DR JULE: The Relationship Advice You NEED to Hear | GREAT MOMENTS

Are you struggling to communicate with your partner? Or falling out with the same friend over and over again? This Great Moment is for you. Dr Julie Smith is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author of ‘Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?’. In this Great Moment, Dr Julie explains how our past childhood experiences quietly shape the way we show up in our adult relationships, and why leaning into the difficult conversations is the most important thing you can do. Because sometimes the work we do on ourselves is the greatest gift we can give to the people around us. Listen to the full episode HERE https://open.spotify.com/episode/6XcBmyNjhQKf9rh6mOjqNe?si=TjB4Q2KdRFWlaIYG9MCqlw! If you enjoyed the show, you can also follow us: Instagram-@greatcompanypodcast https://www.instagram.com/greatcompanypodcast/# TikTok -@greatcompanypodcast https://open.acast.com/networks/611e511b4ec6dc00134bced2/shows/65d737dfdc02e00016c413b2/episodes/www.tiktok.com/@greatcompanypodcast And if you've got thoughts, questions and comments, you can email us at: [email protected] THE CREDITS Producer: Helen Burke Assistant Producer: Issy Weeks-Hankins Video: Jake Ji Social Media: Laura Coughlan Exec Producer: Ewan Newbigging-Lister & Jemima Rathbone Great Company is an original podcast from JamPot Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Laing and this is Great Moments.

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Great Moments. Now, today, we're looking back on my conversation with the wonderful Dr Julie. Now, Dr Julie is a clinical psychologist who has an incredible gift for taking the things we all struggle with silently and instantly making them make sense. Now, when I read her book, it kind of opened up my mind to so many things. And in this great moment, she opens up about how our inner child might be sabotaging our love lives and why leaning into the difficult conversations is the most important thing you can do for our relationships. So here it is, our next episode of Great Moments with Dr Julie.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  So if we are in a relationship, which lots of people listening probably are, and they're struggling to communicate with their partner, or their partner is not really understanding what their partner is trying to tell them, how do you fix that? How do you make sure that communication works? Because I always believed that relationships, unless there's cheating or whatever go on, but relationships break down because the communication is right. One side is not understanding the other. So how do you sort that?

• 1:10Speaker 01

  I think something that probably goes wrong is when people avoid the difficult conversations.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  That if something, if we know something's going to bring up emotion, or it's going to be a little bit testy or heated, then we avoid it and we cover it over. And those sorts of things, that tendency to do that is a bit like trying to hold air underwater, like it will always find its way to the surface, but when you least expect it. So, you know, if you're, I often do this exercise in therapy, actually, with people, where, I can probably do it with the book, actually. So if you put your hand on the other side and just push against me. So if you imagine that is...

• 1:49Speaker 00

  It feels great.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  My little stretch. If you imagine that is a kind of a bunch of feelings or issues that you don't really want to deal with, it's uncomfortable. And so, and so you don't, right? You just hold it at arm's length. You can carry on with the rest of your day and you're pushing it away.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  So we're holding, so for people listening, you're pushing one side of the book, I'm pushing the other side of the book.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  So yeah, I'm all the, I'm all the, I'm all the shit you don't wanna have. I'm all the, the thoughts and the feelings or the difficulties in your relationship that you don't really wanna deal with.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to be in your head. And so you have to keep pushing back to keep me at bay.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  So now if we said, okay, end of this, go about the rest of your day and I'm just gonna be doing this all day. And it would be difficult to kind of focus on stuff, but also when you get tired or you let your guard down, this is gonna come flying over and hit you in the face. So that's when all the difficult emotions suddenly hit us and we feel absolutely overwhelmed because we've been holding it back for so long. And then something's happened, let our guard down and it's just like opened the floodgates, right? So now if we take that and this time, if you just hold your hand out.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  And it's the same stuff you don't wanna have, same uncomfortable stuff, but I'm just gonna hold it there for you. You're just gonna just carry it with you. So if now we said, okay, end of the session, you go about the rest of your day, but you just keep that with you. That would feel fundamentally different, right?

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Hmm, feels different, yeah.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  So you would be more able to engage in conversation, do your work, your arm's gonna be less tired.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  You're, and you still get to choose to look down, it's still there, but you get to choose when you consider it and when you think about it and when you work on it. But you're also free to do all the other stuff, whereas, you know, it's not waiting to hit you in the face when you, as soon as you let your guard down. So it's that kind of difference of if you're not pushing stuff away, if you're willing to hold it, it doesn't fight against you so much.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  But Julie, but some people find it so tricky to have those conversations.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  And, and it's so hard, right? Because it's like, oh, I don't think I can talk about it. I don't think I can say it. Someone once told me the best way to have a conversation with your partner is to lie on a bed and look at the ceiling so you don't face each other.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, or go for a walk, that kind of thing when you're not, sometimes that can help if the intimacy side of it is tricky or kind of overwhelming. That can be really helpful, but also it's really helpful to go into it, knowing what your goal is. And by that, I mean, often disruptions in relationships are, they give you the sense that you want to win. You just want them to understand your point of view and then it will all be all right. And they feel exactly the same way. And so if the aim is to win.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  The relationship loses because the only person that feels good in victory and looks good in victory or feels that they look good in victory is you. So if you win the argument, you feel fantastic. And actually, the person you're trying to have a relationship with feels crushed. And that does nothing for your relationship. What they get is a sense of how he was willing to completely annihilate my self esteem in order to feel like he was right. Or, you know, he was willing to really break my heart in order to win this argument. And that stays and that kind of chips away at trust and and the ability to connect in the future. So when when we sort of enter into those difficult conversations

• 5:09Speaker 01

  or arguments with the set idea that, okay, I married this person, I want to have a really good relationship, improving relationship with them in the years ahead. Actually, our goal here is resolution and finding a compromise. And that's going to be really difficult because I'm really angry at this person and they've done this and they've done that. But let's, you know, and and also kind of seeing it as it's you two against the problem, rather than you against them. It just it changes the dynamic of how you're going to approach the problem.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Judy, you've just changed my whole perception. I'm gonna be honest, I had an argument with my wife today.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  I had a big argument. We woke up this morning, we had to, we're renovating a house, we had to go, God, the first world problems, we had to go and look at some marble.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  I just think, we had to go and look. And she was very stressed and it wasn't my fault, right? It actually generally wasn't my fault. And so I wanted to try and prove to her that it wasn't my fault.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  So she got cross at me. Hang on, she's getting cross. This is unfair. This is not my fault. I need to win this argument to prove to her that this isn't my fault. And you're right, and I do, I I win the argument. And what I get from her is an apology and, oh, I'm sorry. That doesn't make, it makes me feel a bit better because I've won, but actually, you're so right. What what is the issue here surrounding it? What is the resolution? We're we're married, it's okay. She's obviously struggling with something there. Me wanting to win the argument because I feel like she's, that's the total wrong attitude to have.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And yet, it's so natural, such a natural response to feeling like you're being attacked. Is the defenses go up, right? And that's where, you know, when when we have an issue with the other person, going in with the criticism or the attack, or, you know, if any of that is laced with contempt, like a, you always do this, or you never do that, then the other person immediately, you know, the emotional shut has come down because you're being personally, you know, your character is being attacked. And so you're just in defense mode because it triggers shame. And when you feel shame, you are just defending yourself, you are just protecting yourself. You can't really do anything else, it's on impulse. So that's when you kind of, then you go back and bite back, and then they bite back. And so it's natural, but sometimes just having that awareness of,

• 7:27Speaker 01

  what's my goal here? I want to spend my life with this person. Let me take two minutes out of the room to just recalibrate and think about that. And then I can come back in with something a bit different.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Why, as humans, do we have that sort of innate ability to avoid fault? We we never want it to be, it's within us, right? We want to blame others because if we blame ourselves, that's wrong. So we try and find blame wherever we can. Why do we do that?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Because it's painful, isn't it? No one ever wants to feel that, you know, it's so psychologically threatening to feel like you might not be enough. And, you know, it's really painful. And and when you then, that triggers shame, there's no learning to be had in shame. It's just threatening, it's just protect, just shut down, withdraw. And and all of that leads to kind of negative outcomes. So we we try to defend ourselves and we try to. You know, convince the people, that's natural, right? Convince the people in your life, you're okay, you're enough. And in the same respect, we're trying to convince ourselves of that too, that we're enough. Because if you don't believe that, you're going to be in turmoil, absolute turmoil.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  So with your partner, with your husband, when you have an argument.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  I'm always right.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  There we go.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Different Roz.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Do you think he's listening now and he's like, hang on a second?

• 8:49Speaker 01

  You'd never do that.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  You'd never admit. I mean, what I'm saying is, do you practise what you preach or try to?

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Try to, but also I never want to give the impression to people that because I've read the books and know the stuff, that that makes it easy to do, or that that makes you sort of somehow more than human. You know, so part of this is you learn how to deal with relationships early in life, based upon the people you're in relationships with as a child. And that becomes your template that you then take into adulthood. And so when something happens that feels familiar in your mind, so your brain is constantly taking information from the outside world. But it's not only taking that information, it's trying to make meaning out of it.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  And so to do that, it will take memories from the past, past experiences when you have felt similar.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Give me an example.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  So let's say, let's say as a child, you were always criticised for

• 9:57Speaker 01

  sort of academic imperfections or something like that. And then, and then as an adult, you're sat there with your wife and you're doing your accounts or something, and you make a mistake and she mocks you for doing it. Then it will trigger that really painful feelings that you had as a child of kind of just never being good enough. And so your reaction, even though it might have been a little, you know, she probably thought this is just a bit of banter, just, you know, he might even laugh at the reaction. It might trigger such an emotional response because your brain has made meaning that perhaps isn't in this situation, but it feels like something that felt that happened back then. So you'll have this big emotional reaction and she'll go, what happened there? What, you know, why did that, you know, push a button?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  She didn't see it coming because your brain is making meaning of it based on past experiences that you've had that felt similar.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Wow. So that child within us, that inner child doesn't go. It's it's hard to heal that inner child in some ways.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  So you've got, yeah, you you've got a series of kind of templates for so all your experiences as a child, you're absorbing all that. And you're learning, okay, when this happens, do that. And that leads to that outcome. Or, you know, you're learning how to survive relationships. As a child who has no control over them, but desperately needs them to survive. So. You develop kind of survival strategies in complex and difficult relationships as a child. And then those templates carry on into adulthood. So but they're less helpful often in adulthood. Because the relationships are different. You're not child to adult, you're adult to adult. And you have responsibilities and you've got compromise and those sorts of things. So then they become disruptive and then we have to.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Kind of, you can't necessarily unlearn or remove those templates that you have. You can become aware of what they are, become aware of when they're detrimental. And then make adjustments, you know, you can keep learning. So you can develop new patterns with your partner and and they can override the old ones.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  If if someone's listening now, right, and they're recognizing that perhaps they're being triggered. Or they're having a conversation with their partner or their friends and they bring you up emotions and they're listening, they suddenly go, oh, that's. I'm making the connection from when I was a child to now, and maybe it's bringing up those emotions. How do we stop the cycle? What tips would you give to someone listening who is in that sort of cycle and can't get out of it?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  So it happens really gradually. So what happens in therapy is people will come along and talk about the things that have been happening. And you you literally map it out on paper. So you'll, okay, this happened, then you felt this. And so because of that feeling, you did that to cope with the feeling. And it made the feeling go away, but then the feeling came back. So you did that thing again and you went around the cycle again. So you kind of map out these cycles that you get stuck in. And what you find is week after week, the details of the cycle change. But the cycle is the same generally. And what you're doing over those weeks is you're building up this familiarity with. The the cycles you get stuck in this, you know, when you you think I do this same thing over and over again. And I don't know why I just find myself doing the same thing.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  And when you kind of look into it in therapy like that. You start to notice it in the moment. So in in therapy, you're doing it in hindsight. You're looking back at the week gone by. But then when you're in it in real life, you start to go, oh, I know where I am on the cycle. We've done this ten times, I know. And then what you get is this moment of opportunity to either go around the same cycle again or do something different because you would have talked about what the exit is and where where you break it. Um. Sometimes you go around the same old cycle again.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  But that bit is hard. That that bit is hard to take that different direction.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Because it's so easy because what you're used to, the familiar, that cycle, that's easy to stay in that, right?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So you you go with the familiar rather than something new or different that feels unpredictable, even if the familiar is destructive. It's a coping strategy that probably worked back then. So something you did as a child, you know, if um someone who has an avoidant uh kind of uh style, uh you know, avoidant attachment style.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Which is?

• 14:17Speaker 01

  So if if you're an avoidant attachment style, you maybe struggle with intimacy or you um pull back and withdraw from people. Um. And it might be that in your childhood, um, you didn't have like physical affection or um your caregivers were unpredictable. And so actually it felt unsafe to be very close to them. And and so you it felt safer to be, you know, to pull back. And then in adulthood, um, that might be kind of difficult for your relationships. So, you know, if you've got, um, so if you've got that sort of avoidant strategy that came from childhood, in adulthood, it might not work.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Okay, so so going into that sort of relationships as well, right? If you're in a relationship and you're going around in the same cycle where you're you're you're either constantly meeting people and it doesn't feel right and you're breaking up with them and you're just going, I just don't feel like I'm lucky in love.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Is that the wrong partnership? Or is perhaps something with you in relationships that is making these relationships not work? Because you're doing the same thing, you're stuck in the same cycle.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and the thing is, it's, it's one thing to um just think, well, you know, I've had bad luck and, you know, men are whatever.

• 15:38Speaker 00

  Bastards.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can say it. I'm a good girl. And, and therefore, you know, and, and then feel a victim of it. But it's really, really interesting, the, the progress you can make when you're brave enough to look at your part in that cycle. So, you know, are you accepting certain types of behaviour from the beginning that if you can pull back, you might be able to protect yourself in the future? And are you um, uh, you know, not connecting with certain people that would be more healthy for you to get in a relationship with? Because you're following that, that pattern of, um, you know, you, you seek relationships

• 16:22Speaker 01

  that feel familiar, not that feel, uh, healthy.

• 16:46Speaker 02

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