What’s The Episode About:

In this episode, Paul and Stacey will talk about a topic that is literally fundamental to what we think of when we think of relationship struggles. And that is the tendency of taking sides when we re-tell stories or people re-tell stories to us, mostly about terrible situations, either with their partners, or their parents, or somebody at their workplace. And when they tell us, we immediately go right into it with them either to console them or to hopefully give them some advice.

In the process, we end up taking sides because we have the best of intentions with that person. Even in life in general, when we’re looking for advice or we’re giving advice, we always get into that pattern of taking sides. That whole pattern is fundamental to relationship situations and we can literally hear it everywhere we go. You could just be walking through the grocery store, and you will hear people telling stories about how horrible somebody else was to them, or whatever the situation was.

That tendency has insidious and destructive effects, and if we don’t awaken to it, it’s can destroy things for us as we know them. Paul and Stacey will turn that pattern on its head, show us how destructive it is, and what we can do instead to not only learn to take personal responsibility in all our relationship situations but also strengthen those relationships for the long haul. Take out your pen and paper because you won’t wanna miss the lessons from this. Enjoy!

Key Points Discussed:

• The only answer we should give when we’re asked if we have a question (02:02)
• Learning to ask questions in the form of personal responsibility (03:05)
• How blaming or bad-mouthing others triggers other people to take sides (05:57)
• Building up our relationships rather than protecting our triggers for a lifetime (07:02)
• Navigating situations from relationship development and not demand relationship (08:52)
• Putting on our relationship transformer goggles, being compassionate, kind, and awake (10:48)

Where Can I Learn More:

• Get access to the Relationship Breakthrough Retreat – here
• Join the 14-Day Boost – here
• Join our Relationship Development Community – here

When Did It Air:

02/13/2020

Episode Transcript:

Stacey: 00:00 Hey relationship transformers. Welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast. Okay. On today’s episode, I want to talk about a topic that is literally fundamental to what we think of when we think of relationship struggles, which is taking sides. Right? Re-telling a story. How many times have you done this, or someone has done this with you where they re-tell a story about a terrible situation either with their partner, or their mom, or somebody at work, and they’re telling you, and immediately you’re going right into it with them either to console them, or to hopefully give them some advice. Even with the best of intentions. Right? When we’re looking for advice, or we’re giving advice, we get into this pattern with taking sides. And, I know this is like fundamental to relationship situations for sure. You can hear it everywhere you go, literally, just walk through the grocery store, and you will hear people yada, yada, yadaing, like telling stories about how horrible somebody else was to them, or whatever it is. You don’t have to look far to find it. And, it has insidious and destructive effects. And if you don’t awaken to it, it’s going to destroy things for you. And so, on today’s episode, we’re going to dive into something that most people assume is fundamental to relationship, turn it on its head and show you how destructive this is, and what you can do instead. So let’s queue up the intro and dive in.

Intro: 01:27 So the big question is this, how is it possible that one person alone can transform any relationship, save their marriage, great their unshakeable love and unleash passion, divorce, proof their family without needing their partner to get on board and do this with them and yet still get to be happily, authentically you without compromise. That is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Paul and Stacey Martino and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast. We are Paul and Stacey Martino and welcome to the Relationship Transformer podcast.

Stacey: 02:02 Alright. So we’re going to do laser coaching. Alright. This is how this works. There’s a tool I’m going to teach you. Anytime there’s a mentor, or an expert, or anyone that is at a level of development that’s currently above yours, and you… you want that level of development, and they ask you, “Hey, do you have a question for me?” The answer is always…

Audience: 02:41 Yes.

Paul: 02:41 Nice.

Stacey: 02:41 Always. Even if you can’t think of what the fuck to say. Yes, and then figure it out. Always say yes. Always. Someone says, “Hey, you have a question for me?” You say.

Audience: 03:00 Yes.

Stacey: 03:00 Always. So, you have a question for me?

Audience: 03:05 Yes.

Stacey: 03:05 Put your hands down. I love you. You’re so adorable. Alright. This is how we do this. Find a new page in your journal. Use a post it note, whatever you need, probably a journal is best if you’re going to take notes. And if you could only ask me or Paul one question, I want you to figure out what that would be. And I’m going to ask you to write it down in your journal. Now, the training begins now. I’m going to teach you how we do Q&A in Relationship U. This is how it works. Yeah. Amen. Leave the story behind and just bring the question. I don’t need the back story. I don’t need the details. Hone it into what is just the question. If I need more details, trust me, I will ask, but you can leave the story out. When you ask a question, there’s no bad mouthing of anybody else allowed in our community. No blaming aloud, no judgment. You need to ask in the form of personal responsibility. This in in of itself is training, and it shifts us out of demand thinking and into relationship development thinking, just in in of that. I’ll give you an example. So, the kind of questions you hear out in the world are, for example, my wife is always late to everything. I’ve asked a million different ways. I’ve tried timers. I tried telling her it was 15 minutes before it was, I’ve tried prizes, I’ve tried everything I could think of to get that woman to be on time, and she’s always late, and I can’t stand it. I don’t know what to do.

Stacey: 04:58 I tried chocolates, everything. Nothing has worked. What can I do to get this woman to be on time? That is not a relationship development framed question. That is demand relationship. It’s blame, it’s bad mouth thing. And what I want you to, I want to teach you about demand relationship questioning and why we don’t allow it in our Facebook communities and we don’t allow it in here. We’re anywhere. Is that immediately when I said that to you? Whose side are you on? Do you know? Yeah, you took a side, did you not? You were either on the husband’s side cause that would piss you the fuck off too. Or you’re on the wife’s side cause you’re like, yeah, I wish everybody would stop trying to tell me to be on time. I’ll be there. Right? Here’s the thing, I really want you to see this. I want you to see how insidious demand relationship is.

Stacey: 05:57 When you blame or bad mouth, you trigger other people to take sides. You do leadership team. Do we not see this all the time in our communities? Someone posts, right? Shell someone posts something even with the best of intentions, but they’re bad mounting their partner and immediately the comments come in. Well, you just need to tell him to stop. Then XY really helping you go to the grocery store and get that recommendation. The fish counter guy will tell you that it’s not helping. When you bad mouth someone or speak in blame, you trigger the other person to take sides. So all this time we’re complaining about the people in our lives, to our friends, to our family members, to our coworkers. Is it any surprise that they take our side and get upset with the other person too? And doesn’t that leave us with a mess to clean up when we’re trying to repair the situation?

Stacey: 07:02 These are predictable patterns and they create predictable results. So what’s the relationship development approach to a question like that? I have a trigger. I find that when anyone, including my spouse is late, it’s triggering the crap out of me. I’ve tried to get them to change and I see now that’s the man relationship and I want to work on my trigger. How can I see this differently so that this no longer triggers me so I can come from relationship development and build up my relationship. I’d much rather build up my relationship than protect my trigger for a lifetime alone. What do you think? What insights do you have? What have you experienced? Has anyone solve this? How can you help me? That’s a relationship development approach question. That is personal responsibility statement. There is no blame. There’s no judgment. It’s about you and your trigger and the help that you need. Does that make sense? All right.

Paul: 08:01 By the way, there’s one more thing to that too. I just want to point out for the sake of everybody who struggles with this, who was the person who’s actually gonna get resourceful and get a result? It could be the same person who had the first question had to rephrase it to be the second question, which one of that same person would get a result that would work the second because what did we say? If you’re already thinking it’s her fault, his fault, whatever it is, all that blame is coming out and you’re like, so what? What? What can they do to change this from me? Are you going to reach for anything to change your world or are you waiting for the world around you to change? Right? So you really won’t get the result when you’re forced to think in that way. Just by changing that perspective, they’re actually ready to receive something where you’ll hear something you can use in a way that’s constructive.

Stacey: 08:52 When all else fails, if you’re not sure how to frame your question in a personal responsibility statement, this is the shortcut, just state the situation that is happening. The specific example, and then ask this one simple question. How can I navigate this from relationship development and not demand relationship? Super simple. You can pretty much apply that to anything. This is the situation. How can I navigate this from relationship development and not demand relationship? So that’s like the catchall framing to help you be ready. All right, well I hope you already had a shift, right? A shift in your perspective to see, wow, something that’s so fundamental to like relationship talk and yet, Oh my gosh, even right there and then we’re triggering crap and we’re, we’re creating bad results for ourselves. So let’s start with what can we do now to get action now? What action steps can we take to get results?

Stacey: 09:56 Well, the first is catch yourself like take the 90 day challenge with me. No bad mouthing your partner or anyone else. No talking in a way that triggers other people to take sides. So if you will pledge to take this challenge and the, let’s call it the no taking sides challenge, go ahead and post to the Facebook community today. Declare it. We’ll all do it together because this is a fundamental thing that we can shift when we shift it. We get so many great results. Now the second part of that challenge is don’t be taking sides because the rest of the world still talks like this. We can’t change the rest of the world. It’s okay. Everybody’s still talks like this. When someone starts sharing a story with you, don’t be like, Hey, you’re triggering me to take sides. That’s no good. Like hold it, hold up.

Stacey: 10:48 Don’t go into that. That’s not what this is about. The relationship transformer approach is that when someone does start telling you a story in a way that normally would have triggered you to take sides. Instead, take a moment, put on your relationship transformer goggles, be compassionate, be kind, but be awake and do not allow yourself to take sides. Remember that the other person in the story could have told you the exact same story from the flip side. Do not take sides. Be there for that person. Support them. Be compassionate. Share if they ask you for strategies or insights, share, but do not allow yourself to get triggered to take sides as people are talking to you. And of course the third action step is to start framing your words. Start framing your story, start framing your questions in the form of a personal responsibility statement, right?

Stacey: 11:48 Just like I did in the example before, start practicing. It’s so funny, like sometimes we think we have to, we think in demand relationship, we think in blaming. We think in judging. We think in taking sides and actually that’s the fundamental core, right? You can’t get away from your own thoughts. So demand relationship speaking is something that we’re starting to shift and also catch ourselves with demand relationship thinking and start to make this shift. So for the next 90 days a year, get aware of B, stop taking sides and stop and signing, triggering people to take sides, but also catch yourself. Break the chains of demand relationship. Start framing things in personal responsibility statements. Start thinking things and personal responsibility statement. Those three actions to get you started. And of course, if you want more and to go into the tool set, sign up for the next 14 day boost program at 14DayBoost.com dive in, start getting the tools, start getting the strategies, the relationship breakthrough retreat, live event tickets are open. Go to RelationshipBreakthroughRetreat.com. Get your tickets, don’t miss out. Um, and please share this podcast with anyone and everyone that you know that deserves these tools and strategies. And remember together we are changing the way relationship is done.

Outro: 13:15 Hey, would you like to get big results in your relationships in just 10 seconds a day? If so, then subscribe to our daily inspiration for relationship transformers or the D.I.R.T at www.MartinoPodcast.com/DIRT