348: Unlocking Lasting Love: Fear Melters, Communication, and Joyful Connection in Relationships

Maya Acosta  00:00

Okay, if you're in this webinar, you're in the right place. This is getting on the same side creating relationship harmony. We're very excited about Michelle and Dean being here. They are trained and certified in the Hendrix Institute. And we have experienced with them. So we'll tell you about that briefly. This is the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast, and I'm your host, Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together, we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life, and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. I have been working with Michelle now for over two years. And it's been really significant life changing. The reason I wanted to introduce her to our community, really both of them is because, you know, we talk about lifestyle medicine a lot together in the work that we do, Dr. Riz and I and one of the pillars of lifestyle medicine, it focuses on having healthy relationships. And so we want to start bringing that content to the community because we know that when you're in a say, not a very healthy, or even maybe toxic relationship, that can actually affect your mental health, your physical health. And so we want to start talking about that. And we've seen such improvements in our own relationships, and individually, doing our own work that we really just wanted to introduce them. And hopefully, you know, you'll find some benefit to today's talk,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  01:32

we are talking about all of these different aspects of lifestyle that we are trying to hit upon, and get running as good as possible in order to improve our lifestyles. Certainly improving our relationships is it should be right up there. It's one of the most important things in the world, you know, in our lives. I'm very happy to have them join us today as well.

Maya Acosta  01:52

Yes, yes, thank you so much, Michelle, and Dean Yasuda for being here. And I will let you take it, take it away, or however,

Dr. Rizwan Bukhari  02:00

please guys do a little bit more thorough introduction, and and then get started.

Michele Yasuda  02:04

Like my enriches, said, We are trained, Bigley coaches. And what that means is that we had the great pleasure and honor of being mentored and taught by two amazing, amazing. I like to say masters of life, who taught us so many skills that we can use, you can use every day, to create a healthy, beautiful life of aliveness. So I've been a coach working with individuals we work together with couples, yeah, and we have a great time learning to transform our lives while actually having some fun. That's one of the things I love about the Hendricks work. And the work that we do is we try to take the serious out of transformation. And we try to have an opportunity to actually have some ease and some flow while were bringing new habits into our life. While we're having, transforming our relationship, so

Dean Yasuda  03:17

yeah, and what I love about the Hendricks work too, is about having fun, trying to have fun while we're transforming, working through our relationship. And also, I wanted to add in with the, with the relationship part when we talked about personal personal relationship, you know, eating, that's, that's a big part of feeling good. So we can feel our best in our relationship also. And also movement, you know, fitness getting out there. And it really is getting out there and going for a walk simple things that can just keep our body always going. And that's the combination of having a nice, healthy relationship, you know, good fuel, good movement, and connection.

Michele Yasuda  04:09

Yeah, and lifestyle has been a big part of we started studying the Blue Zones many years ago. And are really, it's become a pillar for us in how we live our lives. So conscious eating, conscious relationships, moving naturally, all of those things. What we noticed is that a bunch of the so there's nine areas that were found in the blue zones for what was common in this six places I can't remember that were found to have the most 100 100 Yeah, centenarians and, and what is really what really struck us was I think it's about five of them have nothing to do with food. They have nothing to do with exercise. They have no Nothing to do with that part of things. What they have to do with is healthy relating to life. And I guess one of them is is purpose three? Yeah, yeah. Purpose and immunity. Yeah, yep. Families. Yeah. Yeah. So the one that we love to focus on the most is how we can create a relationship that is not only a source of nourishment, but actually harmony and joy for our relationship for our lives. And so we're just gonna go ahead and get get right into it. So some of the things that we're going to share today might be surprising to you, you're signing on and you want to learn about relationships. And we're going to introduce some concepts that might surprise you. And what we want to invite you into is opening up to try new things. seeing life through different perspectives, and, and having a good time with us. So I want to ask you is are you open and willing to have a good time with us today, maybe give us a thumbs up or

Dean Yasuda  06:08

Yeah, so we often or most times love to start our sessions or webinars with some, some beautiful conscious breathing. And so we're just gonna go we're just gonna dabble into it a little. There's Gay Hendricks Dr. Gay Hendricks is an expert in breathing that we got to learn personally with him. And that was fabulous. And you know, breathing is a breath is the, the base of our state of being. And know, if we're not breathing correctly, we're not experiencing life and connection with ourselves and each other in a nice, easy, flowing way. So this is getting right into it. And I like to start off with, you know, place your hand on your belly and just loosen it, like blow it up gently like blue. We're gonna just do that for now. And then bring your bellybutton back into your spine, make it easy and in your comfort zone. So I'll just step back a little.

Michele Yasuda  07:15

And just get that

Dean Yasuda  07:17

movement going first. And then the next time you push your belly out, bring the breath down, down into your belly. And then exhale, slowly, bringing your belly button back to your spine. We want to keep that in about a five second inhale. So it's a very slow inhale. And a very slow except you have a moment to tune in. And feel that breath

Dean Yasuda  07:54

in, breathe through your nose the whole time, the screen. Just notice how you're feeling. On the out breath, you can imagine your body softening,

Dean Yasuda  08:10

to bring a breath, deep breath in. softening your body as you exhale. Having a nice conscious breathing practice in the morning, can make a huge difference in your life. I know it has, for me, even being a personal trainer, I still didn't realize how much I was just breathing. And to realize that taking the breath down into my belly, I get more oxygen into my lungs, which make helps me get out of my fight or flight brain and into my prefrontal cortex thinking brain and it makes a big difference.

Michele Yasuda  08:56

Yeah, so after you practice that, what I invite you to do is notice what's happening inside of you as you're noticing your breathing. So when we breathe, we feel more. And sometimes that can be a little bit scary. Sometimes feelings come up that we're not used to feeling. And it's perfectly normal and natural for that to happen. So, like Dean said, if you bring breathing, conscious breathing into your daily practice, what you're really doing is inviting more flow and more consciousness to what's really going on inside of you. And that's the next concept that we wanted to share with you is essence what is essence. So being able to recognize when we are actually in our whole essential self is essential to relating. So if I'm actually in my open connecting flow II is feeling harmony inside of me, that's when I'm going to be able to be open to my partner. And so being able to recognize that state of when I'm open, when I'm available for connection is really important. So invite you into another practice. So this one, if you're willing to close your eyes, think of some place that you know you love. This could be an imaginary place, a place that you have always wanted to visit, or somewhere where you've actually visited. So let yourself really bring your whole mind into this space, looking around at the colors, feeling a nice temperature of not the not the hot Texas or California, he, but actually a cool, beautiful temperature on your face, allowing yourself to take in the surroundings. Take a couple of belly breaths while you're taking in this beautiful place where you know, you feel happy and joyful, content connected. And I invite you to notice what that feels like. What are you noticing what sensations Do you noticing your body

Dean Yasuda  11:36

is notice how that feels right now. Just tune into your body to get down into your body tune in. I know I feel put in your comments view on and I feel great, I feel open. I feel connected. I feel grounded. You know? So how often? How often do you feel that in your daily life? And just ask yourself that? You know, I know for me, I go in and out in and out of presence. Daily. Some days I am open and flowing. And in the groove, no worries, and everything's just just going great. And then some days, I'm and I'd have worries, I have some slight anxiety. I you know, everything is like, Oh, I get down on myself. I'm like, What am I doing? And so that's just a different different types of fear responses that flow into our daily lives. Just being a human is part of being a human. I just wanted

Michele Yasuda  12:51

to come back to that. Since I left you in that place. I forgot to tell you to look into this moment. I should have thought about it. Yeah, into this moment. And I'm noticing in the in the chat that there was a calm, relaxed, grounded. Yeah, those are those are the feelings that I noticed. And I know that you were talking about in flow. And so how can we create that flow in our daily lives. And while we're in the midst of life while things are happening, so that practice that we just did, you can actually use that practice anytime you want. Take two minutes to close your eyes. Think of somewhere that you know you love, feel the feelings, feel the expansion in your body, and then come right back into your your, whatever activities you were doing. And what I noticed for myself, when I do that, when I give myself a little pause and have a little bit of a presencing practice like that. I feel connected, I feel I can I can feel my body, I can feel myself and like you said when you get in that state where things are just bumbling all over the place. It's a way of actually pausing that and coming back into into presence. So yeah, interrupted, you

Dean Yasuda  14:17

know, like, Michelle was saying, you know, just noticing, that's the thing is noticing when you start feeling these feelings or getting into that into press that pause button and just allow. Give yourself that minute or two, one or two minutes to really bring yourself back in and then continue what you're doing. Yeah, it does take a lot to present yourself. Yeah.

Michele Yasuda  14:45

So. So what we wanted to talk about was now when we're losing presence when we are feeling that stress or anxiety. I know for me, it's always been, I'm feeling really good and then a word The thought comes in. And then suddenly, I'm taken out of the beautiful connection that I'm feeling into another state. And so what we want to talk about next is how fear plays a role in our lives. And I know that when we first learned about fear from the Hendricks, we were pretty surprised, we thought fear was, you know, I just jumped out of the way of, of a fast moving vehicle, or I startled because of a loud noise. And what we learned was that most of us are moving in and out of fear states throughout our daily lives. And the empowering part of this is once we can start to recognize how we, in particular experience fear, we can actually presents what's happening, make a new choice, and get back into flow again. So we wanted to talk about the four ways that our bodies experience fear. So the first one that is, was very familiar to me in the past is the the fight part of fight or flight. So fight, this is what I noticed now is I don't get into, oh, I'm going to fight. What happens to me now is I might start feeling tension in my body when I've been on my computer too long. Or, yeah, I might get a little bit and I'm feeling a little bit annoyed at my partner, and I'm kinda, huh, yeah. So those are some ways that we experience fight. So you might think about for yourself, how you experience resistance in your life. So

Dean Yasuda  16:53

most of the fighting with yourself. So how does that? How do you how do you fight with your monkey mind?

Michele Yasuda  17:02

Yes, yes, trying to push away thoughts, trying to get rid of things, trying to get rid of thoughts that you don't like? Those are all forms of resistance and fight. So that's the first one you can do. And, oh, do you want me to I'll do my two. Okay. And the next one, this is also familiar and still familiar for me. And this is the fear freeze. So freeze is generally the first thing is a sudden dropping of the breath, and tightening of the body. It's definitely the startle response, when we hear a loud noise. In relationship, it can be when we hear the words, honey, I have something to talk to you about. Raise happens. So we're doing it in more of an extreme. And we invite you to try on these different fear, fear types, to see what feels familiar in your body. And it does help to exaggerate. So doing a very strong fear, freeze, hold your breath and holding your breath. And then you could try a subtle version of it. Just very, very sudden, just subtle. That's fear freeze. So when we're experiencing freeze in our relationship, it often is, when we when the unexpected happens, actually, regardless of relationship, when the unexpected happens, we tend to our bodies tend to freeze first. So that's the the fear response that most of us have first before we move into any of the others. All right,

Dean Yasuda  18:42

and all these fear responses can happen very quickly. Oh, yes. You know, like, Michelle was saying often is the freeze is first. And then we'll go into the next three, you have 1x Two, I'll talk about an either it's freeze and I fight. I come back, or so the ones I want to talk about is flee. So there's a flip signature, or flee response. And that's when I'm either in the future, thinking about what if or what if this happens, or I'm in the past, just living in the past? I'm just up in my my head, you know, just below and you know, that one? Yeah, Monica, I'm familiar with that one. Flee. You know, we're, you know, you're talking to someone and you're like, I don't know if you haven't noticed, I notice sometimes I talk to so much, especially my kids. And you see that glaze. Oh, are you are you with me? Oh yeah. Okay, sure.

Michele Yasuda  19:44

So that's the flea. Oh, and that's the flea in the head but oh, yeah, that you want to flee. So we actually do some of us and this is happens in relationship is

Dean Yasuda  19:54

I'm out of here. I can't do this anymore. I'm

Michele Yasuda  19:56

gone. Yeah. I don't want to talk about this. So, yeah.

Dean Yasuda  20:02

And then we have the faint. So the faint is, just imagine the energy running, you know, draining out of your body, you get kind of what I experienced, you get a little like, I was stupid. You know, kind of like, I don't know what's going on. And you just kind of like, move. Okay? I don't know what it means. And it's really just getting confused. And it's like a no for me, I get a pulling up my back and I feel that experience of paint. And

Michele Yasuda  20:42

we can also experience pain as a as overwhelm, overwhelm Yes, so and procrastination because of overwhelm. Procrastination can be one of can happen because of a fear faint. It's when we lose connection, we've lost connection with ourselves, we lost connection with the world around us. So So what can we do about this fear, then, now, now that we laid this on you, that, that we we all experience some level of fear throughout our days throughout throughout our days. So one of our wonderful tools that we teach, as as coaches are called fear melters. And they were developed by Dr. Katy Hendricks. And what they're designed to do is be a portal from fear into shifting your state. So they don't do it all by themselves. But they are a way of moving the adrenaline of fear moving the energy of fear through so that we can actually make new choices. So we're going to run through these right now. And we would love for you to try them on and see what they feel like in your body. So we're going to start with the fight again. So fight is a contracted, tight, active kind of fear. So what we do with fight is we want to melt it by softening up, we might roll our shoulders a little bit, Katie calls this oozing, we might move our head around our neck, move our mouth. We're taking that contracted state. And we're loosening it up. Just loosening it. And this is one of those things, it might feel a little awkward or weird in the beginning. And what we can tell you is that if you practice this, it becomes more and more natural. And taking a breath taking a belly breath. With the fear melter can be really helpful. So that's fight. And with Freeze, and this is something that you've noticed animals do most of us have noticed this, that an animal will freeze. And when they know they're safe again, they will shake off, shake off their freeze and go on with their with their day, we tend to let go of fear the way that animals do, we tend to ruminate on it and get stuck in it and all kinds of things. So we have to, we have to do a little bit more shaking than the animal does. So this called wiggle, and and it literally is when you're in that state of frozen to just start bringing some movement into your body. It could first be wiggling your fingers, wiggling your toes, moving around, shaking it out, but shaking your body, wiggling your body to get some energy moving through again. All right, so that's two two. Now we've got our losing, and we've got our reeling and shaking.

Dean Yasuda  24:07

So flee. So when you're fleeing, you're up here in our heads, and we're just going and we lose connection with our body and the earth. So with flee. I like to start off by noticing my feet on the floor. So you're bringing the thoughts down. Okay, notice your feet on the floor. I like to even grip, use your toes and just gently like you're gripping the ground with your feet, and okay Hmm. I feel myself on the on the ground. And then you can imagine even roots going out of your feet down into the earth. Just connecting you bringing you down connecting ah Ah, okay, I'm here. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. So that's that's the, that's the movement. When you're fleeing up in your head,

Michele Yasuda  25:10

or wanting to get out. You can tell which kind of flee you do. I'm more of the, get the heck out of there. Yeah. So so it's a way of saying I'm here, I'm going to stay here, I'm not going to, I'm not going to take.

Dean Yasuda  25:28

And so now, paint so faint. You've, again disconnected with what's around you. And fate. See, I remember this move was the most weirdest for me. But it actually turned out to be the one I needed the most. And so the so the moon for fame is called love scoops. And so just basically, as imagine all the places that you really love, or the people that you just truly love, any kind of anything that you just love, what you're doing and you're scooping this love, and bringing it back to yourself and you letting it land on your body, that your hands just land on your body. Bring it in and I like to you can put it on different parts of your body. Like I noticed that forget, if I'm angry, my jaws get tight. I put it on my jaws. So you just giving yourself Self Love. I put it on my brain if it's working. Yeah,

Michele Yasuda  26:47

yeah. So the overwhelm the disconnection, the going fuzzy, by allowing ourselves to connect with the energy around us with something outside of us, can help ourselves come come back into here. So those are our called fear melters. And what we invite you to do is, is to just try them out. You don't have to do them exactly right. And you don't have to match the right one to the right thing. What's really important is actually finding the movements that help you come back into presents that actually help you to come into. Okay, here I am, again, I'm back. So yeah, try those out. Experiment with them. Yeah, exactly.

Dean Yasuda  27:39

It takes, depending on how much fear you're in, it can take up to two minutes to just starting to like, start feeling yourself back and feeling present with your partner or whoever, yourself. So it takes about two minutes, two minutes of some kind of movement. To try the fear. melters Do you can just stretch you can go for a walk. There's there's many things that go out and just put your feet on the grass when it's nice. The weather's nice.

Michele Yasuda  28:11

Yes, that's right. We can't do that right now. Maybe. So, one of the thoughts I'm having is how about we do to two minutes of movement together, two minutes of pick one of those fear melters and try it out. We'll put a timer on. And let's see, just take a take a notice a scan of your body right now, and what you're feeling inside. And then let's go ahead and practice together. Two minutes of moving. Just let your body move in any way. Any way that feels good.

Dean Yasuda  28:54

Sure you're breathing.

Michele Yasuda  28:55

Yes. Don't forget to breathe while you're moving

Dean Yasuda  29:04

don't forget the bottom half of your body, your legs and your feet. Your back body

Michele Yasuda  29:12

might make some sounds

Dean Yasuda  29:15

sounds of your face muscles. have so many muscles in our face, but we don't exercise them two minutes, two minutes to move around.

Michele Yasuda  29:34

One more minute land

Dean Yasuda  29:41

the only wiggle that you get your voice starts moving. Then you get a good that's when you know the face flap. Put your head down and just

Michele Yasuda  29:54

move. Thanks for coming on screen and Anita Jason Oh Um, yeah, so just notice and if you want to share in the chat, what that feels like for you, we're gonna have some time at the end for questions, by the way, we wanted to get through, give you as many tools as we could in this time that we have together. So what we've shared with you so far, just to recap, we shared with you about noticing our, our state of being. So am I, in my essence self? am I experiencing life as who I truly am? Or am I in some kind of fear? Have I been captured by some kind of fear? So the first tool is really letting yourself take a moment to notice. What's my state? How do I feel? I like that. I feel good. I feel happy. Yeah, yeah, that's how that's how I'm feeling right now. Yeah. So our breath is one of our gateways home. So if you notice yourself feeling tension, you notice yourself feeling scared, just notice when you're not breathing, notice you're not having breathing in

Dean Yasuda  31:13

breath, how many times you're holding your breath in a dames, ha, exhale, and take some easy breaths.

Michele Yasuda  31:21

So taking those breaths, if you notice that you have tension in your body, start moving your body, maybe go outside, if it's not too hot, if it's too hot, just get up away from your desk, or wherever you are, move around a little bit. Ha, so the main thing that we wanted to share next with you is the concept of taking full responsibility for our own state of being, instead of throwing it onto our partners. So it's very, very hard to be on the same side to get on the same side. If we are throwing our upsets at each other, it's not really very fun actually, to be doing that. So what we really want to do is come on to the same side. So that together, we're looking at the issue, from the same vantage point, instead of the issue is sitting behind us growing and growing and growing. And I can't really even see my partner anymore, what's going to take it. So getting on the same side means being able to take healthy responsibility for ourselves. And that can be really tricky. That's the that's the really big power move, is being able to pause and recognize, like, first recognize that I'm in a state of fear, I'm angry, I'm scared. I'm feeling sad, and I don't know what to do with my feelings. I feel sad. And it's your fault, when those kinds of those kinds of thoughts that can come. So being able to recognize that take a pause, take care of myself, take care of my state of being so that when I speak to my partner, I can speak from a place of presence, where I'm able to say, Hey, I noticed that yesterday when this thing happened, I felt really angry with you. And I just wanted you to know that I that I've been feeling angry about that. And my request is that you do X, Y and Z as opposed to in the state of anger, saying I can't believe you did that vote, which is basically just going to create distance between us. So being able to own our own feelings for me to recognize that I I am creating anger in myself about what you're

Dean Yasuda  34:02

doing. And being able to notice that Yeah, yeah. And even you know, as Michelle said, even at a in a calm state and for expressing that to me, if she's going I feel angry about this thing. So my job for my responsibility is to not take that person on first of all, she's angry. She's not angry at me, and to do my fear melters in my breathing, so I can stay connected to myself. So I'm not making up stories or going, Oh my God, what did I do wrong? It's like, okay, she's expressing her experience to me. And that's it. And it's, it sounds simple, of course, but, you know, often it's, you know, oh, wait, what did I do? What's wrong?

Michele Yasuda  34:48

Yeah. And then it winds up being combative. I'm defending myself instead of actually receiving my partner and they're upset, being willing to take The impact of what it is that you're feeling for me to be able to take that let the energy through, move the energy, if I'm feeling if I feel angry that you feel angry, I might, I might say that I might I need a moment. Oh, wow, I feel I feel angry that, that you just said that. Okay. All right, that's a lot different than I can't believe you said that. So the subtle difference, and the very big difference between blame and criticism, and being on the same side makes all the difference. And one of the things that we noticed is when when we actually are upset with each other, what is almost always going on, is that we've tapped into an old hurt, we've tapped into something from our past, that actually has nothing to do with our partner, very little to do with our partner. And if I'm able to take responsibility for that, to recognize that, oh, that that actually, like, first of all, when I get scared and upset, I asked for a pause, I really feel I need to pause right now. And I'm going to need a little bit of space to absorb what's going on. So could we come back together? In an hour, 10 minutes, whatever that might be. To resolve that. So that I'm not saying I'm out here. And distancing myself, I'm actually asking the support of giving me the space that I need. And I require, and then yeah, so that's

Dean Yasuda  36:39

a that's an invitation for me when she says that to like, okay, and honoring what she's going through. And requesting that. And that's for me, my, my journey to Okay, let me take a breath, and, and tune into what's happening for me. And what's been familiar with my past or my, my traumas. And so like, Okay, let me take a pause to because we're both creating the law. So one of us is going to be more present, to say, hey, I need a pause. And let me just tune in to what's happening in me.

Michele Yasuda  37:20

Yeah. And then when you're taking that pause, being able to soothe ourselves. So that's the the, my job now is to come back into presence, come back into, here I am. So I might do that by talking to the part of me that's hurt. Maybe I was upset because Dean didn't give me the attention that I was really feeling like I needed in in one particular moment. And so I'm experiencing that as a sense of abandonment. And what I recognize is that there's the little girl in me, who didn't feel loved and appreciated. And so I've kind of tuned into that and kind of feels like when I was eight years old, and this thing happened or whatever that might be. And then I can take that little eight year old and I can say, hey, we're doing okay, I know that you're you're you really feel like you didn't get enough attention. And ah, let me let me give you attention right now. Let me love you right now. And actually, imagine just taking that eight year old and my arms and ah, giving that part of me attention. So that's one of the tools that you can use. And again, some of the things we're introducing might feel a little awkward or weird or whatever. We really just invite you to try them out. Try something out that feels weird, that you haven't tried before and see how it works for you. It may or may not work for you.

Dean Yasuda  38:56

So we're all weird, and yeah, I'm just gonna general weird in some way. We're human. So we're

Michele Yasuda  39:03

Yeah, humans are really weird. That's very true. So so the one move can be I'm asking for a pause. I go into some space by myself, and I talk to that part of me that got hurt. And I feel I need help with that. Then I can seek help for that. I can even ask for help for that. I can come back to my partner and say, you know, I noticed that I was feeling angry at you for not giving me attention. I didn't feel like you were giving me attention. And I noticed that there's a little girl in me who didn't feel like she got enough attention. And I wonder if I could have a hug right now. And so something simple like that. Can can take us back into connection with each other. So I'm going to pause there, a pause there. And let's see, let's just go back over some of the Ways to come back into presence that we shared with you. So I know I have a little note.

Dean Yasuda  40:04

He's a lot.

Michele Yasuda  40:05

Yeah. So. So first, it's taking breaths, asking for pauses. Committing to actually being on the same side,

Dean Yasuda  40:20

caring, caring about what your partner is saying, you know, I want her to be happy, I want to be happy. So how can we come into connection with that? And not throwing myself under the bus either? So it's about, okay, I want you to be happy, I want to be happy. How can we really company do this? Yeah, nice way, you know?

Michele Yasuda  40:42

How can we work together to get what we both want, most of us weren't taught how to relate in a healthy way. So we're learning these skills, sometimes for the first time in our whole lives. And, and it's, it's totally possible, it's totally possible to be able to hold our own upsets, not project them onto each other. And to create a relationship that actually is a source of, ah, instead of a source of

Dean Yasuda  41:12

safe place, a safe space, you know, you want this to be the safe space, where I can share whatever I want, or share everything that's coming up for me, and I know that she'll support me, and she'll be with me, instead of you know, what's wrong with you? Why are you acting like that, you know, where I can just be together and

Michele Yasuda  41:32

be on the same side? You're on the same side? Yes, well, and one of the tools that we haven't talked about yet, that helps us be on the same side, it's the game changing practice that you can have with your partner it whether this is work environment, or any kind of family member, certainly with your intimate partner is to lead with appreciation. So we created a an appreciation practice. And what what we suggest is creating an appreciation practice that you do at the exact same time every day. So that well, the time is an important sorry that I should have said it a certain ritualistic way. So like for us, it's when we get into bed, we go to bed at the same time. So that works for us. So when we go to bed, we say an appreciation for each other. And we say an appreciation for our day, or ourself. And then we go to sleep. And so it might be for for some of you, it might be good to do that at breakfast, maybe you have breakfast with your partner, maybe you can institute put a timer on and at the same time, every day, you give a quick text to your partner, or call your partner or whatever it might be. But to take time every single day at the same time. Because if you do it at the same time, you're not going to have to remember it, eventually, it'll become a habit. So that's why we recommend that. And what that does for us is takes us out of that, that thinking looking for what's wrong, which is a natural, we're wired that way. That's why we're all here. Because our ancestors were good at getting out of the way of danger. So that's a good thing. Now that kind of fear can really get in the way of our being able to relate. So a simple appreciation practice like I, I noticed, I feel I really appreciate this morning when you need my beautiful fruit breakfast that you do every day. And thank you for that.

Dean Yasuda  43:42

And then even for the receiver to pause, we talked about pausing that to pause and let that let that let that land back. Oh, wow. Just let her know that. Oh, oh, you're welcome. You know, and, and going into the appreciation, practice. And if you have it at the same time every day, you know, if one someone forgets, you know, someone will forget. And one partner does it to make it playful. Like, hey, forgotten my appreciation, you know, that, hey, where's my appreciate what's going on?

Michele Yasuda  44:19

Or getting upset with ourselves for, for not being perfect at a new practice. So this is if we leave you with anything that's important. We want to leave you with this idea that you're going to mess up, make mistakes. It's going to be messy. Humans are messy. If you can give each other the space to be human. While continuing to recommit to the new goals that you have. You will reach them so you have to be able to forgive yourself. Oops, I messed up again. Ah, or forgive your partner. Oh, they messed up again and be able to exist And then taking that, yeah, instead of taking that and making it part of the whole old story, actually know that you are stepping towards that new story and that it doesn't happen overnight. Unless you're really, really lucky. It doesn't happen overnight. And it's something that you're going to be moving towards the rest of your lives. And it's, it's, I think it gets better and better and better. And we take it deeper and deeper and deeper. It's a sad thing that we get this idea in our, in our I know, I grew up with this idea that if you're going for marriage help, or couples help, something's wrong. It's, you know, there's something terrible happening. And and well, and of course, that was that was a prevalent thought with therapy in general, right for individuals to sort of realize that coaching, like you said, everyone needs support in if we want to really experience something in a masterful way. We need support with that. So. So I'm glad Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up the idea of maintenance, the idea of, we often say that we wish that couples came to us, before things blow up, before things go south, just common, and enjoy more, get more pickup tools, and whatever. So yeah, so thank you for bringing that up. That was super, super helpful.

Maya Acosta  46:22

Michelle and Dean are bringing a retreat here to Dallas for couples, that's going to be in October of this year, it's a weekend workshop Friday through Sunday, they are only taking 10 couples. And that's just basically because they want it to be intimate. And it gives you just like a more one on one sort of experience. A small group setting, it's a Friday night, all day Saturday, it's on the Eventbrite and then what a few hours on Sunday morning,

Michele Yasuda  46:52

what a beautiful gift it is to say, we're going to take the whole weekend, and we're going to make us the priority, we're going to make our relationship the priority. And not only are we going to do that, but we're going to be able to be around other couples who are doing that same thing. So we've got a group of people together, who want to experience more joy and harmony and love and connection in their relationship. So the power of being able to be in a group and be able to go through experiences together and learn practical tools like we were talking about today. And I know it does feel like a lot like we were we really we love to like let can we tell you all the things at once. And so a weekend to be able to slowly absorb practices and you'll actually get to do practices, ask questions about them, be able to play with other couples and, and learn from each other in a nourishing and uplifting environment. And I just want to say too, is is coming back around to the idea of our whole health being that this is a pillar of our whole health, that coming together in community in this way is so incredibly powerful. And so it's not just being able to be with two people who have learned from masters of this work and have dedicated their life to this work. But actually being able to be in a community and be with other people that are on the journey is incredibly powerful. So that's what I want to say I don't know if you want to add anything to them.

Maya Acosta  48:43

And I'm excited that you're bringing this to Dallas,

Michele Yasuda  48:47

we like having fun, we'd like defaulting to Joy In Our relationship and harmony in our relationship. So we don't want to spend our time digging in the dirt and having like really difficult experiences. That's not what we're up to. You don't have to do that. Sometimes you walk through some tricky stuff. Sometimes that eight year old really gets activated. And there's a little bit more going on there. But as I think what, Maya and Riz, what you just expressed, that's the the tone that we work in is how can we get back to Joy as much as possible. And in a retreat, it is different from coaching. It's a space where we want to learn how to connect with each other and have a more relaxed and joyful time. So it doesn't mean you're not doing deep learning. Because we do do deep learning when we're playing and when we're experiencing joy. So I'd love

Maya Acosta  49:49

for you to come back and if you if you have time and just share more stuff about tools that we can use to build our relationships.

Michele Yasuda  49:58

Absolutely very happy. To do that it's been our pleasure to meet with the community and with you both and

Maya Acosta  50:04

you've been listening to the healthy lifestyle solutions podcast with your host Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at rate this podcast.com forward slash H L S. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.