Episode 25 - The Alchemy of “us”

The Alchemy of “Us”

In this profoundly personal episode of Behind the Swipe, we delve into the world of early-stage dating relationships with the esteemed Wendy Palmer Patterson. With over 40 years dedicated to enhancing the fabric of romantic partnerships through Imago Therapy, Wendy's wisdom is a beacon for those navigating the often turbulent waters of love, especially in the digital age.

As your host, I've had the privilege of Wendy's guidance in my own life, an experience that's not only transformative but deeply cherished. Her approach, focusing on the 'us' in relationships as a separate, nurturable entity, has opened my eyes to new dimensions of connection and understanding. It's this profound impact that I'm eager to share with you, my listeners, as we explore the nuanced dance of communication and connection in the early throes of romance.

This episode isn't just another discussion; it's a journey into the heart of what it means to build meaningful connections. Wendy's insights into active listening, mirroring, and validation as tools for fostering a deeper bond offer a fresh perspective on how we can approach new relationships with intentionality and grace. Her belief in addressing subconscious "scripts" that guide our interactions illuminates a path to healthier, more fulfilling partnerships.

Our conversation extends beyond theoretical concepts, grounding Wendy's advice in practical, actionable strategies. These are not just tips for dating but life lessons that enrich our understanding of ourselves and others. It's a dialogue that promises to peel back layers of confusion, shining a light on the possibilities that conscious dating can bring, especially for those of us in the second half of life.

Behind the Swipe is more than a podcast; it's a community where we confront the challenges of online dating head-on, armed with wisdom and a sense of adventure. This episode, in particular, is a testament to the transformative power of expert guidance, a theme that resonates deeply with me. Wendy's expertise isn't just professional; it's personal, woven into the fabric of my own experiences and growth.

As we navigate the complexities of online dating together, let this episode be a reminder of the beauty in vulnerability, the strength in understanding, and the endless potential for growth that lies in every swipe. Join us on this enlightening journey, where the quest for love is not just a solitary endeavor but a shared exploration of the depths of human connection.

This week’s Guest

Wendy Palmer Patterson

PhD, LCSW, LMFT

Wendy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist with more than four decades of experience. She holds a PhD in Counseling with a Specialization in Imago Relationship Therapy (The first of its kind!) Her focus is on “relationship consciousness” and she helps couples, individuals, and businesses build more intentional and fulfilling relationships.

Transcript:

Hoyt: 0:03
Welcome to this week's episode of behind the swipe. The alchemy of us. I'm your host Hoyt Prisock. Every once in a while the universe puts just the right person in your life at just the right time. That person may be a friend, a lover. mentor. Or sometimes even an adversary. For me, the indelible impact of these improbable arrivals have opened paths in my life. That had been previously obscured. The life I've led is far, far richer. And deeper because of them. And for that, I am eternally grateful. So why do I tell you those? Because today I have the absolute pleasure. Of sharing with you at incredible conversation with one of those people. Dr. Wendy Patterson, is an Atlanta based relationship therapist with over 40 years of experience. In this conversation. We talk about why and how beautiful and promising relationships. Get off track. And how developing and practicing conscious communication skills. Can not only reinvigorate a relationship. But can open doors to even deeper, more loving relationships. You won't want to miss our discussion of how this awareness and these skills can be applied to your dating life as well. You know, this is our 25th episode of behind the swipe. And along the way, we've had some fantastic guests. And explored a range of fascinating subjects. But if you only listen to one episode of this show, This is the one you'll want to hear and share. So rich and so resonant. It's conversations like this that are the very reason that behind the swipe exists. I have no doubt that by the end of this riveting hour, You'll know exactly why I consider Wendy Patterson, the Jedi Knight of relationship therapist. So. Without further ado. I bring you. Wendy Patterson. I am here with Wendy Patterson. Wendy is a counselor and therapist and imago therapy expert here in Atlanta. before we get going, I just wanted to tell you that I wanted to have Wendy on for a long time. She's been a very important person personally for me over the course of, dare I say, almost 30 years now. a long time. Wendy has some amazing insights And I think that her expertise in working with couples and working in imago therapy you're going to find useful. in your dating life. So, Wendy, welcome to Behind the Swipe.

Wendy: 2:54
Thanks very much, Hoyt. It's wonderful to be with you.

Hoyt: 2:58
I can't wait to dig into this. Let me tell you where I want to take this and then we'll come back with a little bit of a primer on what imago therapy is but I know from personal experience, having gone through the workshops that you put together years ago, that the Awareness of my own communication habits, the awareness of the things that trigger me in relationship, uh, just the awareness brought me to a whole new level. And then skills,

Wendy: 3:33
right.

Hoyt: 3:34
and the skills development even took it further. So, that's where I want to go with it. But, but start us off with what is Imago therapy? Yeah,

Wendy: 3:42
Well, I'll be delighted. And let me also just say that the two things you mentioned, awareness and skills, man, you're encapsulating huge parts of this theory. I'll just give you a short version of it, and you can then decide what makes sense about this. So imago is Latin for image. And it's actually a way to think about relationships in general that has started off as a therapy mode. It's now expanded way beyond therapy to say actually it's a paradigm. And, the paradigmatic idea is that most of us, grew up in a world where, it was really about the individual. And we're evolving, to where it isn't about the individual, it's about the relating, it's about the relationships that happen. And so Imago around the idea that People in attraction get a pull towards someone who will end up having some pretty real differences from them because nature selects for diversity, nature doesn't want you to go fall in love with somebody just like you. Nature wants you to fall in love with somebody who's different from you so that you can do what we're going to call healing work and growth work. That if you need the friction. And so part of what Imago is about, and when you talked about your awareness, it's the awareness that says those friction moments are opportunities. So this is a way to think about relationality that says the task two people have, and I think this also applies in families and organizations. is to be conscious about the space between. And so, if, if you and I are in relationship and part of what comes us to stress is that we, one or both of us have a task, which is to come to the relational space. and make it better. And what helps us make the relational space better is how awake you are and how conscious you are. And that when people are conscious, they do a really good job of taking care of spaces. But when they're unconscious, not so much. And so we think skills are a big part of it. Bringing that awareness to consciousness because we think there's such a big difference between unconscious relating and conscious relating. Is that tracking for you?

Hoyt: 6:16
absolutely. Let me ask you about, something you mentioned at the beginning of that explanation, that nature wants us to partner with someone who is fundamentally different from us, but that's kind of contrary to what most of us think

Wendy: 6:34
It's very contrary. It's very contrary. And I think, especially with the, you know, when you think about how we age over time, you know, the number one reason couples in our culture divorce is called irreconcilable differences. so we have differences that we are facing into, and we have no idea what we can do about those differences. And Imago's an idea that says there's a reason for that. And it's that we've been raised and enculturated in such a way that says, if you're different from me, then I have a job, which is I have to colonize you, make you be like me, look like me, sound like me, be like me. If I can't colonize you, then, then I have to kill you. And if I can't colonize you and kill you, then I have to leave you. But nothing in that training says how do you look at differences and go, Oh, that's interesting. Oh, you being different for me isn't dangerous. It's interesting. Oh, I wonder what I could learn and grow and change as a result of that friction. It's a different way to think. Small children know how to do this, but we lose it by the time we're probably 8 to 10 years old. feel like we have to colonize, right? And so this is a whole theory that says marriage may be the one thing on the planet that's really designed at multi levels to get people to wake up, okay, awareness, be intentional, develop skills, and appreciate the amazing quality of that interplay. This happens in friendships as well. It certainly happens in relationships with children and with parents. So this idea of living in a consciously relatable place is great. And it's an idea that most therapeutic models believe in. We've just taken it and said, we've got reasons to think this is true from neuroscience. We've got reasons to think it's true from looking at Evolution and ecology, and wouldn't the world be a different place if we figured out how do we do life in a different way around the differences that surface?

Hoyt: 9:04
So I want to be clear because I understand this, but our listening audience may not, is that this is not some woo woo new age concept here. This is rooted in classical psychology. Is that right?

Wendy: 9:21
Oh, that's absolutely right. Yeah, I think it's, it may be rooted in classical spirituality. You know, if you think about yin and yang, if you think, I mean, there's so many elements that have said we need the both and, and that's kind of a general theme, Hoyt, that I think that what happens in relationships that causes pain is a, uh, a thinking process of either or. Right, wrong, good, bad, yes, no, right? It's very dichotomous thinking. So if you don't agree with me, then I need to change you, right? Because you're wrong and I'm right. And that starts at a fairly young age. So what we know is that you have to go from either or to both and. Oh, you're right and I'm right.

Hoyt: 10:15
it sounds simple, but it's not, is it?

Wendy: 10:17
I think you're a hundred, because we've been taught that those differences are dangerous. And so a great deal of what is really exciting to me about this work is helping people get out of that old belief system that being different is dangerous. And, and you know, you probably the person that could speak to this beautifully, because what happens for so many folks is they start a relationship. and it goes as far as it can under the circumstances. And it ends up with what I consider completion. I don't think divorce means failure. I think it means completion. And then I think you say, well, what did I learn? And what do I now know? And what, how do I want to do it differently going forward? And if you take the kind of experience to say, it was a waking me up. Now, what do I want to do with being more awake? And everything has to do with that I'm more conscious. And by the way, the short version, in my view, of how to understand the difference between unconscious relating and conscious relating, first of all, it's very much based on neuroscience in terms of which parts of your brain are actually activated. But the simplest explanation I give people is if what you intend actually plays out with how you impact your conscious. But if your intentions don't match your impact, you're unconscious.

Hoyt: 11:46
Well, tell me more about that because I'm not sure I really am fully grasping that, pattern

Wendy: 11:50
So I think because when you fall in love, when you are in that early stages of life, and a lot of deep relationships live more in the unconscious. And then the unconscious relating, I take everything I see, experience, hear, know, and I immediately translate it into a dichotomy of it's safe or it's dangerous. That smile, that was safe. That frown, that was dangerous, for instance. If I think it's safe, I mate, I play, I create, I rest, I nurture. But if I thought it was dangerous, I fight, I flee, I freeze up, I belly up, submit, or I try to fix it. I try to tend and befriend,

Hoyt: 12:39
Uh huh. Yeah.

Wendy: 12:41
that is just trying to create safety, and then the next part of your brain evolution was your mammalian brain, and it only cares about avoid pain and increase pleasure. So you've got this old brain mentality that, by the way, is incredibly fast and can take you over in a nanosecond. And it's held by the last part of your brain that evolved, which is your cortex. And your cortex says, wait a minute, it's actually got a little part of the brain that we call the zookeeper, who's managing to say, wait a minute, just because that person sighed or didn't say hello when they walked in the door, doesn't necessarily mean that they're mad at you and they're unsafe. You may have read that and interpreted that in a way that may or may not fit, but the bottom line is what you never bothered to do is check it out you've already made an assumption. So as soon as I assume that I know what that frown of yours meant, I then am gonna have a reaction. Well, you're frowning at me, I'm just gonna frown at you, or I'm gonna turn my back and ignore you. Now, my intention wasn't to hurt you, My intention was to match you or try to get something better to happen, but my impact was just send it sky high in terms of reactivity. And so often what you'll hear from people is, but that wasn't my intention. Think about if I step on your foot and I hurt you, my first often reaction, and let's distinguish reaction from response, my first is, but I didn't mean to, it was an accident, which is of course making the pain that you just inflicted, something you have to be innocent about. And so my intention is to stay innocent, but my impact is that I just denied your pain.

Hoyt: 14:34
Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy: 14:35
Does that

Hoyt: 14:36
I see that. I absolutely see that.

Wendy: 14:39
so I come home, I do things that I just, just, A couple days ago, I came in and I was tired, I didn't feel good, and I come in and I laid things down pretty loudly, And all of a sudden, people in my home are going, okay, what did I do that you're mad about? And I thought, okay, now that wasn't what I was intending to do. But that's what I did. That was my impact. So I try to explain and defend. Oh, no, no, what? But all of a sudden, I'm taking no responsibility for the impact I just had. And if I learned that it's safe to say, nah, yeah, I was slamming things around, wasn't I? You know what? That wasn't about you. But I can certainly imagine it was hard on you. Boom, it's done. But we have such a depth need to be innocent and cling to innocence. That it's very hard for us to take responsibility for our impact. And in a conscious relationship, if I have an impact I don't like, I have a reaction to you. Then I have to fix it. If my intention doesn't match my impact, it's my job, not yours. couples spend a lot of time saying, you don't understand me, you don't get me, that wasn't my intention. You misunderstood, you misinterpreted, you misread. Message is you shouldn't think the way you think, and you shouldn't feel the way you feel. You should think and feel the way I want you to think and feel.

Hoyt: 16:08
You know, and part of that, I'm guessing, Wendy, is that, well, there are two forces here, right? One, one is that there are these evolutionary forces that just have us baked in to seek tribe and protect ourselves, right? So, the flight or fight, and all of those kind of things that are deep in your mammalian brain.

Wendy: 16:29
Good? Yes, absolutely.

Hoyt: 16:31
And then you have the other aspects, which are how you were trained, how you were brought up as a young person, the expectations of your immediate family and the expectations of your group, your society, as it got larger.

Wendy: 16:47
That's right.

Hoyt: 16:48
so tell me about how the impact of your early parenting, and then your early social, relationships, influence these kind of behaviors as adults.

Wendy: 17:01
Yeah, I, I love the question because I think it is a question that we don't often understand easily. What you'll see often in couples is I can look at you and say, you know, you do this because of your mother, right? But I can't look in the mirror and say, I wonder why I do what I do. Or I wonder what I look like or sound like. You'll often hear, middle aged parents who say, Oh my God, I heard my mother's voice come out of my mouth, right? Or, I promised I would never do X and here I'm doing it. Or, I've worked so hard not to do Y that I've gone to the other. All of that is in reaction to what we were taught, and how we incorporated it. Most of it is out of our awareness. So a big part of what I think Imago does is to say, will you pause and look at assumptions that you make, stories that you tell, beliefs that you hold, and could you put all of that in a construct that said, I have a mindset. my mindset is this is how the world works. This is who we are, this is what we do, and I'm either totally in compliance with that or totally in rebellion with it. And all of that compliance and rebellion are reactions. So Amago's really about, you know, what you want to be able to do is the both and again. This says that I was taught the following things. For very good reasons, And I played those out in ways that make a lot of sense and worked once upon a time, but they don't work now. So when people are looking at difficult relationships or struggling relationships or beginning relationships, one of the things we want to be clear about is patterns are going to happen. We're going to develop a pathway, a dance. Now, most of us. Are going to do it unconsciously. I was just talking to a woman earlier today, who's back in the dating scene and she's got many, many stories in her brain about what a man should do. So if he thinks that we should always split the check, and I think he should pay, but nobody's telling each other that we're never talking about that. We're living in the land of assumptions that then dictate hurt feelings. And the more you know about that, like I was able to say to her, what do you think would happen if you brought it up and you said, you make a lot more money than I do, would you be willing to pay more of the bill? And she was horrified at the thought but she's horrified because of what she was taught. Not

Hoyt: 19:56
uh huh,

Wendy: 19:57
because it's an illogical thing. It's not an illogical thing. What makes her not want to do it is the scared feelings. And those scared feelings come straight out of breaking with what I was taught. I have a script and I'm breaking the script. I can't do that.

Hoyt: 20:13
uh huh, uh huh.

Wendy: 20:14
On the other hand, if you break it, Don't do it. You're not going to thrive. weren't designed to live in this grip forever, amen.

Hoyt: 20:23
oftentimes, Wendy, I'm guessing that the couples that come into your workshops and into therapy with you and your team are people that are experiencing enough pain from having those frictions bubble to the surface to where we've got to do something, right? Am I right about that?

Wendy: 20:44
That's totally right. Which, which is an energy generator, right? Crisis is danger and opportunity, right? So you put me in crisis and I'm willing to try and look at things I might not have before. But, but what we really think is rather than doing, my buddy Harville who created Imago says, I don't want to do downriver cleanup. I want to do upriver prevention. And what would upriver prevention look like? And I think it would be knowing so many of these things back in middle school, right? We should have learned a lot of what I teach when we were kids. As opposed to when we're in full adulthood and we've got enough pain under our belt to say, well, maybe I need to look at the way I'm thinking about all of this and were my parents right? Like when I say to people often, how many of you watched your parents good, healthy relationships where they could communicate and they could actually solve problems and work things out together? It is such a tiny percentage.

Hoyt: 21:52
Uh huh.

Wendy: 21:53
Because our parents didn't know how to do that. Nobody was teaching them,

Hoyt: 21:58
And so, if it's modeled for you that way, with

Wendy: 22:01
it changes things.

Hoyt: 22:03
family of origin, then it's hard not to come out of that with, this is how it works, and to your point, by the time you are an adult and you've got closure in your prefrontal cortex and all of that kind of stuff. There's an inherent calcification of those

Wendy: 22:22
Exactly. Good word. Good word. Absolutely. I think that's absolutely right. And so I think we're in a very exciting window of time because we're living so much longer and, many of us are having, more than one significant relationship in our lives.

Hoyt: 22:40
Uh huh.

Wendy: 22:41
And we're very different in our 50s than we were in our 20s 40s. We're different. And we should be. Because our life cycles have shifted. And we know things now that we didn't know then. And so to me, all of that that can open the door to say, It's okay that I don't know how to do this. But I better go find out.

Hoyt: 23:06
You know, that's what's one of the things that in doing this with Behind the Swipe that I find to be the most exciting and encouraging piece is that People in their 50s and 60s who have had some kind of a shift like a divorce or they've lost a partner for whatever reason, they are now in a place where they're looking at new opportunities with a broader lens.

Wendy: 23:32
I think you're 100 percent right.

Hoyt: 23:34
And that's really exciting.

Wendy: 23:36
very exciting. Let me summarize what you said because it's so important. I think you're saying you can watch and do watch with your podcast and the, and the living that you're doing. How often people in 60s who've experienced loss, who've had to do letting go, who've lived a lot of life already, often have a broader lens. out of which they're looking at, at the world. Did I get you?

Hoyt: 24:06
Yes. And there are so many people, and maybe I talk about men in this regard, but Wendy, I probably spent the first 45 years of my life with a suit of armor on that didn't fit me anymore when I turned 50.

Wendy: 24:26
You outgrew it.

Hoyt: 24:27
me anymore.

Wendy: 24:28
You outgrew it. And isn't that cool? I mean, isn't it cool that we can't be as small as we once were? You know, we talk a lot about what you're describing as defenses, Ways to protect yourself. And, and the analogy we're often using is the cage. You know, you made all these early life decisions. Don't be this, do be that, must always be. And those got rigid. And we have rigid thinking. And, one of the things that Bob does, my husband, is he teaches, these workshops for men called The Clearing.

Hoyt: 25:04
Uh huh.

Wendy: 25:05
And I send every man I know to this because what they do is they, it's not therapy, but they're just helping each other. With, well, how do you do this? You know, and I'm in the other room listening to them hoot and holler and fuss at each other and beguise and so forth. But the idea that, wait a minute, you mean there's a safer way to operate? You mean there's a choice here? Is something so many men have no sense about. and I think the gradual change we're having is, wait a minute, can my life feel better to me? And what's the paradigm we've been living under? Because, frankly, I don't think it works great for either sex if we don't say, we're making these choices. Are we good with these choices? Do you like this choice or not? Because again, the differences can be hard. I mean, we tried to design a bathroom together recently and that was hard. Because he's, he's got a lot of wrong ideas as far as I'm concerned, right? But the outcome idea of I want us both to enjoy the outcome, but I also want to enjoy the ride. And how do we do that? And I think when we're in this age range, you guys are, I'm older, but that age range, I think you have the potential for implementing change in some really constructive, interesting ways. That say, well, who am I, and who are you, and how do we want to do this? And I love that there is that effort. And consequently, I mean, I have a skewed view, but a lot of the people in their 50s and 60s I'm watching are actually going about starting relationships in a, in a really constructive, healthy way.

Hoyt: 26:49
I see that too, and it's really, it's exciting to watch, it really

Wendy: 26:54
very exciting.

Hoyt: 26:56
So Wendy, in the second half of the show, I want to take this down to what people can do very early. in their relationships, where they can maybe, derail some of these things that become potholes for people typically in their relationships down the line. But before we do that, we'll take a little break before that, but before we do that, I'm curious about how people carry their history and their trainings into these behaviors. And I'm curious about whether you see a difference in men versus women in terms of how that manifests itself in these.

Wendy: 27:36
Absolutely. well, first of all, I suspect the children that are coming up will have a different picture of this, we teach our children how to be in the world based on our best knowledge. And for example, for men, one of the things that men have carried with them that they had no choice about was some very early experiences they had with the concept that they should not be vulnerable, if you look at nurseries with newborn babies, there's a dramatic difference in how the staff of a nursery treats a girl baby versus a boy baby when they cry. At that point, Hours old mentality. They will pick up a girl baby twice as fast as they will pick up a boy baby.

Hoyt: 28:25
I had no idea.

Wendy: 28:27
Well, the culture says toughen up. He's a little boy. He needs to learn how. It's not that big a deal. We'll get to him. and that training is, handed straight down through the generations, Males are going to be the warriors. You're going to be the hunters. You're going to be the protectors. and so we're going to be, as females, the nurturers, the supporters. the gatherers who figure out what needs to happen. And that kind of dance has worked, obviously fairly well in history, or we wouldn't be where we are. It's a, it's, it's not a viable way to live a whole lifetime. So I think male training, for instance, you'll often hear a man say, um, I don't do feelings. I don't have feelings. And, when we started off in my relationship with Bob, The joke was he did have feelings. He had two. One of them was, happy, but the other was angry. It's all he had because that's all he was taught as a little boy. Now, I've got the contrasting one of, I can have many feelings, but none of them should be angry and they all have to be on the contrasting place, which is why we think there's an interesting pull and fit. You're gonna hold the feelings for us. You're gonna hold the intensity and the protection for us. it starts off with a good idea, but it's based on a whole lot of assumptions that people never check out. So I think part of what women have to do, and I, I mean, I'm from the Northwest, so I, I tend to also say some of this is regional, because I think what, for instance, Southern women learn about how to be in the world is unique. And as opposed to Northwestern women, what we learned is unique. But so that, that attitude of what I figured out was this is the way I, I have been trained and the way I need to operate. and there's a tremendous amount of, social, unconscious, contextual pressure around gender. Because you're a man or a woman, you should be X. It's why I think so much of what's evolving around questioning the old paradigms around gender is shaking us up, but it's very interesting to say, what is it I tell myself I'm supposed to be? And what if that doesn't quite fit for me, right? And women's experience of joining the workforce And being as powerful in the workforce as they can become, right? And how often you're now watching women, make more money than their guys. and how does that feel? And what do you do with all of that? And how do we accommodate that? So we, in other words, we've made some shifts around the cultural expectations, but we haven't necessarily made shifts around the stories and the narratives that go with that, because those all lead to assumptions. And those assumptions Unspoken, unchecked out, gets you in trouble.

Hoyt: 31:39
And so, by the time they are desperate enough to say, I think we are not working this out by themselves, all of these things have been in interplay for quite a

Wendy: 31:52
Quite a while. Which is why one of the protector veins is what assumptions am I making and will I be willing to be brave enough to speak them out loud? Like I'm assuming that because you make more money than me you'll pay for our meals. Is that an okay assumption?

Hoyt: 32:10
Uh huh.

Wendy: 32:10
Right? Now if you say a quick yes, But you don't really tell me the truth about how that feels, we're going to get in trouble. So I think we have a, a whole thing about what I should be versus what I am and how often what people will tell me is they don't know how to fit into the body they're in now. How do I do this?

Hoyt: 32:32
Well, that's a great place for us to take a quick break, Wendy. in the second half of the show, let's talk about how we can put some of these, some Techniques, tools, skills, and awareness to work for people who are just beginning that relationship. we'll do that right after the break. If you're enjoying this episode of behind the swipe. Share the love. Forward this episode to your friends and colleagues that you think might enjoy it. If you haven't already done. So be sure to follow us on Instagram at behind the swipe podcast and on Facebook at behind this white. If you already do. You'll probably notice some reels and stories for the next few days With clips from the best moments of this episode. you can help share those more broadly as well by liking and sharing the clips in your feed as well. It helps us get this important topic out more broadly to others, just like you. As always, we appreciate your support and encouragement. Now. Let's get back to our fascinating conversation. I am back with Wendy Patterson. Wendy is an imago therapist in the Atlanta area and has been trained in imago since the very beginning of the concept, haven't you? Okay. I love having you here, Wendy. I really love having you here. I just wish we were doing this across the dining room table

Wendy: 34:08
Oh, really Hoyt? Wouldn't that be, and, and wouldn't it be something if, and you know that's happening more and more. I mean, so many people that come to me are coming because my friend told me to come, and I think that's more the communal aspect that says we could do deep relationships a whole lot better. And so why don't we? Let's just go for it.

Hoyt: 34:29
Let's just go for it. I love that. All right, before we get back into this topic, remind people what Imago is and if they want to learn more about that, learn more about you and Bob and your practice how should they do that?

Wendy: 34:42
We have a new website and it's called ImagoGeorgia. com. So that's probably the easiest place to go. I'm a little technologically challenged, so I have to be honest and say I haven't really visited it, but I think it's splendid because I've got young people handling it. but Imago is actually, it's worldwide. one of the things that's been wonderful in my life. Has been the opportunity to go train people all over the world. And how do you do this? And an interesting thing, by the way, I don't know if I told you this, but I got my PhD last year.

Hoyt: 35:19
Well, congratulations!

Wendy: 35:21
almost 74 tomorrow and I got it at 72 and I'm very proud of that but my what I wrote about was are we thinking similarly in other cultures about deep relationships and the truth is we are. I think more and more of current thinking is we want our relationships to be conscious How do we make them conscious? How are we going to define that? And how are we going to make that happen? And that part has been wonderful. And so everything to do with Imago is around that. And I do a lot of work of training therapists, but I also have a special love of training what we call professional facilitators, which are not therapists. There are people like teachers or teachers or, executive types or lawyers who want to affect change, but they want to do it out of this relational paradigm. And so that requires a whole different kind of approach. And it's kind of the main advice, I think, When you left us with what kind of advice, it has to do with that the approach is what is good for the relationship. Not me, not you, the relationship. So I see my clients always as the relationships. And I'm really interested in how do you make that more of your agenda so that you can take risks that you wouldn't normally take, or clean up messes that you might normally not have cleaned up because you get it that how we do this matters. So Imago, Georgia is where you can go. and, I've got a great cadre of people in the city, well, and the state, well, in the Southeast who all do Imago, most of whom have trained with me, and I love that they are so competent and so capable. and they all bring different perspectives. Most of the people who come to learning about how to do Imago work are usually actually a little bit older.

Hoyt: 37:31
That's interesting.

Wendy: 37:32
I think it's because of life experience, that just says, it starts to make more and more sense. As you move into different phases of your life, which I think is very cool, to say, what does that look like?

Hoyt: 37:44
Well, I will tell you that probably 30 years ago, and I alluded to this in the first half of the show, participation in the program and individual counseling with you, I credit for, giving me another good 20 years on my marriage. And, and like you said, that marriage had run its course, but I would never say that it was a bad marriage. she's a great woman and we had just walked as far as we needed to walk together. And, and I'm, I'm eternally grateful for that.

Wendy: 38:20
Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. the way I think about it is that when we choose to get married, unconsciously, we make a contract, right? Or, or several layers of contracts. I'll be this and you'll be that. And we're in agreement about this. And that in a good relationship, when the contract is expired, it needs to change. But most people don't know that. So when they get to the time where the old contract is no longer working, the only way they have to think about it is it must be that you, you are the problem, right? As opposed to the patterns that we had, the deals that we made, we've outgrown and we need to do something different. And that's a whole, completely different way to think about this, but when we start life with forever, after, right into the sunset, you're the one and only, and you should be my one and only forever, no matter what. I mean, this is so sweet and so naive.

Hoyt: 39:26
Well, I don't, I don't know if I told you this, Wendy, but You know, Katie and I probably did say in our vows until death do us part, but really we have a 20 year deal.

Wendy: 39:36
there you go. There you go. I mean, I think the idea of, I really want it to be death to his part, can be really helpful because it can say, so that puts a lot of pressure on me. If I'm unhappy, I got to do something about it.

Hoyt: 39:51
gotta fix it.

Wendy: 39:52
And if more people would decide, nah, something's not quite right. Let's do something about it and realize that it starts by talking through the assumptions, checking things out, I think you think, I think you feel, am I right? And looking in the mirror and people that can do that. then you can be a safe person to be in relationship with, because a lot of the skillsets that we talk through are around safe conversations. What's it look like to have safe conversations? And how often do we not have safe conversations? And what should a safe conversation include? And that kind of thinking, that's why I said it should be taught in middle school. Because if you learned early on how to have a safe conversation, and a conversation was feeling unsafe. And instead of pointing the finger at the other person, you looked in the mirror and say, I wonder what I'm doing that's not making this safe, not letting flow happen. And that takes courage to be willing to say, what's my part? What's my side of the street? But I think what we do with our structures in Imago, because a big part of what we do is capitalize a lot on the idea that everyone feels more seen and known and witnessed when, they're listened to. And that under 13 percent of what you ever say out loud really gets listened to. I'm not listening to what you said. I'm watching your face. I'm anticipating what you're going to say. I'm remembering my history. I'm coming up with a reaction or response. I'm not present in the moment. and so a lot of this work is you have to shift gears, slow everything down, and get present. And then once you're better at really making sure we're talking apples and apples, Then you can say, Oh, interesting. And we're big advocates for one of the skill sets being learning how to validate another person's perspective. This is back to that differences I was talking about. if I can say, you know what, it makes sense to me that you want to do this in the bathroom because it would cost less money and you're paying a lot of attention to how much it would cost. So, you know, husband, you're not crazy. And, and then empathy. So we think about it as mirror, which is eye to eye validate, which is logic, which is cortex tool and empathy, which is heart space, you know, that I could say, I get you and I can imagine how it might feel now, let me shift it back and ask you to get me, but, it's always, a smart thing to do of give what you want to get. I want to get listened to. I want to be heard. Give it. Be brave enough to step into that space first round. And for back to the gender piece, you know, some of what an interesting experience in one of my groups where I had a group of women and they were really unhappy with their significant relationships. And so I raised the question of, do you tell your partner what you really want? And they all said, Oh, absolutely. And I said, okay, good. How do you do it? And it was so loaded with why didn't you, you should have, if only I, I mean, it was like, not one of them could give me an example of asking for what you want in what I consider to be a healthy way. So I had this experiment where I said, okay, here's the deal. You're missing the mark. In my opinion, here's what a good ask looks like. Partner. I would really like it if you would bring some flowers home for me. Would you do that? So it's two sentences. I would like, will you? That's all you get to say. Don't explain it. Don't justify it. Just those two things. So I sent them out to go practice it. And they all came back and told me how it hadn't worked. And I said, so tell me what you did. Not one of them did the formula. They couldn't do it. And I got really interested in what has happened for women that they don't know how to say, here's what I would really like. Would you do this for me? how hard that is. And then I started having conversations with some of the men in my life and realized they ain't that great at it either.

Hoyt: 44:31
Surprise.

Wendy: 44:32
Surprise! We haven't been a world that, that said, it's okay to know what you want and ask for it. Instead, we think we have to justify, explain, defend, maneuver, manipulate, let me show you by doing it, all of those kinds of tricks that we, I think are part of the generational problems, part of the learning, the scripting. We talk about is you had a script. This is how you should be in the world.

Hoyt: 44:58
Uhhuh.

Wendy: 44:59
And it worked once upon a time until it doesn't. Like what one of my big issues is I'm an oldest child

Hoyt: 45:06
Uhhuh.

Wendy: 45:07
and I have four brothers. Well, I grew up telling them what to do and managing them and, and being smarter than they were and knowing how things could be better. So I'm actually quite good at that. And so I marry someone who's a youngest child. And, he has a theme song, which is You're Not the Boss of Me. And so it, it pointed to major conflicts, but that's why we think conflict is always growth trying to happen. So one trick is when there's a conflict, you ask yourself the question, what's trying to grow here? What's trying to evolve? what's trying to get, Up in the air so it could get healed. Because if we're having this friction, it's because something important is going on. How we're doing it sucks, and we should do it better.

Hoyt: 46:01
So let's bring that back to, what happens. early in a relationship. And so if you think about the way that many people, if not most, meet today, it's through some kind of an online dating app, Match. com, Bumble, Hinge, whatever the application is. Generally speaking, you're making, spur of the moment decisions based on a few photographs So, it's not at all surprising that you're kissing a lot of frogs to find somebody with whom you're compatible, and especially if you're subconsciously looking for that someone who is the opposite of you in many ways, I suppose. But, normally what will happen then is that you'll begin communications via text. So you're limited in what you can expose. You're kind of at risk, so how much do I put out there? and those oftentimes will tend to be either provocative or perfunctory or somewhere along that spectrum. But let's say that now, you've found someone and you're ready to have those first conversations.

Wendy: 47:12
That's great.

Hoyt: 47:14
so what can people do to do two things? One is, make sure that they are putting that that gap between the stimulus and response that they might negatively, react to under normal conditions. And then the second piece is, How do I find out where this person is? Is, is, you know,

Wendy: 47:38
Great.

Hoyt: 47:39
so let's, let's, let's talk about that.

Wendy: 47:41
Oh, that is such a fun question. Dual level question. All right. So, the first thing is, I think if we just get honest about the stress level that goes with what you just described. I mean, to get online, to be willing to put yourself into that kind of, I mean, what, what, what a woman just told me again yesterday was she said, it's like a full time job. If you're really going to approach this, then it takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. And so, of course, one of the big part places is that the fun of it has gone out. And I think if there's any way to say, look, I am interested in looking for like mindedness, but I also want to have fun. And so what could make this a more fun conversation, a more fun moment? And I'd like to assume that for the most part, what the texting has done is given the possibility that we might be able to have some enjoyment together because, hey, you know, we both like funny movies or we, I mean, that kind of, there are meeting places that we have where we can go enjoy because I think the relationship is beginning with pleasure. it opens the possibility that your unconscious mind leans in. If there's no pleasure in it, if there's no entertainment in it, it won't. So that's one element.

Hoyt: 49:01
Uh huh.

Wendy: 49:02
I think the second part is an interesting dynamic that I watch is how frequently single people tell me that the early dating is very unbalanced.

Hoyt: 49:14
Unbalanced. Tell me about that. What do they mean by that?

Wendy: 49:18
Who talks the most? Who's interested in who? Where is there any room for me? I can't tell you how many disappointed people I have spoken to who say, you know, that person I went out with, they talked about themselves the whole time. They never asked me anything about me. Not one question. and when I will say, well, and did you let that happen? The answer inevitably is yes. I was waiting to see if. You know, and so my assumption is, I mean, you're hearing this word thrown around all the time about you poor men. Narcissism. Narcissism. Narcissism. And it's not, it's not the right label. I mean, I think if what we say is if you live in a world where you don't go in say, Here's a couple things I want to know about you, and here's a couple things I want you to know about me. And I'm interested in just being that forthright and, and putting that little thought into what that might be. you know, one of the elements Hoyt that I find interesting is people live in the past tense, the present tense, or the future tense. You can't live in more than one at a time. So in the future, I have these. dreams or these thoughts or these pictures. you know, I'd like to, I'd like to be a traveler. I'd like to go see things. And I'd like somebody as a playmate to do that with. And I'd like us to work out how we do that consciously. All of a sudden, you've just painted a picture that if I'm hearing that, I'm thinking, well, that's interesting or attractive. So I think it has to do with being willing to share some vulnerability in a, in a gentle way. And making sure that there's initially balance,

Hoyt: 51:09
Yep.

Wendy: 51:10
because I think that can throw things off a lot, I think that when women ask men a lot of questions, they're assuming that they're being intimate, but they're not. They're just asking him to be intimate.

Hoyt: 51:23
Right. And it sounds more like an interrogation.

Wendy: 51:25
it sounds more like an interrogation. And I think that's very anxiety producing. And when men walk in and could twinkle and say, I'll tell you that if you tell me first, I mean, if we could play with it, you know, if you could make it more of a, of an interesting dance that would say, what does both and look like? So, a date should start with, it's going to have a both and quality to it

Hoyt: 51:48
Uh huh.

Wendy: 51:49
in terms of that. and I think one of the values of relationships that are starting, I think, in your 50s and 60s. is you often are dating someone with whom you do have a lot in common, and that the commonality can be really sweet and pleasant. But also, hey, I like to play pickleball. You like to play pickleball. What do you like about it? Let me tell you what I like about it. You know, what's hard for you about it? I mean, could we take some of those moments and say, they could be unpacked in some really interesting ways if we let that, and what that does is it's generative. It just makes things. move and shape and, get richer.

Hoyt: 52:32
I love the way that you framed that and I love the way that you talked about Not being able to simultaneously live in more than one of the three choices, the past, the present, or the future. Uh, and it seems to me that an interesting and wide ranging conversation that, you know, at the end of the day, early on, you're really trying to learn about each other, right? And it, all three of those lives are important.

Wendy: 53:02
Absolutely. The truth is there's a fourth one. It's called the tense of the unlived life.

Hoyt: 53:10
Ooh, that sounds intriguing, Wendy. Tell me about that.

Wendy: 53:13
What is the life I always wanted to live and never did? what lives in my fantasy dream world that I didn't get to actualize and, and have some regrets about, some pain about. But when dating starts to happen, That can show up again. And I think you're right. It's at the end of the day, I want to be known by you and I want you to know me. Good marriage, by the way, primarily is about being witnessed. I want someone to see my life. I want someone to be there to know my life. If I start out with, I want to be seen and I want you to be seen. Are we in balance? Because dating is so anxiety producing and when people get anxious. they overfunction in one form or another. I have to entertain you. I have to show you how cool I am, or I have to be so attentive and accommodating, and that's not really showing who you are. It's just showing the persona that your defenses tell you is legit. And if we went into it with a braver position that said, you know, here's one thing that I think is important for me to say out loud, you know, and one, is there anything important for you to say out loud? And it can be a quick filter system because if someone can't meet you there and lean into you a little bit, well, that tells you something.

Hoyt: 54:46
and that brings up a really good point in this, and that is that certainly not all of these are going to work out.

Wendy: 54:53
Oh, yeah.

Hoyt: 54:54
in, in terms of even, you know, you're on a few dates with somebody and that's, and it runs its course. And that's life. that's what happens. But addressing these things early on, like bringing up those things and being willing to be vulnerable in those places, Are the things that will expose whether you've got somebody that's connectable on the other end

Wendy: 55:19
I think you're right Hoyt. The other part of it is that I'm always interested in the big question, which is what's it like to be in relationship with me? So I think after those few dates, if I'm able to say, what did I learn about me? How did I feel? What did I like about how I showed up or not? What do I wish I had done more of, less of, or different? I wonder what would keep me from doing that. How much of that is my learning, my script? I mean, taking yourself into accountability that says, am I really a relational being yet who can say, my side of the street matters? And I think, those starts and stops can be incredibly helpful and informative. So, I'm really big on the question about what did I just learn?

Hoyt: 56:12
and,

Wendy: 56:13
did I think I showed up?

Hoyt: 56:16
so I'm curious about the feeling when you really do feel hurt? How do you know that? And what kind of feedback do you provide to your partner that encourages more

Wendy: 56:32
I love

Hoyt: 56:33
like that?

Wendy: 56:34
I think if you get better and better at paying attention to non verbals, what you'll see when somebody experiences that they got really heard is that their shoulders will drop, their pupils will get a little bit bigger, they'll lean in a little bit more, they're more likely to have a smile, even if they're talking about something hard. So, if I'm watching that. I think I'm in better shape. You know, part of what I value about the skills that we teach with the Mago is that a big part of it is. Let me make sure I'm getting what you said. Let me mirror it or summarize it. And then let me have the respect to say, did I get what you wanted me to hear? That checking in kind of experience is not something we get much of in the world. so I think literally I'm a big advocate of, am I hearing you correctly about this? Is this what you wanted me to hear?

Hoyt: 57:29
Wendy, I remember one of the exercises that to the extent that I can, I use this every day and not just in communication with my wife. But confirming back what someone else just said, what I understand that you just said was is important. And, wow, I mean, how often am I completely wrong?

Wendy: 57:52
I know, isn't that fascinating? And remember, it's, it's the mirror. I'm understanding what you said was, did I get you? The check in, the formula is MCI. Mirror, here's what I think I heard you say. See, check it out. Did I get you? Am I, am I with you with this? And I is invite. Is there more about that? If you do that MCI formula, You're gold. And it happens so seldom for us that when someone does a good mirror and says, did I get you? Don't be surprised if part of the time they say, well, not quite, because you gave them a mirror. And then instead of it being right or wrong, you get to say, what I really wanted to say was, and then you mirror that. Am I getting you? In other words, are we walking side by side or am I pushing or pulling? And as much as you can be side by side, With respect, and so am I getting you and is there more or two of the most respect generating things I think you can possibly do?

Hoyt: 58:59
And in that exercise, Wendy, it's not always that I didn't hear you right, because when you do say, here's what I understood, the other person will recognize.

Wendy: 59:11
Exactly.

Hoyt: 59:12
I didn't say that right.

Wendy: 59:14
Exactly. It's why I, for the most part, when I'm teaching, I've more and more lean toward not putting the word. right in. Instead of, did I get it right? Am I getting you? Am I hearing what you want me to hear? And that's just, it's generative. It just means, oh my gosh, look at us. We're moving into a possibility sphere of synergy, which is really what we want in relationships. We want to be witness, right? We want to feel like we can have safe connections. We want to have some fun, some intimacy, right? That goes with all of that. Right. Um, and I think it's, then we want to be generative. Everywhere,

Hoyt: 59:57
talked a lot about how these skills and awareness can be beneficial to someone in an early stage of a relationship. But I know that these skills are transferable outside of your intimate relationship.

Wendy: 1:00:15
Hoyt, everywhere.

Hoyt: 1:00:17
Give me some examples of that, Wendy.

Wendy: 1:00:19
husband's on the phone with the gas company yesterday and he's mirroring them. I hear you telling me you want to give me great customer service. Did I hear you correctly? Is that what you wanted me to hear? Um, the consultation he does with businesses all the time. So guys. You can't make good decisions if you're not on the same page in terms of what this looks like,

Hoyt: 1:00:41
I really appreciate your being here, Wendy. This has been fantastic and I know, look, I love this and we're going to have to create a workshop for people around this because there are just so many questions and so many skills that people want to bring on board. So, I appreciate it.

Wendy: 1:00:56
great time, Hoyt.

Hoyt: 1:00:58
I appreciate your

Wendy: 1:00:59
Let's do it again.

Hoyt: 1:01:00
much, Wendy. I want to thank Wendy once again for sharing her wisdom with us today. So generously. You know, doubt now know why I put Wendy Patterson to the Pantheon of great therapists. In the editing process for this show, I spend hours relistening to every piece of the interview. I can honestly say that I was personally just as riveted. Listening a second and third time to these pearls of wisdom. So articulately delivered as I was in the initial conversation. We all know people who need to hear this perspective. So please share this episode with those you care about. They'll thank you for it. I'm your host Hoyt Prisock. We'll be back next week with another brand new episode of behind the swipe. Until then. Swipe fearlessly.