people get in their own head.
So the challenge of, am I stupid looking? Am I sounding dumb? Am I looking, you know, inadequate in some way. You know, is there something going on? You know, why are they [00:19:00] upset? Why are, you know, we, we we’re, we’re so egocentric minded. Then that’s when, if I feel like you’re saying something’s wrong with me, now I’m gonna attack back.
And so this is where you get into crazy arguments in marriage over stupid stuff like crumbs on the, on a table
Neil Robinson: sound any better? I, I Chipotle talk so she can, so she can test and let me know. So Julie let us know if there was any issues. So but no, and that I think that. There’s a lot of stuff that comes into play that we just don’t understand till it’s too late.
You know, when, when you build up this thing for two or three months, anything that your other person says, you, you get hurt by, you get insulted by. And then it just gets to the point where they don’t actually take a step back to realize, you know, we need to figure it out. Like, my wife and I will go through and we’ll just give you, you know, some, some things come up.
We, either one of us gets triggered and we get to the point where we just have, sometimes we have to work it out. Sometimes it’s a day later we might be like, oh yeah, I was kind of heated [00:20:00] yesterday. We talk about it. But if you don’t come circle back to it,
Chris Gazdik: gotta circle back
Neil Robinson: to address it, you’re just gonna assume the other person either thinks you’re stupid or whatever you, you know, like you said, you know, those are things that happen, but you have to circle back and say.
Did you really mean it this way? Right? Mm-hmm. You know, did you know, did I take it wrong? You know, those, so there’s a lot of stuff that people, if they don’t come back and and address it, it that’s the, you know, at leads to resentment, you know, which we kind of talk about in the other stuff, but at least to resentment, which resentment is like at the killer of marriage, right?
I talked about that. I think sometimes people
Adam Cloninger: mean it at that time, and then think about it and think, that was probably not the best thing to say. I, I
Chris Gazdik: was outta
Neil Robinson: line.
Chris Gazdik: Did it really mean it, you know, Neil? Yeah. You know, you, you are touching on a teaching moment there, honestly, with the idea that we talk a lot about in therapy world to get curious rather than get angry.
It’s kind of like you. Said before too, you know, we wanna check out, like, you know, assume that [00:21:00] there’s good intent and, and check out and search what this person really is trying to do in a positive way. Similar to that way, if you get curious about what’s going on rather than, you know, just feel attacked or feel taking it personally, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll be in a much better, much better space.
So get curious is what I was thinking about when you were talking, Neil. So I, I baited people with a second question. Can you see how I may have baited people? Can you identify specific triggers that lead you to take things personally in your relationship?
Adam Cloninger: Say that again?
Chris Gazdik: Can you think of specific triggers, right, that, that lead you to taking things personally?
Adam Cloninger: I, I, can I, not for me, but I can think of, you know, there would be times where I say somebody was, I don’t know, short, fat, dumb. I.
Chris Gazdik: Wearing ugly glasses. Well, wearing
Adam Cloninger: ugly glasses or, you know, liked certain black and yellow teams or something like that. Whew. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. [00:22:00] I have no, no.
Chris Gazdik: The Steelers are wonderful, by the way.
Are you and mid thought or did I just take you away? You know what, I’m gonna take you away because I baited people. Neil, any any way of understanding how I baited people there? Come on marriage. I gotta talk about EFT, right? There it is. There it is. Those are fundamental triggers. You know what I mean by that?
Neil Robinson: Yeah. How, how you react when things get stressful. Right, right. You know, hiding or attacking, I mean. Encroaching, whatever you wanna say for abandonment people
Chris Gazdik: we pursue. Yeah, it’s, it’s the whole EFT thing. Like the abandonment people pursue engulfment, people withdraw. And we’ve talked about that on the show a lot because it’s so e ft it’s so fundamental with emotionally focused therapy.
EFT. Right? And we’ve got a lot of shows on that. 11 1 0 1, 2 0 1, 3 0 1 are good ones to go at. And 4 0 1 when we create it, you see a pattern there. But no, like, you know, those insecurity states absolutely are going to be [00:23:00] at, I’m gonna make up a number, but like 90% of the, the, the, the, the foundations of what you take personally, because you start losing your mind when you get into that scared state because you’re kind of triggered, you’re triggered, you’re tripped out, you’re not in your head, you’re, you’ve just, literally, your emotions took over.
So when your emotions take over, when you’re scared the most, so,
Adam Cloninger: so the, so the person basically hears something like. I don’t like your team, but I actually think what you had was a good idea while ago and you’re like, all you heard was,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t like your team and you’re gonna leave me. I’m gonna be alone, and now we have a problem and I’m gonna abandon a person and we have to talk about it.
Yeah. Right. Or should we do the the engulfment thing? Say it again. Go ahead. Say the same line.
Adam Cloninger: I dunno what I said. Exactly.
Neil Robinson: But you don’t like his team.
Adam Cloninger: I’m kidding about your team guys. My team’s fine. I’m not worried about it. No, I’m just saying. So people get triggered by something and then, and and they, what?
They they hear something and then from that point on, they’re like,
Chris Gazdik: [00:24:00] so the same line was, Hey, I don’t like your team, but you had a really good idea with the thing. Yeah. An engulfment person’s gonna say, oh, now you’re triggering me. You’re, you’re criticizing me and you’re coming down on me and crashing on me.
So it doesn’t, my, my point is, it doesn’t matter what you said. I have my own perspective for my own insecurity set, and I’ll go with that. That’s what’s gonna dominate me. So that’s what people get triggered by, I think.
Neil Robinson: And then you have this situation where if you don’t realize your, your, your partner’s an abandonment or golf man, when an a golfing person shuts down and goes away, mm, you freak out because we’re alone.
What happened? What’s going on? And then when the, when the abandoned person comes back and, you know, meets. Matches your energy and some, because they’re trying to over, you know, overcompensate what you’ve done, because now they’re hurt. You don’t know how or why they’re doing that. Right? So understanding your o the, the other partners, like how they react when they do get triggered or take things, personal changes the dynamic of, once again, assuming positive intent or what’s going [00:25:00] on or, or why are they doing this right?
And get curious. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: get curious. Lastly, what strategies have you found effective in maintaining emotional balance during conflicts? Look, when you’re talking about taking things personally in marriage, you have got to understand what you’re trying to do is prevent your internal emotion from taking over.
So really the answer to this question, what strategies do you use? To develop internal resiliency. That’s the main thrust, because if you’re internally resilient, the partner may be coming at you and criticizing you or maybe shutting down and leaving you. But that doesn’t have to mean that it’s about you.
And if you can figure that out, manual, save yourself a whole lot of literal heartache as a, as a result. So anyway, where we landed on this is just a, i, I think, a pretty good list of, of strategies or things to, to help you out in that endeavor that I just, that I just said. How do we go through that?
It’s a long list. [00:26:00] Should I just read it? Neil? Pause. Before reacting, you go to the next one. Seek clarification, reframe feedback, build self-awareness. I actually have been talking about develop curiosity.
Neil Robinson: Trust is something built, not just given blindly.
Chris Gazdik: Pausing on trust is like, and there’s a lot that goes into that.
If you have a highly developed trust level in a relationship, you’re gonna traverse this a whole lot better than if you’re already in a distrusting state. You’re really kind of screwed. But understand, there’s two elements to trust. I always like to point out on a scale of one to a hundred, a hundred is high levels of trust, one is limited or none, you’re gonna trust somebody’s intent, and you’re also gonna entrust somebody’s ability.
So you might trust your husband’s intent to talk with you and to be with you, and to love with you, but you might not really trust their ability because you see that, eh, they’re drinking, you know, 10 beers a day. And, and they’re not fully [00:27:00] functional here,
Adam Cloninger: right?
Chris Gazdik: So their ability is very limited. Trust, though you might trust their intent on a high level anyway, trust is just a big, a big deal.
And I
Neil Robinson: think that’s also super important to, to differentiate that, right? If you’re, if you have an argument with someone, if that’s, if not being trusted by your partner is a big, like, could be a big trigger for a lot of people, right? I trust you. Why don’t you trust me, right?
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yeah. Well, being
Neil Robinson: able to very clearly state, well, I know you have good intentions, but I know your follow through sucks, right?
So how do we work through that, right? And so the fact that you can say, Hey, I trust you, 50% of the stuff at least opens the door for that conversation, right? Because I just think a lot of people, they just say, I either trust you or I don’t. But breaking it down to the two different things allows you to open up that door and say, Hey, I, I trust your ability.
But sometimes you’re intents off like, I don’t know if you really, you
Chris Gazdik: O’Neal people are terrified to have those kind of conversations. I mean, you totally just [00:28:00] described a magical and amazing and a very healthy process I find in marital counseling. Like I have to really, really set that up and carefully, you know, converse that you know, I have to facilitate that and traverse that with people.
’cause that doesn’t come naturally. People are struggling to do that.
Neil Robinson: A lot of, they have a lot of baggage to work through. Yeah. And, and I think the idea of breaking down the trust, ’cause I don’t think before you, I don’t know if I’ve really heard it as far as the, the two different, the two levels, levels of trust, right?
Mm-hmm. And so it, it kind of just reframes like, you know, it’s a lot there. Yeah. So I think that that’s an interesting way to kind of break it down. I just don’t think people understand that. Right. You know.
Chris Gazdik: You’ll see this list of things. Strategies to avoid taking things personally has a lot to do with how you’re managing your own emotion.
One of the things I brainstorm is build yourself up. Like you have got to understand that your spouse is not on this earth to make you happy. Adam, [00:29:00] he’s like, stone faced. What? Because he’s shocked. My,
Adam Cloninger: my future one is, that’s not true.
Chris Gazdik: She does a good job of that. She does a great job, but she is not here to make your life, you know, well, or to make your emotions secure or to engage your trauma and make it better.
Adam Cloninger: You may get a message here in a minute
Chris Gazdik: that that’s what she’s gonna do. She’s gonna fix your emotions. I, I’m looking for an email here. On my phone would be a text. Having other outlets to support yourself, family, friends, super important. I just put on there, develop internal resiliency. The Serenity Prayer is an amazing piece of this.
The serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things that you can and the wisdom to know the difference is huge in internal resiliency. Thus huge in not taking things personally from the article below. Things to avoid. You assume someone is out to get you, you label the other’s person quietly.
Continue your sense of insecurity and isolation. [00:30:00] Those are, I I, I need to read. Do you remember that article, Neil? I don’t think I even remember that.
Neil Robinson: Nope,
Chris Gazdik: I don’t. Those are things to avoid anyway. Understanding your family culture is a huge piece here too. You know, I didn’t have great models, man. Love my mom and dad, but like they were not good models at all.
And if you don’t have a good model, you’re starting this game out, not having any idea what to do because you’ve never seen it. Right. Understand your culture, deal effectively with your own distress, and then let feelings come and go as they will understanding they can lie to you. That, that’s just emotion management.
Right? Let’s move on to show number two, the healing power of relationships, where we get to talk about Adam’s dogs, Adam’s dogs from the sociology thing. The three questions. What relationship in your life has had the most positive impact on your wellbeing? When have you [00:31:00] felt supported or healed by someone close to you?
And how did it affect you? And what’s one small step you could take today to strengthen a bond in your social circle? So if we dive into those a little bit I. Who’s the most impactful? I want to answer this honestly, ’cause I love answering this right now. Just because my mom’s in, you know, a memory care facility, it’s been really tough to watch her progress into the dementia and ugh.
And she is a good gal, man, A good woman. I like to say, man, she made everything fe seem okay when nothing was okay back in the days of divorce and single parent and all that. So I have mad respect for my mom. I love her deeply and just, she, she, she did a lot for, for all three of us kids. So she’s a, she’s an amazing woman.
Love you mom. Although she’s in memory care, she’s a little different. Right. So that’s definitely my answer to that. But do, do people, do you think people have a hard time or easy time answering, you know, like thinking who really influenced me that way? [00:32:00]
Adam Cloninger: I think some people will have a hard time. Yeah.
But I think some people have a easy time.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm.
Neil Robinson: I think, I think if you put, I think if you put caveats to it, like, you know, it can’t be your spouse, it can’t be your, your parents can’t be your sibling. Right? If you, if you put those things, if you put those caveats, I think it changes the whole dynamic of the conversation.
Yeah. Now you’re gonna make
Adam Cloninger: it real
Neil Robinson: hard because, I mean, I think where, because this was a show where Alicia actually, because everything else fell through, actually Alicia was on the show with, with me. And so it was like, the easy answer is like, yeah, she impacted me and
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that was the show she was in.
Yeah. Was that the one, ah, shout out to Alicia, miss Alicia Robinson for hanging out with us to cover her show with us. I, that, that worked out way, that worked out great.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. That was fantastic. So, so yeah, I think, I think there’s a lot of people that make impact, but I think if you take the caveat of family and those things, it kind of changes the whole dynamic.
So I think there’s a lot of people that have impact, but if you think about someone that’s not family. That makes it a little bit harder, you know? Mm-hmm. Coworkers, friends, [00:33:00] classmates, it, right. That’s true.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a really, really good
Neil Robinson: point. Like, like if you take your mom outta the equation Yeah. Can be family.
Who made an impact for you?
Chris Gazdik: I, I, I was, that’s what I was just experimenting with and thinking, I mean healing related and healing. Relate. A healing kind of thing. I, I, I would have to think about, it’s totally,
Adam Cloninger: so
Chris Gazdik: that’s totally a head scratcher.
Adam Cloninger: So for me, I can think of like different aspects about certain people.
Like there’s a, a, a supervisor I used to work with, and then one thing you always said when you come in, you say, I got a problem. We have an opportunity.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yes. It’s a reframe. So, yeah.
Adam Cloninger: So I mean, it’s
Chris Gazdik: total reframe.
Adam Cloninger: That was something that I, I mean, I remember this day him saying that, and. You know, but made an impact on you and stuck with you.
But that’s just one thing I could think of just that. But I can’t really,
Chris Gazdik: yeah, I mean, you know, I think that is a healing nature and stuff. And you know, honestly, I, when you get outta family, I, I started to think about my kids and my family. I was stuck on that, but that’s a pretty easy question for me.
Honestly, though, thinking of friends, [00:34:00] like, I can think of just the people that I call friends, they’re really, really close to me. And, and I, I mean, they have, you know, I’ve had many two o’clock in the morning conversations with, with one of these guys that I’m thinking about. So, so you go and you think about what the friendship do for you, who’s impactful in that way.
And you probably go right to your best friend, you know, as a, as a good answer.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. And I think one thing that’s important to think about too is like, if, if someone’s impactful to you. And, and how they, how they treat you in that whole relationship. Like what can you do to, and you, I think it talks about the, you know, what, what strong, what small step can you do to strengthen your bond with someone else, right?
If you know that someone impacted you,
Chris Gazdik: that’s the third question,
Neil Robinson: right? The third question, right? So then the thing is like, now what can you do to your other friends or your other people to be like, how, how can I make an impact on them? Right? And so you kind of, it kind of shifts it a little bit because it becomes, relationships are a give and take, right?
Sometimes one relationship you’re, you’re taking and some relationships you’re giving. And I think that’s a very thing to remember that, you [00:35:00] know, if you’re, if you’re impacted, what can you do to impact someone else?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. There’s a reciprocation that you, you wanna, that you wanna do, but you know what’s, what’s interesting?
Well, the third question actually is, is a little bit different flavor. What’s one small step you could take today to strengthen a bond in your social circle? And you know what I think about as the friendship shows that we’ve done? Like I have this belief that if you want to. Deepen or strengthen a friendship or create a friendship, then you do a genuine reveal.
And what I mean by that is if I start talking to you, Neil and I don’t really know you that well, and I’m sharing, you know, some pretty heavy things, some pretty important things to my life. Like the Pittsburgh Steelers are gonna be really good this year at the Pittsburgh Steeler camp. The training camp opens in two months.
Adam, I’m so excited.
Adam Cloninger: I’m excited
Chris Gazdik: for
Adam Cloninger: you, Chris. Yeah, man, I hope it does, does do real well.
Chris Gazdik: Ah, thank you. That means a lot to me. I don’t think you really meant it Neil, though, but if I, if I meet you and I don’t know you and I start talking about something that [00:36:00] is vulnerable or that is a reveal that is going to invite you to, in turn do the same thing, it almost gives you permission to, to reciprocate knowing that you’re not going out on a ledge.
’cause I’ve already done that. So, interestingly enough, if you wanna strengthen your social circle, reveal more about yourself to them.
Adam Cloninger: Well, that’s like people say about if you want somebody to trust you. Fair enough. Ask them for something first before, wait a minute, what did they say? Yeah, the I remember seeing something about, there was a study about if say person one needs person two to like trust them and person one might ask them for something like, Hey, can you hand me those napkins or whatever, just right something you know, small to ask ’em for something.
That way they feel like a person’s more trustworthy because they actually ask for something minor.
Chris Gazdik: I don’t think I’ve seen this before. You never heard that [00:37:00] before? You coming across
Adam Cloninger: anything in your travels, I’m probably stating it incorrectly or something.
Neil Robinson: I mean, it makes sense. You start with something small that they can kind of, that’s insignificant, right.
That, that they can accomplish for you. Right. It’s not risky. Right. Not risky. It’s, but yet now it’s all of a sudden Okay. Poor example, but you said it. Right. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah. Don’t take that defensive. Okay. Yeah. It is a horrible example. What were you thinking?
Chris Gazdik: What I thought you were saying is, yeah, I need to trust you or I, I, I need to, to, to, yeah.
I, I need to, so, I mean, you don’t walk in and say, Hey, I need money, so, so I’m, so I’m gonna test you and say, Hey you know, can you go jump off that bridge for me? No. Something insignificant or a mafia type thing where, hey, go down and hit this guy out. He, we, you know, then we’ll trust you. Yeah. Not quite that, that’s not quite what you meant, I guess, right?
No. This is an interesting show concept, I think, because if, you know, the healing power of connection is so. Strong and so important in the [00:38:00] way that we’re going to relate to each other, and particularly, but not exclusively by any measure. Men tend to fall into a trap where we just want to be a lone wolf and, you know, not talk about anything that’s significant and internalize all this stuff and try to appear strong.
And women do this too. This is not just a guy thing, but man, it just doesn’t work really well. You’re not going to heal very well if you try to just do that on your own. You definitely, quote unquote, need other people. Would you guys agree with that general statement? And dogs and, and dogs. And dogs, yes.
And dogs. That’s awesome. All right. There’s a lot of science behind this. I’m not, we, we talked about it a little bit more than I think I’m gonna do here, but if you think about physical touch, hugging, holding hands, you know, expressions of. Appreciation. I have a really perfect example of, of an appreciation gesture that was given to me [00:39:00] as a kid and it made a big impact.
So there is a drop in cortisol. There is an drop in adrenaline when you’re talking about hanging out with the dogs. This is why it was so uncanny. I’m like, he clearly listened to episode. What was this? Anyway, Neil 3 3 15, 3 15. Because when you brought up the sociological rabbit hole. The dogs make a massive influence in the group when you invite them in to the, the, the unit.
We didn’t know it back then, but literally adrenaline drops. You don’t have to be on guard. You don’t have to be on edge. Your cortisol is a hormone that keeps you like wrangled. Like, I will get shaky when I’m shaken mad. Do you ever hear that expression shaking, mad? Well, that’s because your body literally has this entire adrenaline, cortisol, hormonal reaction when you’re all worked up and when you pet a dog or when somebody is with you.
If you have a companion, when you hug, when you touch. That is a [00:40:00] powerful, powerful signal to the human body to settle down, to be calm. Like it’s really, really cool. Right. So I’m,
Adam Cloninger: so I’m gonna find this documentary and send it to you so you can watch it.
Chris Gazdik: I, I would be fascinated. I mean, I, I, I really liked it.
Seriously, I would be fascinated with that.
Adam Cloninger: And it, it is saying everything you’re saying now.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. That’s cool. So evidently, I’m on point, Neil. So, when I was a kid, I was very insecure. It was during the divorce time that I just mentioned. I had a lot of struggle adjusting to all of that. It was a, that was a, that was a tough time Hum.
Dinger in my life. And so I started working when I was about 16, you know, got the job and there, there was this kid that I thought I just, I don’t know, for whatever reason, I just thought he was really, really cool. His name was Schmo, his nickname was Schmo. And I don’t know, he was just a, he was a cool kid, man.
I did not feel like I was a cool kid at all. And so it was just one random day I saw that he was approaching me and I was walking towards him and as we were crossing paths, he stuck his hand up as if to [00:41:00] give me a high five. And I was like, oh my God, he’s giving me a high five. Like
Adam Cloninger: I’m a cool kid.
Chris Gazdik: I’m a cool kid and I gave him a high five and I mean, he has no idea.
But for me that was like a very strong, powerful experience that kind of helped me understand like, oh, like, and they were all older than me too. I mean, I was the young guy, I was the, you know, I was, I was also new and slow at my job and I just felt included and appreciated when he did that. And it was just nothing but a high five.
Adam Cloninger: I’m glad he didn’t like say psyche and smacking in the back of the head.
Chris Gazdik: Well, that would’ve been like every other day when I was being picked on. No, I’m exaggerating. I’m exaggerating. But does that make sense? Physical touch is important. Yeah. Physical touch and hugging and holding people you know that you care for and care about.
You know I I, I, it drives me nuts that my kid doesn’t want to be hugged. He’s really weird about that because, you know, I, I was at a conference and learned like, when you don’t touch your teenagers, they literally [00:42:00] begin to incorporate internalized feelings that you don’t love them like you did when you wrestled with them and hugged them and cuddled with them and sat on the couch and all of that, and it stops with your teenagers.
So a great parenting tip on a great parenting tip, unintended, but is now touch your teenagers. You have to find a way to convey through that, that they’re important, that I’m here for you. You know, touch is huge. It has a lot of chemicals involved. That make sense? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I feel like I’m droning on now.
I need to stop talking. Somebody else talk.
Neil Robinson: Thank you. Well, we’re going through that with my, you know, having two kids. I think you talked about your kids too, Chris, that with your two two boys, there’s a difference in how they handle Right. My kids are the same way. My oldest one will go up to, you know, a Alicia and get a hug and kind of hang on her.
’cause he is more touchy. He’s more touchy. Right. My youngest like, he hates it. Yeah. He doesn’t do hugs like we joke because he will like shoulder, like throat punch Alicia’s neck with his, with his [00:43:00] shoulder. With chest? Yeah. Oh, it’s well with the shoulder because of his height, because he doesn’t wanna do a real hug.
It’s like. And so we’ve had a lot of issues with that lately. ’cause my wife is a hugger. I’m not a hugger, which I’ve had to become one. And we’ve talked about length of hugs in the last So you did? Yeah. How you doing
Chris Gazdik: with that, by the way? Oh, I,
Neil Robinson: I’m doing good with that one. So a little bit longer hugs now.
Yeah, I, well, yeah. Alicia’s been working on me with that one. Wife is genetic.
Chris Gazdik: I love that. What if’s
Neil Robinson: your Oh, a hundred percent genetic. And, and I feel bad for my wife having to deal with both of us. But no, that, but that is a big difference, right? So for me, it’s like I’ll walk up, I’ll like, you know, rub their back or just kinda do a quick squeeze or fist bump.
Right. As a guy you do fist bumps. Absolutely. So it’s just always being aware. But my wife wants a hug. It’s like, gimme a hug. Like,
Chris Gazdik: but you know, if you think about that, the fist bump and I told my high five story, what do you feel like immediately after somebody does that with you? Like it’s an acknowledgement of I am accepted, I am enough.
I am okay. I’m not gonna fist bump a stranger. I’ll, I’m not gonna, I, you know, what’s that? I
Neil Robinson: will, you’ll, you’ll go. Yeah. If they come up to me, [00:44:00] I, his pump,
Chris Gazdik: I mean, well, I, I, you obviously you do, but I’m, I’m saying if I see somebody that I’m, you know, the difference if I see somebody that I know they’re going to, it’s a much different experience than if it’s a stranger and I’m just shaking their hand.
That’s, yeah.
Adam Cloninger: Okay. So you’re in Japan.
Chris Gazdik: Yep.
Adam Cloninger: And you’re walking into Japan and the guy’s walking towards you and he’s got, that might happen. And he’s got a really cool Steeler’s jacket, shirt on. Oh, we’re totally jamming. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna fist bump. We’re totally jamming.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, yeah. We’re gonna stop and have a conversation now.
So, so
Adam Cloninger: it just depends on situation.
Chris Gazdik: It does, it is situational. Now we’re gonna have a full conversation in Japan. That’s what’s gonna happen there. Okay. Here’s something before I’m we, we, we need to move on a little bit, I think, but I, but I really wanted to spend a little bit of time on mirror neurons with this episode.
Because this is freaking fascinating and of all places chat, GPT kind of helped me learn a little bit about this ’cause I’ve never heard it quite, quite this way. Now I know we’ve talked about on a show a [00:45:00] little bit, I don’t know what you remember and whatnot, but either of you know much about or every hear much.
I’m curious, especially you, Adam, about mirror neurons. Do, did you know we have them?
Adam Cloninger: I, yeah, I thought we did this on a show before too. Okay. We probably have. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: We, we probably have then. Yeah. Okay. Well then yeah, we’ve talked a little bit about it, but I haven’t heard you, you talking
Adam Cloninger: about like you talking to somebody and that you, they, for example, your.
You’re like leaning on and get something, and I might do the same thing, might make you feel more comfortable or something like that. You talking about that or something else?
Chris Gazdik: I think that, that, honestly, I, I don’t think I know what I’m talking about. Okay. Because I don’t think we understand this stuff a whole lot.
We’re talking about the neurons in your brain and how they operate and what functionally they do. And we’ve only begun to understand even how many neurons we have. It’s, it’s wild, wild, new science, new age kind of stuff. But you, you’re exactly on point. There’s, there’s a symmetry that you develop. [00:46:00] Think about it this way, and this is all my hypothesis, by the way, because I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna say that I’m an expert on this by any measure.
I am not a neurologist, but I think about it this way, Adam, have you ever had the experience of picking up on and then finding yourself with a specific mannerism that you saw that somebody else has that you just start doing?
Adam Cloninger: No.
Chris Gazdik: You don’t really?
Adam Cloninger: No. I can’t think of anything like that.
Chris Gazdik: He’s weird. Neil, you know what I’m talking about.
Have you ever picked up on that?
Neil Robinson: Yeah. You get those things where you’re around certain people. You pick up behaviors, you pick up habits. Right? Right. Adam, Adam is definitely one of like, he’s his own. He goes to the beat of his own drum and stuff like that. So
Chris Gazdik: maybe, but you don’t, you don’t, you don’t ever remember yourself like with a mannerisms using a particular word.
Like if I say cool beans, it’s an old phrase. Now you might start saying cool beans this next week.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. In that sense, yes.
Chris Gazdik: That sort of thing. Yeah. There’s body movements, there’s hand gestures, there’s, you know, voice tone. There are things that you pick up [00:47:00] on and I think that, yeah, that is mirror neurons in practice.
That’s what these things are. So I really, I chat EB, td this stuff and I was kind of impressed.
Adam Cloninger: Is it because you think it’s because we’re not using ’em like we used to?
Chris Gazdik: Not using them like we used to. What do you mean? Like,
Adam Cloninger: you know, social media and stuff we don’t like
Chris Gazdik: Oh, is, well, that’d be an interesting study after we figure out what’s going on with mirroring neurons, how social media has affected it.
Because Yeah, I would say that they’re struggling. That they’re not, they’re we’re losing, we’re probably losing the functionality of mirrors. I was, I was thinking
Adam Cloninger: more along the lines is we’re trying to find another way to use it since we’re not using it the way it was intended.
Chris Gazdik: I That’s a lot. I have no idea.
Yeah, that’s, that’s a, that’s a rabbit hole. Okay. Do that, do that next month. See where we end up. But what, what are these? Mirror neurons are specialized brain cells that fire both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else [00:48:00] performing the same action, which is kind of what we were just talking about, right?
They were first discovered in the early 1990s by researchers studying monkeys. But evidence shows that humans have them, obviously, as well. So it’s, it’s interesting to think about how that biological foundation functions, right? It creates empathy. We have the social connection, we have the learning through imitation, we have emotion contagion.
I almost feel like this is why when somebody yawns, you know what the rest of the room’s gonna do, right? Mm-hmm. On this goes along with the dog thing too. Totally. Goes along with the dog thing. Say what? Tell me what you’re thinking.
Adam Cloninger: No, I mean, just you, you’re, and I think he said it a while ago about the, the social interaction with the dogs.
They’re, you’re, you’re socially interacting with dog calls, wolves, or like a pack animal. So you’re, you did say something along those lines, did you not?
Neil Robinson: Yes, I did. Okay. [00:49:00]
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I mean, what it’s doing is it’s, it’s healing us in a way. You know, it’s providing that emotional safety, the validation. Dogs heal us.
Yeah, that’s what we said sociologically. It’s pretty wild. There’s co-regulation. I do this in therapy a lot. That empathetic connection. We are fostering all the time to have good rapport, good connection. Good. So I can actually hear your traumatic story demonstrate, you know, took a breath. And just relaxed my shoulders.
It literally demonstrates for you in session when you’re in your trauma story, how, because I just did it to relax into this moment, co-regulation, I mean, this is huge. Modeling new patterns of behavior. A a lot of factors go into that. So I So you’re saying,
Adam Cloninger: you’re saying you try to rela relax to make them also try to relax?
Is that what you’re saying? Absolutely. It’s a, it’s a,
Chris Gazdik: it’s a purposeful, functional thing that when, like, even like with [00:50:00] Gestalt therapy, if we’re sitting here, you know, the way we’re sitting, I’m not gonna try to demonstrate it with the microphones, but I just changed my body position and my feet came closer to yours.
Did you notice that? Mm-hmm. Okay. So in Gestalt therapy, my foot would be even closer. And that’s sort of creating a connection between the therapist and the client that actually helps to co-regulate. The turmoil and trauma that you’re literally reliving and it pulls you back into the room together. So there’s, there’s different theories in therapy that operate with this and mirror neurons that evidently we discovered in the nineties.
That is not that long ago.
Neil Robinson: I, I don’t know if I said it on the show. But I know, I think I talked to Alicia about it afterwards. The worst case. I think a lot of the, I think it did say at the end of the show, but I think a lot of the stuff that we discovered in the nineties, if you go back and you look like Dale Carne, Dale Carnegie’s, how to Win Friends and Influence People.
Chris Gazdik: Hmm.
Neil Robinson: A lot of that stuff is, it’s kind of mirror mirroring neurons because you’re doing stuff to build a repo, a quick rapport with someone [00:51:00] they’re seeing to hundred percent ask, there’s ways you react. Like, so if you look at, they say, oh yeah, we just discovered these. But then if you look back at a lot of the sales and marketing, Zig Ziglar and all those, they’re talking about the same kind of things where you do behaviors that influences who you’re with.
Oh yeah. Right. So if you think of it from a sales perspective, this has been going around, you know, whenever, I dunno, when did Dale Carnegie write the book? Six fifties, sixties, forties. Like it’s been a long time. We knew what was happening
Chris Gazdik: without the science of being able to look and study the brain.
Neil Robinson: Right. They just saw the effects of Oh, it works. It does work. Right? And so they just, they didn’t go back on the back end and be like, well, why? You know
Chris Gazdik: what I think is fascinating? And this goes probably totally in a different direction than what we need to, and we need to get to the last show. It’s just fascinating the way that our bodies operate in the way that we were created and how that, how this all functions.
Like we’re, we’re created in a way where we’re driven to connect to cohabitate, to relate, to co-regulate, to be in groups. I mean, [00:52:00] there’s a reason why we’re, we’re pack animals and you know, as because the dogs, because the dogs. I
Adam Cloninger: was thinking I just wouldn’t, I was trying to stay, I was trying to butt out.
But thank you for saying it.
Chris Gazdik: Adam’s really appreciative that you took his his line. It’s squashing my cool thoughts. All right, I’ll quit now. Adam k Clinger. Yes. What is love Whohoo? I put you on a spot just ’cause you did that to me.
Adam Cloninger: You were asking me the same question you asked John. See, I do watch some stuff.
Chris Gazdik: That’s true.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, your shorts pop up a lot. So that was one of the ones, but then it cut off. Did y’all know that it cut off? What did That’s all it said. You asked what is love and it didn’t say anything. It just like that was the short Yeah, that was the end of it. The two second short. No, it was No, like you, I it was more than two seconds.
But you said, what is love? And he just kind of sat there for a minute and then it just went away.
Chris Gazdik: Neil,
Neil Robinson: I’ll have to go back and look at it and see where some, that one was.
Adam Cloninger: You
Neil Robinson: saw [00:53:00] them first. I, I didn’t see that short. I didn’t pick a
Adam Cloninger: short
Chris Gazdik: that was that short.
Adam Cloninger: I mean, I didn’t hear any, you know, John that didn’t respond to it.
Neil Robinson: Interesting. I’ll have to go back and find
Adam Cloninger: it. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you know, what I have found is that sometimes when I’m reviewing the shorts, that actually happens on, on Opus is what we use and I have to, I. Finagle it to hear the whole short. So honestly, still
Adam Cloninger: all right, is cliffhanger.
Chris Gazdik: I wonder that, that, that might be something we need to be aware of.
But anyway, what is love is episode three 16, Adam, that we did on June the whatever last week. And the three questions, do you think love is more about feeling or choosing to commit? How have different kinds of love shown up in your life, romantic passion, deep friendship or maybe self-love? And then what type of love do you want more of in your relationships right now?
Provocative questions, but yeah. Let me seriously then ask you, Adam, what is love? What do you think? I don’t, how, how do you answer that in your own brain? I’m not sure
Adam Cloninger: how to even define that
Chris Gazdik: really.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, I, [00:54:00] yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how to define
Neil Robinson: it. Well, I, I guess you, the, the second part of that is, is it feelings or is it commitment?
Adam Cloninger: Well, it’s both.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s the landing spot for sure. Yeah. But I, I think I wanna ask you honestly, just as a nonclinical person to struggle with that a little bit. Like, you have to ask yourself, you know, does she love me? Does she love me? Not, we’re dating, we’re doing this, we’re doing that. You have parents, family, like, and, and actually it’s, it’s cool ’cause religion’s not a big part of your life either.
No. Fair to say. I think you’ve said that on the show, right? Yeah. Right. So, so what is love then? How do you as a nonclinical person wrangle with that?
Adam Cloninger: I mean, if somebody cares for you, that’s the way of them showing love. And to me that is love. I mean, Julie does things that, you know, just little things, right?
It’s always, always thinking of me. And some people might think it’s just a little minor thing, but I’m like, I, I love it. [00:55:00] Mm-hmm. She’s so awesome. Yeah. She’s all right.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. What do you, what do you hear with that, Neil? I’m, I’m, I’m curious, and, you know, from your perspective in the shows and all, what, what, what is love?
Neil Robinson: I think Adam didn’t wanna become vulnerable there. He’s like, I wanna go, but I don’t. But no, love, love is, I think love starts as a feeling and then it becomes a commitment. I, that’s, that’s the way that I see it.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah.
Neil Robinson: Because I mean, one of those things, like we talk about the different types of love, like infatuation and lust, and then, you know, passion and then deep loving and then family.
It evolves. It evolves, right? Yeah. And I think it gets to the point where you guys talk about fiddle on the roof is like, she chose to do his laundry, his dishes, his cooking for 20 some odd years or 40 years. Milk his cow. Right? Exactly. And it becomes a commitment, right? You have to make that choice every day.
Am I going to love this person or continue loving this person or not? Because as we saw from episode the first show, it’s like, how quick is it? Do we take things personal and then our love [00:56:00] disappears? Because now we’re all triggered and hurt by it. Right. You have to make that choice that I’m gonna choose to love this person that I’m with.
You know, that’s, that’s my take on it. You starts with the infatuation, the rose colored glasses, everything’s great. Once you get past that and you really get committed to it, then you have to make that choice to say, then
Adam Cloninger: you, then you want to start doing stuff for the person more, in my opinion.
Chris Gazdik: Well, actually you might not want, that’s an interesting word I’d like to challenge in your statement, but you choose to do things for that person.
You purposely build into that. ’cause sometimes you’re really not gonna want to, and you don’t have to, but you choose to because you know the other person loves this thing.
Adam Cloninger: Yeah. But there’s, there’s also, and I, I think we may have done a show on this too, kind of. There’s also. It might have been about the it might have been about determination or something.
Mm-hmm. But it was you can also be selfish in that you want to do something for someone [00:57:00] because it makes you feel good. If that makes sense.
Chris Gazdik: Y Yeah,
Adam Cloninger: it does make sense actually. Giving you do it for them, you do that for them. Yeah. But it gives you satisfaction. So, so people, you know that you feel good when you’re clients.
Yeah. Some people can give, you, can, can say you’re doing it, you’re, you’re doing something good, but it’s selfish reason really, because you’re doing it. Now. If it made you feel bad, you probably wouldn’t do it. Correct. So, Chris Gazdik: yeah. Yeah. I think there’s a, there’s, there’s a lot of mixing goes on there. I mean, you, it, you feel good when you’re kind.