Heartside Chats w/ Dr. Chelsea Wakefield Chelsea Wakefield

In this episode Dr. Wakefield and Lisa, discuss the love capacities of courage and curiosity.

It takes a lot of courage to face ourselves and to learn things about our partners that are surprising and

sometimes disturbing. This is where we begin to encounter the fullness of who they are. This is where

the real relationship begins!

The “learning conversation” - how relationship can be like an anthropology study. It is so important to

cross the bridge into the other person’s world and try to look out of their eyes and their experience

instead of constantly interpreting everything they do and say thru our own lens of understanding.

When we seek to understand the other person, and listen deeply, it is an act of love. People feel loved

when they feel understood.

Surprises - what to do when you discover your partner’s unexpected “raw spots.”

The powerful pause – when we are upset, how important it is to step back and pause before we believe

the story our minds are telling us about what is happening and react from that place.

How doing our personal work improves ALL of our relationships. In doing so, we do our small part

towards the realization of peace on earth. That’s why we always want to BEGIN WITHIN!

Dr. Wakefield and Lisa explore the love capacity of courage and how important it is in the journey of love. Courage is built by practicing it.  Loving someone will inevitably involve some pain, because we are all imperfect people.  So, how do we keep our hearts open? The greatest enemy of love is fear.  For people with a history of trauma, how do you take that self-protective "heart-wall" down and have the courage to love again?  Dr. Wakefield and Lisa offer some helpful suggestions for ways of sustaining a life of love in an imperfect world.

Dr. Wakefield and Lisa cover a lot of topics in this episode, beginning with a discussion about labyrinths, and how walking the path of relationship is like walking a labyrinth.  We cover the difficulties of being with a partner who is not interested in doing any personal work and the questions of “should I stay, or should I go?”.

We delve further in the six love capacities by talking about commitment.  How it is to a person, a process and to presence.  We talk about the problem of an “instant pudding” culture, where people are in search of a “soul mate” – the perfect relationship, without engaging in a process of learning, growing and co-creating together.  The soul mate relationship is developed versus found!  We also talked about the importance of downshifting and “landing” when we come home from a busy day, putting those devices down, and sharing silly moments, including the “whole family hug” to reinforce a circle of love.  More about the six love capacities to come!

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Dr. Wakefield and Lisa talk about developing the capacity to “shift states” – moving out of our responsible parent selves into playful lovers and true friends.  They discuss John Gottman’s, “four horsemen of the apocalypse” – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling and how these become corrosive in relationships.  Dr. Wakefield suggests that before blaming a partner for our distress, we should do our own inner work first. We are often "shadow boxing" when we don't understand the root of our distress.  When both people do this, they become insightful partners, and can create "exit ramps" off the conflict highway. 

Luminous Woman Weekend coming up - September 9-11!  Check it out!

https://chelseawakefield.com/luminous-woman-workshop/

Dr. Chelsea Wakefield and co-host Lisa Stutzman Graves discuss topics in Chapter 5 of Dr. Wakefield's book, The Labyrinth of Love,.what happens in "the swamplands."  This is the time we find ourselves moving deeper into the relationship.  Our inner abandoned kids, vulnerable teenagers and array of other characters start to show up and we don't know what to do about it.  Intimate relationships stir up a lot of memories from the past, memories that have been dormant for many years.  Dr. Wakefield answers an email from a caller who wants to know about second marriages and how to get off to a good start.  This returns us to the topic of expectations, assumptions and projections and how projections and how we can never do enough "pre-marital" counseling to cover everything we will encounter in a deepening relationship.  What we can do is to commit to an ongoing process of doing our personal work and staying engaged and present to each other in the interpersonal realm.  Sometimes projections can feel like intuitions - both positive and negative.  Does intuition exist?  If so, how do we know the difference between projection and intuition?  If we holding our "intuitions" and invested conclusions about who this other person is and what they are about lightly, we can encounter them with loving curiosity and continue to learn about them.  This will create a safe space for them to show up as they really are so that we can see them more clearly and love them more dearly.

This week Chelsea and Lisa talk about how our early experiences can develop “complexes” or triggers in us. These can easily get stirred up as our partners become emotional important to us. They discuss helpful ways to try and deal with this.