Ep 96: Want more connection in your relationship? Try these things
By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast
Feeling distant from your partner? You’re not alone. I hear it all the time: “We feel disconnected,” “Where has the spark gone?” “Do I even love them anymore?”
Life admin, busyness and screens make it easy to drift. The good news? Connection isn’t magic — it’s a set of small, repeatable behaviours you can rebuild.
This episode/blog is your practical guide to restoring and maintaining connection — the real, everyday kind that makes you feel like a team again.
Why “Just Being Together” Isn’t Enough
Sharing a home or a schedule doesn’t automatically create closeness. In the early days, most couples naturally do connective things — curiosity, touch, novelty, time — and then slowly drop them. Today is your invitation to bring them back on purpose.
1) Learn to Spot (and Catch) Each Other’s “Bids”
A concept from the Gottman Institute: a bid is any small attempt to connect — a look, a touch, a question, a comment. Think of it as your partner throwing you a ball.
You can:
Turn towards (catch it): respond, engage.
Turn away: ignore it.
Turn against: respond with contempt, sarcasm, or shutdown.
Research shows couples who feel highly connected turn towards bids about 87% of the time; couples who later separate do so about 33% of the time. The little moments are the big moments.
Action: This week, talk about bids. Ask, “What do I do that’s me throwing you a ball — and where do I drop yours?”
2) Reinstate Daily Rituals (The Basics Matter)
Simple courtesies and routines build safety:
A proper good morning and hello/goodbye.
A hug when arriving/leaving.
A check-in when one of you gets home.
A tiny act of care (make their coffee, pop the toast down).
It’s surprisingly easy to live under one roof but run parallel lives. Little rituals force micro-crossovers — essential for closeness.
3) Stay Lightly Connected During the Day
You don’t need a midday debrief, but one small touch can reinforce “we’re a team”:
A quick “thinking of you” text.
A funny meme.
“Can’t wait to binge the next episode tonight.”
“Coffee at the new place this weekend?”
Short, warm nudges beat silence.
4) Create Weekly Rhythms You Can Actually Keep
Evenings are often where disconnection sneaks in. Don’t force nightly deep-and-meaningfuls — schedule realistic “on” times instead:
e.g. Tuesday/Thursday: no work emails, chores done early, quality time on purpose.
Consider a regular sitter/grandparent night once a month (ask once, set a rhythm).
If you must be home for bedtimes: a first-table dinner before, then home for the routine.
Consistency beats intensity.
5) Share Feelings, Not Just Facts
Factual exchanges (“What did you do?”) don’t create closeness. Switch to feelings questions:
“How was that for you when your boss did X?”
“What do you feel walking in the door after a day like that?”
“What does this situation press for you?”
“What would help you most tonight?”
Aim to see inside each other, not just around each other.
6) Phones Away = Better Brains, Better Bond
A phone-free window boosts connection and your nervous system:
More eye contact → more oxytocin (bonding hormone).
Dopamine regulates; cortisol (stress) drops.
Amygdala (anxiety) calms; default mode network (reflection/creativity) activates.
Define phone-free times (e.g. two evenings a week + bedroom is screen-free). Your relationship will feel the difference.
7) Have Quick, Low-Energy “Us” Activities
Not every connection moment should take two hours and a babysitter. Find easy, 15–30 min activities you both enjoy:
Watch a short YouTube series you geek out on.
A single chapter of a book out loud.
Tea on the deck after dishes.
A playlist swap and listen.
A board/card game round.
In our house, we love watching Drumeo videos (yes, drum nerdery!) — zero effort, high smiles, shared interest. Find your version.
8) Dream Together (and Start a Small Project)
Revisit the big picture:
“What are you working towards this quarter?”
“What’s a ‘one-day-when’ we both love?”
“How can I support your current goal?”
Then pick a shared project: a tiny reno, a veggie bed, a class, a photo wall, planning a trip. Shared achievement bonds you and brings novelty back.
9) Upgrade Your “Thank You”
Skip transactional “cheers for the bins.” Add impact + feeling:
“When you handled the rubbish, I felt seen and supported — it calmed my day.”
People repeat what’s noticed — especially when they know how it lands emotionally.
10) Praise Them (It’s Probably Been a While)
Call out their character, effort and wins:
“I love how patient you were with the kids.”
“You’ve been so consistent at the gym — I’m proud of you.”
“You’re thoughtful with our budget; it makes me feel secure.”
We all thrive on being seen.
11) Work on Conflict (Smoother, Not Perfect)
Another Gottman finding: about 69% of relationship issues are recurring. The win isn’t eliminating conflict; it’s repairing better and faster:
Get clear on your patterns (triggers, escalators).
Shorten the depth and duration of arguments.
Practise repair (time-outs, gentle starts, apologies that land).
Lower spikes, quicker returns to calm — that’s real progress.
Want a Structured Reset? Try Give Me 10 Minutes
If you’re ready for a guided reset but can’t get to counselling, my couples programme Give Me 10 Minutes was designed for you.
6 weeks, one 10-minute audio each week, and a simple discussion guide.
Listen together, talk with prompts, make small agreements, and feel momentum.
Over 50 couples have already completed it, and the feedback is “We wish we had this years ago.”
Find it at charlottecummings.nz.
Quick Recap: Your Connection Checklist
Notice and turn towards each other’s bids.
Reinstate daily rituals (greetings, hugs, tiny acts).
Send light daytime check-ins.
Build weekly rhythms for time “on”.
Ask feelings questions, not just facts.
Define phone-free windows.
Keep low-energy connection activities handy.
Dream and start a small project together.
Make appreciation specific + emotional.
Praise who they are, not just what they do.
Aim for smoother conflict and solid repair.
Don’t settle for disconnection as “just how we are now.” Expect connection, want it, and work on it — a little, every day.
I’d love to hear what you try — email hello@charlottecummings.nz or message me on Instagram.
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Thanks for joining me. Well welcome along to today's episode where we're going to be talking about connection.
This is a really common challenge that I hear about all the time from couples, that they're feeling disconnected from one another, they're not sure where that sense of connection has gone. They wake up and go, I don't even know if I love this person anymore. We just feel super distant.
Maintaining connection in a relationship is really hard when our lives get buried under piles of life admin and busyness. So today what I want to do is give you some ideas around how do you restore and maintain connection within your relationship, given this is such a common challenge. One of the things I think we need to realise about relationships is that in the early days we're often doing lots of things that spark that sense of connection and over time we drop off those activities or habits or ways of engaging with one another and then we end up kind of surprised that the connection isn't there.
So today there are going to be a whole lot of reminders about getting back to some basics, how you put in some effort to make sure you enjoy connection within your relationship. One of the things for us as couples living together is that we kind of can be fooled into thinking the amount of time that we spend together is going to equate magically somehow to a sense of connection with one another and that isn't true. We have to put in a lot more effort than that.
So let's get into the points of today's episode all about inspiring you to restore connection in your relationship. The first thing I'm going to explain is a really helpful concept from the Gottman Institute which is an institute in America that does a whole lot of study around relationships and they have this really helpful concept around bids within relationships. So a bid is an effort that your partner makes to connect with you.
It might be a touch, it might be a question, a look or a comment. If you think about it like this it's kind of like they throw you a ball and then you're deciding whether you're going to catch that ball or not. So a bid is basically like an invitation to connect with us and there are three different responses that we can have.
We either turn towards our partner in that moment where we engage with the bid, we catch the ball or we turn away from them, we ignore it, we don't respond, we just don't catch the ball. And then the other thing people do in response to bids is we can turn against our partner in that moment and that's when we respond with contempt or disgust or a snide remark or we shut them down actively in some way. So turning towards them, turning away from them or literally turning against them, really throwing it back in their face is the way I think you can think about that.
Now what the Gottman Institute have shown through their research is that couples who turn towards one another's bids have more success, happiness and connection in their relationship. In fact, couples who report high connection in their relationship turn towards their partner's bids 87% of the time and couples who end up separating or divorced only turn towards one another's bids 33% of the time. So we know that turning towards our partner's little bids for connection is what creates that sense of safety and trust in relationships and turning away from them is a surefire way to end up feeling disconnected.
What this really reinforces too is that it is the little things, the little ways that we interact that help shape the satisfaction and sense of connection in our relationships. So I encourage you if you're in a partnered relationship right now to talk about this concept of bids. Try and understand what is it that you do that is trying to get my attention? Where do I miss the mark where you're throwing a ball and I'm not even catching it? Where is it that you're trying to get my engagement where I might be dropping the ball at this time? And look throughout this next week to spot those times that your partner is making bids and try and create a really genuine effort to turn towards their bids for connection with you.
The second point I want to make is it is about the daily rituals that we have. So many couples that I talk to in relationship therapy, when I ask them about how their relationship looks on a day-to-day basis, they're missing lots of really basic little things, even like saying hello to each other in the morning. Even things like acknowledging when the person has come home or asking about their day and connecting with them in some way.
A hug hello or goodbye is really important and simple. So those little rituals, I encourage you to get back to those absolute basic things that are courteous and warm where you're showing a little bit of effort and you've got something that's kind of ritualistic about that, like taking them their morning coffee or putting the toast down for them. Those little things that show that you care and keep you engaged with one another's lives.
It is really easy to live under the same roof and feel disconnected from one another because you're living independent lives. So making those little points where you cross over during your day is surprisingly important. It never ceases to amaze me when I'm working with couples, the number of things they say they are just not doing in terms of kindness and care for one another in their day-to-day lives.
My third point is try and stay connected during the day. So for a lot of couples, they work apart during the day. Someone might be traveling for work.
You might have a relationship that looks a bit like a tag team. Now if you are completely ignoring your partner when they are away from you, that doesn't help your sense of connection. And I think the odd little message or phone call or check-in in some way, even if it's sending them a funny meme or letting them know that you're thinking of them, can be really helpful to create that sense that you're actually a team.
That you're going about your individual distinct day but you're in this together. So maintaining those points of connection, letting them know that you care about them is something that you can easily drop into your week. Now, do I think you need to be calling each other every lunchtime and asking how your day is going? No, I don't.
But the odd little check-in, thinking of you, looking forward to tonight, catching up on that Netflix show together, hey, this weekend I'd really love to go to coffee at that new place. Whatever it is that you can do that maintains that sense of we are in this together is really significant for feeling connected emotionally to your partner. No one wants to live a life that is just all about the functional things where you head off in your different directions and that is that for the day.
Try and get that sense that you're on the same team and you're in this together. Number four, I want you to think about rhythms in your relationship. So often couples talk to me about the patterns that they have of disconnection, particularly in the evening.
Now, I get it that our lives are busy, sometimes we just want a bit of blob time in the evening. We want a bit of time without pressure or tasks to do. Sometimes we even just need a little bit of time within ourselves at the end of the day.
Now I get that and that is a reality, but what are the rhythms around the times that you do connect? So instead of setting yourself up with a really unrealistic expectation that we're going to connect together every evening on the couch, we're going to have a deeper, meaningful conversation about how we're doing in our life goals and whatever it is. You don't actually need to do that, but earmarking some time that is your time on is really helpful. So what if it's on a Tuesday and a Thursday night, we try and have quality time together.
We don't open our computers to look at our work emails. We're making an effort to get the dishes done before the kids are in bed so we can have that time together in the evening. We're planning what we want to do with that time together.
We're making those times when we're on for each other really obvious within the week. Sometimes too, we need a bit of help to make that connection time work within our relationship and I'm a really big fan of setting up rhythms that keep you going when it comes to that time for connection. So what about once a fortnight, once a month, having a night that the kids are going to a babysitter or something is happening that allows you to have time off together and this might look really different in different seasons and for different families.
Maybe you do need to be there for every bedtime with your children. That's okay and I get it, but you can go out and do a first table, have an early dinner and then get home for that bedtime putting them down routine. Think about the stage of life that you are in and how you maintain that sense of connection in a way that has some rhythm to it.
I love the idea of asking once instead of constantly thinking, oh no, now I need to ask someone to help me, can you do something that sets up a rhythm? Hey grandparents, can we send the kids to you one night every month so that we have this time together regularly? The next thing I want to share with you is about learning how to share feelings and not just a factual recount of your day. This is something that I work on a lot with couples where they have this really surface level conversation about what happened within their day and they exchange facts. Now that is not a really good way to get a sense of closeness with another person.
So I think a lot of people need to really scale up their ability to ask good questions within their relationship. So if you're talking to your partner about their day, you could ask, how was that for you? What is that like for you that this situation is happening around you at work? How do you feel when your boss does that? What do you feel when you come home after a day like that? Now I know that that is a lot of feelings questions, but you want to drop down into that sense of really getting to know what's happening internally for your partner, not just what is it that is going on functionally and behaviorally in their lives. Learn how to ask good feelings questions that allow you to get into their mind and heart and see what is happening for them.
Tell me about how that reminds you of that situation that happened years ago, or what is that push for you? Or gosh, that must be really tough. Tell me more about that. Or for me, I'd react like this.
What happens for you when that situation occurs? So the focus here is not just on what did they do, but how was that for you? Okay, you knew that this was going to be somewhere in this episode, but I'm going to talk about it. You need to put your phone away. Now I get it that there are times that everybody wants to have a little bit of a doom scroll.
People like to have that kind of flop on the couch at the end of the day and catch up on messages or news or read something interesting. And I love that for you, but I don't love that for your relationship. And I think something we need to focus on is those times when our phones are literally away.
So let me remind you of some of the basic neuroscience of putting your phone away. If you put your phone away, you maintain eye contact more with your partner. That releases oxytocin, which is a really nice hormone to have flooding through your brain and your body.
Your dopamine regulates. Your cortisol lowers. All of these great benefits happen when you disconnect from your phone and focus on that connection with your partner.
Your amygdala, the source of anxiety, slows and calms down. And your default mode network activates, which is the part of your brain that's responsible for problem solving and reflection and creative thinking. They are all really good benefits of putting that damn phone away.
So make some time when you are connecting with your partner without your phone. I'd love you to think about when was the last time that you had quality time with your partner phone free. Maybe you're having to think about that a little bit too hard.
But keeping phones out of the bedroom, having a couple of nights where you're spending quality time together and you also don't have your phone on you is super important. The other little tip I have is find the quick, enjoyable things that you can do together. So many couples have activities that they find enjoyable, but they take a long time.
We have to travel somewhere or we love going away skiing. We feel really connected when we do that, but there's kind of a whole lot of effort and it has to be winter for you to be going away skiing. So I'd love you to think about what are the little super low energy things that you can do within your relationship that you enjoy, that are fun and that give you a sense of quality time together.
I'm going to share a super personal one here and that is that my husband and I love to sit up watching Drumeo videos. Now, if you've got no idea what Drumeo is, it is a YouTube channel where drummers do drumming things. Now, I have got a background as a drummer.
When I was 11 years old, my parents bought me a drum kit. It was kind of a distraction from a whole lot of other really hard things that were happening within my family. And the thing that I'm known about, if you ask people who went to school with me or even people from surrounding schools, they will tell you, oh yeah, yeah, she was the one who played drums.
I absolutely love drums. I got quite good at it. My husband, when we met, was doing a music degree and it's just like this little throwback thing that we both enjoy together.
We both enjoy music. We love listening to music together. We love watching something super entertaining.
So they have this series where a drummer from a different genre gets given a song that they've never heard before without the drum part and they have to make up the drums for that song. Now, honestly, it takes zero energy from us to watch a Drumeo video, but it is a time of connection in our relationship. It's something we enjoy together.
It's something that we will engage with, that we'll talk about together. It's a distraction. It's creative.
It's novel. And it is a really, really easy thing to do where we both come away from that going, oh, that was a cool night. Maybe it's because it makes us feel young and cool again.
I don't know what it is. So find those easy things you can do in your relationship that help you to have something accessible, low energy that maintains that sense of connection, even when your energy is low. You're in trouble if all of the things that you do for connection in your relationship take two hours.
The other thing I remind couples to do is talk about the big picture. Talk about your goals. Talk about your dreams.
Talk about one day when scenarios. What is it that you're wanting to achieve in the next year? How's the next quarter going to go for you? What are you working on when it comes to yourself? What are your career ambitions right now? And how do I support those things? How's that thing going that you're working on? What is it that you're noticing changing at the gym? Whatever it is that you can talk about that invites you into their goals and ambitions, those conversations just go off the boil when you're not connected to one another. So they're a really important thing to return if you're wanting to get more connection going.
Now, as much as it is driving me a little bit bonkers at the moment that we're living in a house that we're renovating, it has been so cool to work with my husband on projects. And what I mean by working with my husband on projects, I have to admit, as more I'm on Pinterest and he's on the tools, but still, it is a great sense of achievement to be doing something together. So I challenge you to think about what is it that you could do together within your relationship? What's a project or something that you could learn or tackle that gives you a sense of achievement and team together? Maybe you need to think about a little brainstorm of ideas.
Let yourself have the brainstorm. Some of the ideas might be naff and then pick a couple of things that you like off that list. It can lead to great relationship satisfaction when you're working together on something.
And one of the things that this really helps with too, is it gets our brain into a space that is more novel and where we're growing and learning and changing. That refreshes us and feels super good. So if you haven't done something together by way of a shared project lately, it is something I encourage you to give a go.
Now, let me let you in on something I often talk about with relationship therapy couples. Something that happens in relationships is people get really quite transactional about the way that they say thank you for things. So they might say, thanks for putting out the rubbish.
Kind of doesn't really hit the mark. What about, hey, when you do that for me, I feel these things. Or that is how that helps my day.
When you put the rubbish out, I feel seen. I feel supported. I feel like we're a team.
It really helps my day to feel settled and calm and in control. So what is it that you can say about how their behavior makes you feel? Hey, thank you for doing that thing for me. I really appreciated it because it made me feel.
So try and get those feelings back into the relationship. People love to hear that things that they do for you impact you and your feelings. Not just that that was a task that was off your list.
So I encourage you to dive into those feelings when you're saying thank you or showing appreciation for something. Now, if you're a person who's feeling a little bit disconnected in your relationship, I want to ask you this question. When did you last praise your partner? I suspect that it might be a little while ago.
We all enjoy praise. We all enjoy hearing what we're doing well. We all enjoy feeling seen.
That someone is looking at our efforts or observes our character, our qualities, and our strengths and likes those things. They see us doing well in life and they comment on those things. I think early on in relationships, we're really quick to say what we like and what we notice.
And something that disappears from relationships over time is those little remarks of praise. So take a moment today to think about when did I last praise my partner and what are the things that I observe them doing, that I observe about their character, that I see in their life right now, that I could call out and bring some attention and praise to. And my last point is if you're feeling disconnected from one another, I really encourage you to work on your conflict.
Now, another stat from the Gottman Institute is that 69% of issues within relationships are recurring, but that it doesn't matter what the conflict is that happens, it matters how we respond to that. Now, what this suggests is that the things that are difficult for us in our relationship, the dynamics that cause conflict between us, might actually be enduring throughout our relationship. The dynamic or the issue doesn't necessarily change, but our response to that issue does change over time.
So what we're not setting up here is an expectation that our relationships will be without conflict or that those buttons won't get pushed from time to time. But what we want to do is learn to be really good at how we resolve that conflict. We want to have a way of working through that.
We want to be able to have a clear sense of what the issues are, how we're pushing one another's buttons, and how we get out of that as quickly as we can. I talk about with conflict how what we want is less of a kind of sharp line of the graph of the ups and downs in our relationship. We want to smooth that out so that the conflicts don't go as deep and they don't last as long.
We want to make that a smoother process when it comes to how we respond to conflict. So we're not setting ourselves up with the expectation that there's not going to be conflict, but what we're doing is owning the fact that that is a reality in relationships and we're trying to get really good at how we resolve conflict. Now if you're listening to this episode and you're someone who probably needs to do a little bit of work on your relationship, you want to hit that reset button, you want things to feel fresh again and to feel super well connected to each other, I really encourage you to check out Give Me 10 Minutes, which is my course for couples who want that reset in their relationship.
I recognize that there are a lot of couples that kind of need to get to couples counselling but never quite get there because it doesn't feel like the issue's bad enough or it's really hard to make it, but you want to do some learning and growing together and you want to feel better within your relationship. So I made Give Me 10 Minutes just for you. There are 50 couples as of today that have been through the Give Me 10 Minutes course and it is proving to be something that is really helpful.
A lot of people are saying, gosh we needed this years ago, we wish that we started this earlier, we don't know how you can see exactly into our relationship and totally know what the issues are, you've made something that is exactly right for us right now. So if you want to put some effort in on the connection front, grab Give Me 10 Minutes, it is super easy. A 10-minute audio each week that you both listen to over a six-week period and a super easy to follow discussion guide that I've made that follows each episode and allows you to have a really good conversation together.
After you've listened to the episode, make some plans, agree what you're going to do in response and gain some insights into each other's world. Okay, so let me do a recap when it comes to connection within your relationship. You need to understand the bids that your partner makes and respond positively turning towards them when they are throwing you a ball looking for that moment of connection.
Don't forget those daily rituals, those absolute basics of the times throughout your day-to-day life when you're connecting with each other. Stay connected during the day if you can and think about the rhythms that you have of when is the time on within our relationship where we're intentionally trying to connect with each other. Focus on sharing more about feelings than just facts and get those goddamn phones away.
Top piece of relationship advice for almost all relationships. I know it's unrealistic to have them away all the time but try and define when they are going to be away because you're going to get a whole lot of benefits for your brain, your body and your relationship by simply putting that phone away. Find the quick enjoyable things that you can do together.
Try and have a shared project or goal that you're working towards. Talk to them about the bigger picture for them, what they're trying to achieve, what their hopes and dreams are right now. Focus on sharing how you feel when they do particular things.
Don't forget to praise them and pay some attention to the conflict within your relationship and how you're resolving that in a smoother way going forward. I hope this has given you some new ideas, maybe some facts and things that really encourage you towards greater connection with your partner. But one of my main messages today is this.
Don't walk around in your relationship with this expectation that being disconnected from one another is okay. You can do so much better than this. I want more for you and I want you to want more for yourself.
No one signs up wanting to create a relationship where they just don't feel fulfilled, connected or supported. But it is some really basic day-to-day things that we can do that create that culture within our relationship where connection is something we expect, we want and we work on. I'd love to hear from you if there are some things that you try from today's episode.
So do feel free to reach out to me. You can email me hello at charlottecummings.nz Find me on Instagram or Facebook. I would love to hear from you if there are some things that you give a go.
Thanks for joining me today on the Feel Better Podcast. I'm super proud of you for spending this time prioritising your wellbeing and hopefully learning a few things to help you navigate the tough stuff in life. I'd love to stay connected.
So come and find me on Instagram at charlottethecounsellor on Facebook, charlottecummingscounselling or head over to my website charlottecummings.nz where there's heaps of free resources waiting for you. Thanks for hanging out with me today and I look forward to seeing you next time.
If you've got a question you'd like me to answer, there are a few easy ways to send it in. You'll find a question box on my Instagram stories every Tuesday, or if you'd like to ask your question anonymously, you can find a link on my Instagram bio, in the show notes or at charlottecummings.nz. Thanks for joining me for this episode of Ask Charlotte, part of the Feel Better podcast. Welcome along to this episode of Ask Charlotte.
I put up a question box on my Instagram asking what you wanted me to cover in this episode, and overwhelmingly the selection was, me to talk about your relationship with yourself. Then I put up another question box asking for your specific questions, and I have got so many questions to choose from, and some really great content to share with you today, so I can't wait to get into this episode. We've got three questions all along that same theme of relationship with yourself, so let's dive in.
The first question is, how do I speak to myself in a kinder way? This is such a good question, and something I'm really keen to break down for you and explain more. One of the key things I think when it comes to learning to speak in a kinder way to yourself is actually breaking the habit of speaking to yourself in a negative way in the first place. Many people just aren't aware of the boundaries that we can have around our thinking.
That it is perfectly okay to say to yourself, I'm not having that. I'm not tolerating that. Thanks for that brain, whatever you've dished up to me, but I don't like it, and I don't want more of that, thank you very much.
I actually learnt a great lesson around this when we got a puppy. I realised that there was this great difference between how I talked to my children and how I spoke to the puppy, and that it was sometimes easier to get better behaviour out of the puppy because I was short, and I was sharp, and I was a little bit gruff with it. I was, no, that is absolutely not acceptable.
Don't you growl at me. Don't bark now. Don't snarl at that other person across the road.
I was short, sharp, and direct when I was training him, and sometimes I think we need to speak to our minds a little bit like a puppy that we are trying to train, where we're direct about what it is that we will tolerate and what it is that we don't want. So telling your mind to shush is perfectly acceptable. I think where a lot of people get stuck in speaking to themselves in not such a kind way is we allow it.
Now that all sounds nice, but how do you do that? Well, one of the key things is to build in some circuit breakers. So when you find yourself speaking to yourself in a way that is not all that kind and supportive, you stop yourself and go, I'm not doing this right now. I'm going to go and do something different.
So if you're at work, you might get up and go for a walk around the block. You might go to the bathroom and run your wrists under some nice icy cold water. You might go and make a cup of tea.
You might go and chat with someone. If you're at home, you might go and have a warm bath. You're going to go and do something that gets you out of that zone where this pattern of ruminating is allowed to continue.
So the number one thing, if you want to speak more kindly to yourself, is that you need to break the habit of speaking to yourself in a negative way. Put in place those circuit breakers so you're doing something different. The next thing I think is really important, and sometimes we forget about this when it comes to change, is we need to be really aware of our motivation to change.
Why are we trying to change this in the first place? A great question you can ask yourself is, who benefits if I learn to speak to myself in a kinder way? Is it your children, your spouse, your friends, and the people around you who will all then also be spoken to in a kinder way, or will there be other options that are available to you in your life? If you learn to speak to yourself in an encouraging way, what is the best thing that might come about from speaking to yourself in a kinder, more supportive, and encouraging way? Who benefits from this? What are the options that might become available to you? One of the key things I often say to parents when it comes to their own relationship with themselves and how they speak to themselves is how you speak to yourself. That internal voice does get projected onto your children. They do pick up on whatever it is that you say to yourself, your beliefs about yourself.
They become your child's inner voice. Now for some parents, that is really confronting, and hopefully it's motivating. How you speak to yourself becomes how your child speaks to themselves.
So get motivated about how it is at the moment, how you want things to be for them for a long time into the future until they become able to make this change for themselves. So get clear on your motivation. Why does this matter in your life? The other thing is you actually need to know what to say to yourself if you're going to try to speak to yourself in a kinder way.
Now what matters here is learning how to deeply reassure yourself. I'm not a big fan of affirmations. I'm not a big fan of just positive thinking your way through an issue.
When it comes to speaking kindly to ourselves, we need to know how to deeply reassure ourselves in the space where it matters the most. So if you're someone who feels inadequate or not good enough, what you say to yourself is going to be along those lines. If you're worried about failing or disappointing people, your reassurances to yourself and how you speak to yourself in a kinder way needs to be on that theme.
So think about what is it that I most want to hear. If someone came along and said something absolutely ideal to me right now that made me feel deeply reassured, what would they say? What would the most kind and supportive friend say to you in this moment? Or how would you speak to a best friend or child and coach them through this issue? So often we actually do know what to do when it comes to how to speak to ourselves because this is how we speak to other people. We just need to be able to turn those skills back around and use them for ourselves.
My other encouragement to you if you struggle with speaking kindly to yourself is go as deeply into this as you can. If you haven't listened to my episode on unbearable feelings, this would be a great thing to explore. Or if there are challenges for you around self-esteem, it's probably time to do some work around who you are, liking yourself, and building that actual base of what is it that I've got to stand on when it comes to why I would want to speak kindly to myself.
If your opinion of yourself is really low, that is often where speaking to yourself in an unkind way comes from. So what work do you need to do around healing your own issues, your own concept of yourself, your relationship with yourself, and how you view yourself? Because that all matters when it comes to how kindly we will then speak to ourselves. Speaking kindly to yourself is not about affirmations.
It's not all just about pumping yourself up and having a little moment of feeling good. If you do not believe what you are saying to yourself, that is a big problem. So maybe this is an opportunity to do the work around your self-esteem and the healing that will allow you to speak more kindly to yourself because you value yourself in the first place.
So remember, break the habit, work on the motivation, think about building the picture of what you actually need to say to yourself based on what you'd say to a friend, and do the work if it's time to upgrade your view of yourself. So the next question that has come through is how do I heal from purity culture? Now, for some people, you'll know what this means, and for others, you'll be thinking, what on earth is that about? So just to explain, purity culture is a set of ideals around sex and sexuality that often is found in certain church environments, is sometimes found in particular families. There are a whole lot of ideals around gender, around sexuality, around abstinence, around the relationship between men and women, and purity culture can have a really strong influence on the development of people's relationship with their body and relationships with other people.
The first thing I want to say about the journey of recovering from purity culture is you need to think about deconstructing, looking at what it was that you were taught. So what were you taught about sex, about desire, about pleasure, about men and women? What were you taught about gender differences and relationships? It can be helpful to actually get a piece of paper out or start a document on your computer and explore what were the things that I was taught, what was presented to me by my family or by the community or church that I was part of, and then that gives you an opportunity to start to think for yourself. What is it that I think about all of those things? Each of those things that you've noted down and each of those areas, what's your view on that personally and what's the gap between what you were taught and what it is that you actually believe for yourself? When it comes to recovering from purity culture, one of the things I love the most is this idea of a personal sexual ethic.
So we all have beliefs when it comes to these topics and then it's important for us to consider how are we going to conduct ourself in a way that lines up with our beliefs when it comes to this area of our lives. The concept of developing a personal sexual ethic is really empowering for people who have had particular views really rammed into their lives where you've been told what to think. It is so empowering to go, do you know what, you get to form your own opinions of this.
Now I fully recognise that in some environments there is a lot of effort to teach people around this in a way that comes from a good perspective that is trying to be healthy or helpful. And the reality though is that sometimes that crosses a line of being controlling, of being dictating and forming some really unhealthy responses from people. And it can get problematic because it can create some really unhealthy responses within our lives.
A really key question to ask, and this is quite confronting, is why did my family or church want me to think this way in the first place? How did it serve them or benefit them? So one of the more sinister things about purity culture is that sometimes those ideals that you are taught are more in the interests of the community that you are part of than your own interests as an individual. Something I see a lot in working with clients who have come out of high purity culture environments is that they're really disconnected from their bodies. And that is not all about sex and pleasure and desire.
That can even be about things like responding to themselves when they're sick or listening to their physical limits. There is a sense of we need to deny our bodies. We need to be disconnected from our bodies and not listen to what our bodies are saying to us.
And so often the recovery around purity culture so often has an important element around your relationship with your body and not just in the area of sex. The other thing I think is really refreshing if you're recovering from purity culture is to think about the people that you surround yourself with. Maybe you need some people around you who have some different ideas and ideals when it comes to relationships.
It can be really healthy to put yourself in different spaces and places while you're working out what it is that you think, what you believe and how you're then going to conduct yourself. There are heaps of resources in this area. So my other encouragement is to dive into the podcasts, books and content that's online where other people are sharing their stories around purity culture.
There is so much that you can read and listen to and absorb on this that'll be a real encouragement in your own journey of recovery. And I want to do a shout out here to my friend and colleague Meg Cowan who is an amazing New Zealand based sexologist who's got some great resources around recovery from purity culture. She's walked her own journey through this.
And Meg's developed some great offers to help people if they're walking through this themselves. And so the third question I'm going to cover for this episode today is from someone who wants to know, what do I do when it comes to time away from my children and spouse? This is such a dilemma, especially for parents with young children, because those little moments of time that you get are so very precious and it can just feel overwhelming. What am I going to do with this time? We can feel elements of guilt.
We can feel like there's this list of things I should be doing that maybe will make a difference to how I feel. But then there are also the things that I want to do or maybe there's been a bit of an identity shift. Maybe it's been so long between doing things that are just for you that you've forgotten what to do or what you even like anymore.
And I think that's all behind what this person is asking with this question. So my top tip here is to run an experiment in extending your menu of options for what you do in your own precious time. Sometimes we need some fresh ideas.
That can be great to crowdsource this, to ask colleagues or friends about their favourite things to do. But one of the things we sometimes need to push ourselves to do is actually experiment with trying some new things. So run a little experiment for yourself.
Come up with four things that you haven't done before, that you want to give a go, that you're going to spend a bit of time doing over the next period of time. Maybe it's one thing a week, each week for the next four weeks. You don't have to like them all.
The purpose of this is it's an experiment. Are there other things out there that I'd like to try that are actually really refreshing for me? Why do other people think going op shopping is so refreshing and fun? Because it's creative and it's interesting and it's purposeful and it's a little bit relaxing, just that kind of like browsing mode without a whole lot of pressure. Or why do other people like hill walks? Maybe you have to walk to the top of that mountain to find out.
But run an experiment to extend your menu of ideas. It is such a valuable thing to do every now and then. Then I think something that's important is actually writing the list of things that you can do when you do have that time on your own.
So maybe there are some things that you already know you enjoy and perhaps there are some new things that you are adding to that list, but write the menu so you're not like a possum in the headlights when you do finally get that precious time to yourself. You've actually got some ideas that are sitting there and you can choose from the list. My other tip when it comes to having some good things to do with your downtime is find a friend who also struggles with this.
One of the barriers for people when they're busy with kids and a relationship is that so often they're really tired in those moments when they do get time to themselves and they might not have a whole lot of social energy, but actually doing something alongside someone can be really nice. I've met up with a girlfriend and we've both gone for a massage together. Now, that hasn't been a whole lot of talking or interaction.
It's just been, hey, do you want to go and do this with me? It sets you up some accountability. It makes an appointment that you need to keep. So just keep in mind, it doesn't have to be all extroverted time if you're doing something with someone else, but think about can you rope a friend into this or can you draw in some accountability around trying some new things in the space and reporting back to one another? So often in life, we're not alone in our struggles and the other people around us are struggling with exactly the same thing.
So roping someone else into this is a really good idea. The other thing, if you're struck with that paralysis around what am I going to decide to do in this moment, is you can even build yourself a little jar with a whole lot of ideas in it and you can pull out an idea and go, oh, okay, I'm going to go and do that thing. Now, sometimes the other thing that happens is you pull out the idea and you go, oh, no, that's not what I want to do.
I want to go and do this. Well, that's great as well. But sometimes having a jar or making it multi-choice or rolling a dice or somehow gamifying that can be really helpful if you're just overwhelmed.
I think one of the most significant barriers when it comes to time by ourselves is freeing ourselves of judgment and guilt around that time. It can be so empowering to think about what would I do if no one cared what I was doing? If no one was judging what I was spending or if no one was kind of watching on and seeing the state of my house and the things that I've left undone while I've gone and done that thing for myself, what would you do if just no one was judging you? That can be such a helpful question to unlock our answers about what we most want to do. The other thing I think can be really helpful when it comes to what we do for time away from our spouse and kids is sometimes to ring fence a little bit of money towards this.
That can be money for fun or for self-care or whatever it is you want to kind of earmark that for. But sometimes we think in the week to week realities of our finances, actually there's something else that that money should go towards. Having an account that you put a small amount of money aside into that becomes your ring fenced self-care and fun fund money can help you give yourself permission to do those things that you're wanting to do for yourself.
Sometimes that's the barrier and that's something that's worth addressing. So I hope that this has inspired you in thinking about what you might do for time away from your family. This is a really, really common struggle and I just I totally get it.
I've had those moments too of going, who am I anymore? What do I want to do with myself? What should I be doing? What are other people going to think about this? And I know that it just gets super overwhelming. So hopefully there are some fresh ideas from this chat today. Thank you so much for these fantastic three questions.
The next episode of Ask Charlotte in a fortnight is still going to be on the same theme of your relationship with yourself because I got so many great questions come through. So tune in in a fortnight for another three questions on this theme. And thank you so much to the people who shared their questions today.
I really appreciate your honesty about the things that you're struggling with and the opportunity to speak into those things that are tough. If you'd like your question answered on the next episode, head to my Instagram, the show notes or my website. Thanks for the privilege of letting me speak into your life and I hope you found a few useful things to hold on to today.
This has been Ask Charlotte, part of the Feel Better podcast.
Whether that's to do with your own wellbeing, parenting or relationships, I'm here to help you feel better. Thanks for joining me. Well, hello and welcome to this episode of the Feel Better podcast.
I am covering a topic today that in my observation is really important for couples who are working on their relationship. There are times for couples when things are in a bit of a pit, when their relationship is under serious renovation and it's kind of at the stage where like we don't even have a working bathroom, like it's a mess. Things are not functioning well.
It is in a difficult space. And in those times, one of the key challenges is the mental game, is keeping ourselves buoyant and hopeful in what our relationship is going to look like in the next chapter while we're in a stage where it's being worked on and it's a bit messy. And I've observed from my work with couples over the years that my encouragement to them, my hopefulness with them, my reassuring them about why I think it is going to be OK and why they've got something that's worth holding on to here, I notice that that is really, really important for them.
And it's so often something that couples appreciate. I love it when I get to the end of a session with a couple and they say, oh, we just feel so much better now. We feel like we've got a plan.
We know where we're headed with this and we just we feel like we can do it again. And one of the reasons I started this podcast was to be able to help people even if they can't make it to counselling. So not everyone has the ability to be able to go and see a counsellor for whatever reason.
So I want you, if you are working on your relationship right now, to have a bit of a dose of encouragement from me, but also for me to help you build the case for what it is that you've got to hold on to in your relationship so you can properly reassure yourself. This isn't just a pep talk to make you feel good about working on your relationship. This is some stuff that you can build evidence around of what is it that we've got to stand on when it comes to being hopeful about our future.
Now, I just want to share a little bit about my stance when it comes to relationships. I get it that not every relationship is meant to continue on. And in some cases, it is really helpful and healthy for couples to part ways, for two individuals to go their separate way.
The dynamic does not work and it's something that you just need to call time on. However, one thing that I am pretty firm in believing is that there are actually so many relationships that with support could change. If people are ready to do the work, if they can be supported in doing that, if we can build a solid plan and help people move forward together, then so often there are things that can change that can radically change the relationship.
Relationships are woefully under supported. We don't have a culture around supporting relationships or systems and processes that allow people to easily access help, which means most of the time people only get help in a crisis and there's a lot of damage already being done at that point. So yes, I'm going to show my cards here.
I am a believer that a lot of relationships can work with the right help and with two people who are willing to do the work. Our lessons in life are repeated until we learn them. So maybe your relationship ends, but you're still going to be you in the next relationship with the same issues.
So, so often I'm encouraging people, why don't you try and work this out with this person? And actually, if you don't work this out, it's probably just going to be a pattern that repeats itself. So relationships are an invitation to do our own work and there are often ways through issues. So I am a big believer in that, maybe a little bit biased because I've seen so many relationship turnarounds over the years in my practice.
But the perspective that I want to bring is how can you make your relationship work and how can I help you with that? One of the difficulties when it comes to change in our relationships is that so often there are three things that need to change. There is something going on for one person in the relationship, something going on for the other person, and then there's the relationship change. So it's a little bit complicated in that regard because there are two individuals who are needing to make change, to heal, to do things differently in their own respects.
And then there is the relationship that is also needing to change, the dynamic between those two people. Now, one person changing, the other person changing, that often brings some automatic change to the relationship, but there are kind of three pots on the boil when it comes to change in our relationships and that does get a little bit complicated. All of that is to say that changing relationships takes time.
It is something that does not happen overnight and you need the ability to reassure yourself through the process of working on things. So let's dive into what are the reassurances that you can hold on to while you're working on your relationship. This is my pep talk to you.
So let's dive into exploring what are the reassurances that you can hold on to while you're working on your relationship. This is my pep talk, some things to hold on to to get you through. The first is think about your personal skills, attributes and resources.
So what is it that you bring to the table of change within this relationship? What is it about you as a person, your strengths, the way you look at things, even maybe your professional background that help you as you go about this change. Maybe you're a teacher and you're someone who understands concepts and you're committed to learning. Well, that's something that you bring to this process.
Maybe you're an engineer and your mind is, maybe you're an engineer and it's easy for your mind to see things that are broken or wrong and how things work together. Maybe you're a nurse and you feel really compassionate towards other people. And that's a strength that you bring to this relationship change.
Maybe you've got good connections to people that you can talk to, who you're able to have honest conversations with. Maybe you're someone who is able to see tasks and steps really clearly. What is it that you bring to the table of this process of change within your relationship? And next, you're going to think about the same thing for your partner.
What is it for your partner that they bring? What are their strengths, the things that they bring from their background of experience, maybe even the ways of thinking that come from their profession? What are the connections that they have that can benefit this relationship? But you're going to add those things up. So what is it about me that makes me a good person for doing this change? What is it about them that they bring to the table? And now what do we have together? Now, if I was doing that for me and my husband, I would say for me, I'm someone who can see steps. I can see tasks.
I can get things done. I can make change in practical ways so I can make new routines. I find it easy to do that kind of thing.
I'm also naturally a positive and hopeful person. So I'm good at noticing the things that do change and being positive about those things. I've also got a bunch of connections that are really helpful if things are tough.
For my husband, he is really practical. He is really able to dive deep in his thinking in terms of working out what's wrong. Before he was a helicopter pilot, he was a mechanic and an engineer.
He can see what is broken and what needs to be fixed and see how the parts all work together. Now, if I think about our relationship, they are the things that we would be bringing to the table if our relationship was under renovation. So my encouragement to you is to do that for your relationship.
Step through. What is it that you bring? What is it that they bring? And that gives you a whole lot of evidence of what's and that gives you a whole lot of evidence of things that are going to help you through this time, some things that you can hold on to. Then my encouragement is to think about the support that you have.
So that might be a colleague at work who managed to change their relationship that you're able to speak with about their journey of making things better. Maybe that is someone that you know who also got through being a workaholic and they can share their journey and their experience with you. Maybe you meet this really amazing person that you find inspiring and they're a new person in your life.
Maybe you have the ability to go and see a counsellor or maybe you have the resources to do a course or get some books or whatever it is that you're able to access. Think about what supports you've got on the table at the moment. What is around you? And really broadly, not just like counselling or not counselling, but who have we got around us who are helpful people to have on our side at this time? Maybe you've got a parent who's really encouraging.
Maybe you've got a friend who is really lovely in terms of checking in with you, knowing that there's some big stuff that's going on. Think about what is it that you've got happening that's positive already on the support front. Then there is an opportunity to think about gaps.
What could we do differently? What's within our power to change? What is it that we can do that we can add into the mix? What is it that we might like to access in terms of other supports to help us to do things differently? So this is really getting you to think about what's going on currently in terms of support, and then to think about what else could be on the table and what you want to access. Then my encouragement is to make some concrete plans around that. So maybe you want to do a course and you're going to sign up for it this week.
Maybe you want to both get the same book from the bookshop or the library and both read that together. And you're going to do that within the next month. And you're going to sit down on a Wednesday night to talk about what you're learning, or you're going to download that audio book to listen to together.
And you're going to have a chat about that every second night, like be quite concrete about what are our next steps when it comes to support. And then on the note of next steps, I think this is something that is so important. We need to see the little steps, not the whole road that is before us.
So what are the next things that I need to do in terms of taking action towards how I want my relationship to be? What are the little micro tasks and the things that would be helpful along that journey? Maybe things are feeling really cold in our relationship at the moment. And yes, we can both get up in the morning and make our own coffees. But maybe what I want to do is start making coffee for my spouse and giving it to them.
And having that little moment where there is a gesture of kindness and support and service to the other person. Think about what are the next little steps. It might be booking some time away together.
So you've got something to look forward to. So get that happening. Make those arrangements.
What are the micro steps that are going to lead you to get through this next little bit? Not thinking about what are the giant leaps that take you to that final destination that you'd really love to be at in terms of how your relationship is. The other thing I think can be quite helpful, and this is a bit of a big task. Is to create a little bit of a map about what is going on.
So think about what actually needs to happen here. Now I've got a resource on my website called What's Wrong that is really helpful in getting couples thinking about exactly what it is that needs to change. So often couples come to me for counselling and they say one of two things.
They say we need to work on our conflict or our communication. And I'm like, great, but what do you actually mean by that? Do you mean like when it comes to conflict that you need to talk about one thing at a time or need to be able to not take things personally? Or when it comes to communication, do you need to be faster at raising issues? Like exactly what is it that needs to be worked on? So get really specific with your map and going, I am needing to work on boundaries around work cutting into our weekend, or I need to work on staying cool when I'm feeling emotionally dysregulated, or they need to work on being able to speak more kindly when there is something that they're wanting to raise. Like get those things out on paper, get the map there of the them and my things, the your things, the their things, and then the us things.
What is it that we're wanting to work on together? We're wanting to build more fun back into our relationship. So we're trying to get into some habits around time getting out of town, or we've made a list of fun stuff we want to do together, or whatever it is that's the us stuff, get that out on the map too, so that there is a sense of what is it that you are working on, exactly what is happening here. Sometimes when our relationships are going through a process of change, it can feel quite disheartening because you don't know where you've been and you don't have that sense of how long it's going to take to get somewhere.
So building that map is quite helpful for being able to see what it is that you have achieved and to be really clear around the next steps of what is going on. So map those things out so that you've got everything in black and white terms, not swirling and circling in your mind. It also is really helpful to protect you because it becomes really clear if you're not doing the things.
If the other person isn't making those appointments, if they're not following through on the tasks that they had from counselling, if they're not showing any interest in showing up and doing the things, then having that map kind of becomes a little bit of an agreement between you about what actions you are going to take and that can be incredibly helpful. The next thing I think is really important is having examples of people who've been able to make the change that you yourselves as a couple want to make. So where are you going to find those stories that bring hope to you? What can you read about other people's journeys or podcasts you can listen to, resources that you can access that help you get exposed to other people's experience of what change has looked like? You know, before Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest, no one thought that was possible.
I look at people who run ultra marathons and think, oh, how do they do that? Well, actually there's a formula. There are a whole lot of steps before they show up on that race day or climb that mountain or do whatever it is that they do. And we can copy something of their formula.
But also knowing that other people, other human beings are capable of making change or achieving something difficult helps us have hope that that is possible for us too. So think about how you surround yourself with those stories that build hope for you of the changes that other people have been able to make. Also, I'd encourage you to think about making time and space for the change that needs to happen in your relationship.
You know, doing the hard work of relationship change does take energy. And my curiosity is, where is that energy going to come from? What are you going to give up or put on pause for a period of time while you make these changes in your relationship? It might be that actually you step back from that voluntary commitment for a period of time or you actually, you know, say no to a few social things so you've got some more time together. It might be that you put a piece of study on hold or you stop saying yes to overtime or you're firmer with your work boundaries.
What is it that you're going to do to make time and space for what is needed when it comes to changing your relationship? Another couple of things I think are really helpful are finding some people that you can safely share with. It is so refreshing to be honest with a close friend about what is going on. Sometimes it can feel a little bit tricky if our friends are friends in our relationship context as well.
So think about who are you going to talk to, both of you, so you've got someone you can chat with and share about how this process is going because it is hard work to change your relationship and you need all the support that you can get. The other thing I think is really significant if you're working on your relationship is it's tiring and it can't all be hard slog. Something I really encourage couples to do is to do self-care together.
Maybe you can both go for that walk on the beach together. Maybe you can both go and see that show or do something fun or novel. Maybe you can both go to the movies together, like do those things that are caring for yourselves, that are fun, but do them together because the chances are you both need that because the chances are you both need those fun, caring, rejuvenating experiences while you're working on your relationship.
So I hope that helps you to have a few ideas of things that you can hold on to while you're working on your relationship. It is hard work. Relationships are complicated, but they're also one of the sources in our lives of the greatest sense of pride and connection and being held and achieving things together with another person that we love and value.
I'm a big believer that relationships are worth the work and it is so sad that we have a society that's not necessarily set up now to see people grow well together. So if I can be of any help to you with any of my resources, with my associate counsellors, with the Give Me 10 Minutes programme, if you want to dive into the backlog of all of the podcast episodes, be my guest. Go and immerse yourself in some really helpful content to move your relationship forward.
I'm a big believer that people are way more capable of change than they think they are. So this is my encouragement to you to grab onto that concept, to hold hope for the future of your relationship and to do everything in your power to experience the change that you and your partner deserve. Go well.
