You know those aha moments when you suddenly have an insight into yourself that you didn't have before and you're left wondering how did I get so far into my life and not realise this one aspect of how I work? Well, I'm hoping that today's episode will be one of those moments for all of us as we spend some time reflecting on our own approaches in our relationship. We need to chat. Welcome back to Honey We Need to Chat, the podcast all about
communication in relationships. We believe that when communication dies, bad things happen. And as you can tell, it is just me here today. If you've been following along on our social media, you may have seen Blair on his little journey. He's had quite an adventure up to Queensland and he has left me
here alone. But we had an incredible opportunity this week to be nominated for the CM AA Awards as emerging talent and I am extremely excited to tell you guys that we won in our category, so that is huge. Blair had the opportunity to actually go up to Queensland and be a part of that event. It's been a conference over the last few days and he is on his way home now. But because of that, we did not have an opportunity to record together, hence me being here alone.
Now here's a few things. We have spoken about my coaching content many, many times on the podcast. I have done some coaching sessions and I've run us through some of those resources also on our website at Honey we need to chat.com. There are a number of coaching relationship related resources available. But if you've been around a while, you'll also know that we've been mentioning some coaching specific content that should be coming out very soon on the channels.
So we thought instead of rushing to try and get an episode recorded together when he's home, we would take this opportunity for me to run you guys through some coaching, some more, more intentional reflection that you can do on your own to start to work on your relationship and work on yourself. We have just completed a relationship Reset miniseries, and I thought this was a great opportunity to kind of tie some of these things together and bring some practical reflection through.
So we're going to be doing things a little bit differently today. Today I want to take you on a little bit of a journey as we step through a case study story and work on how curiosity actually impacts relationships. We're going to explore what goes on for you with curiosity. We're going to put in some practical steps in terms of helping you implement a curious attitude to your relationship.
Curiosity is one of the most underrated approaches you can have in your relationship and one of the biggest game changers when it comes to strengthening communication and tackling conflict. It changes everything. Curiosity softens the the way you see your partner. It softens your approach to difficulties, to challenges. It softens the way you see yourself, the way you approach
yourself. And without it, we slip into judgement, we slip into assumptions, we slip into damaging patterns like the Four Horsemen. We've spoken about that on the podcast a lot. That can really lead us down a difficult track to come back from in our relationships. With curiosity, we open up. Without it, we close and that's really the core of it. So today we're going to explore curiosity more. I want to give you more than just a theory.
I want to give you a practical example of this, and I want to give you questions and things to challenge yourself on to really reflect on how curiosity plays out for yourself. And I want you to notice while we're doing this episode, I really want you to notice. That's the word I've got for today is notice. Notice where these things sit in your body. Notice how your body reacts to some of the stuff we're going to talk about.
Notice what your default is, notice what's going on for yourself, and notice what patterns you guys might be in in your relationship as we tackle some of these examples. So we're going to start with an example. On this podcast, we sometimes read through Reddit stories, so I found a Reddit story today to get us all on the same page.
I know all of us would have a number of examples we could think about where curiosity has struggled within our own relationships, but today I thought I'd start us out by putting an example story out there that we can focus on for this episode. Did you know that Honey We Need a Chat is so much more than weekly podcast episodes? Follow along our website for free resources you can apply to your life today, to your relationship today.
Things to help you get unstuck and implement new creative ways of working on a relationship. We have free resources available to anybody who signs up on our website. We also come out with weekly vlogs. So if you're interested in more behind the scenes footage of Honey, We Need a chat. Please make sure to check out our weekly vlogs over on YouTube because we are really enjoying giving a bit of a a behind the scenes glimpse into the real life behind Honey. We need to chat.
Also, super excitingly, very soon we'll be having more coaching content available on YouTube to help you process and work through your own individual development. If this is something you're interested to follow along, make sure you subscribe, click the notification bell so that you get updates every time we release content and follow along for more impact and depth. We are not interested in becoming just more noise out in the world.
We are passionate about providing practical real life tools that you can implement into your life life and into your relationship today. So please make sure you're following along on our other platforms over on our website and on YouTube for this extra content and extra depth. Thanks so much guys. So bear with me as I read through this story. My boyfriend and I have been living together for a few months now and cleaning has become a huge issue. I do pretty much everything
around the apartment. He'll sometimes do the dishes, he takes out the trash, and every now and then he sweeps, usually only if I ask him to. To him, that's enough. When I bought it up once, it turned into a fight because he felt like he had already done plenty. I tried to explain that yes, he does do those things sometimes, but there's still laundry, bathrooms, mopping, wiping down appliances, dusting, all of the things that actually keep the
place clean. He got defensive so I've avoided bringing it up again. This morning while I was working, he texted me asking if I could clean something even though he was home with hours before work. That pushed me over the edge. I stayed calm and asked if he could at least do the thing I'd planned on cleaning during my break since he wanted me to do something else. When I checked on my break, it wasn't done.
The truth is, he often gets irrational or angry about small things and sometimes takes it out on me with attitude or meanness. So I've started avoiding confrontation altogether. I know this isn't healthy, but I don't know how to ask for help without it turning into another fight. So before we go on, I want you to just pause. You've heard this story. I've just read it out to you. It's a classic story. We've had many of these on the podcast before.
I want you to pause and get your immediate gut reaction to hearing this story. What are the words, the first words that pop into your mind? What's the verbal reaction you would have if this was you in this situation? If this was your partner, what would you say? How would you say it? How would your body feel? What kind of physical response would you have while you're having this conversation? And like I said before, I just
want you to notice. I want you to notice what's happening in your body as you put yourself in this, in the shoes of this person writing the story in, most of us are probably in the same boat. We probably jumped to frustration, annoyance, irritation, blame, and that's OK. That's important for us to notice. That's why I've read this story out. I want us to have our first gut
instinct. And when I say gut instinct, I want you to actually think the exact words or even say them out loud if you're alone, that you would say if you were this person writing this Reddit story and your partner had done this situation to you. Once you've got them, hold them because we're going to come back to that. So that's where I want us to start today in a very human, very reactive headspace. So we're going to talk about curiosity. Why is curiosity important?
If you've listened to any of our episodes, you would have heard us say that word 500 million times. It's a really common thing that we navigate here on the podcast because curiosity is such a key to navigating difficulties within relationships and helping communication strengthen. So why is it important though? There's not, It's not just because it's nice or it's like a band aid answer. There's actually a reason why a curious approach is so important
in relationships. Curiosity, the definition of it is a genuine desire to know or learn something. And so in your relationship context, that looks like openness, humility, a willingness to discover more about yourself and your partner, flexibility, softness, listening. So This is why it matters when we get triggered, when we react, like in that cleaning story, if you're the person, if you're listening to the story and you're frustrated by it, we're reacting.
So when we react, our brain tends to flip into survival mode, threat mode. That's the amygdala, the fight flight or freeze. We've talked about that a number of times. And once you're in that fight flight or freeze, your actual brain function is impacted. Once you're in that state, defensiveness takes over. You're defending yourself. If you go down to the the basics of what that means, you're feeling threatened and now you're defending yourself. We might go into blame sarcasm.
We shut down those 4 horsemen play out. That's what happens when we are closed, when we feel threatened, when we take something on as a threat. That's what happens to our brains and that impacts our physical body. That impacts how we navigate the world around us. The flip side of that is if we're curious, if we say open, it does something really different. If we choose curiosity, we actually keep the prefrontal cortex alive, awake, functioning. This is the reflective problem
solving part of our brain. So this is the part that thinks big picture, reflective. It is curious in its own way, reflecting on what's going on, bigger picture problem solving, helping us see through things, think with a more open mind. So when we can stay curious and soft, we keep this part of our brain functioning. So that's that's it at its core.
If we are shut down, reactive triggered, the part of our brain that recognises threats comes to life and it shuts down the prefrontal cortex, our big picture problem solving the other way around works as well. If we can keep ourselves open, flexible, in a state that is calm to think and process, we can keep this problem solving part of our brain functioning and we don't resort to the fight, flight or freeze. We do not react as if we are under threat.
So that's just what happens physically. That's why it's important. That's why we talk about this all the time because having that part of your brain functioning is important for you to understand yourself and understand what's going on in your relationship. Doesn't mean things just become easy. Doesn't mean that the problem itself resolves, but it does mean that we are more equipped to navigate those things in a constructive way that's going to bring us closer together.
This goes for everything. This is not just our relationships. And obviously on this podcast, we focus on relationships, but you can apply this across the board. It's also not just the brain. The brain effects our body. The brain effects how we navigate the world around us. And so if we're in that state, it actually physically effects how we're going to navigate these things that are thrown our way.
You might find yourself in these moments where you're tense, feeling a certain kind of way, a tightness in your chest, a clenched jaw, heat rising, something in your gut. And it's important, like I said before, for us to notice this, for us to recognise these. Because once we have a clear understanding of what goes on for us physically when this happens, it is another trigger to help us recognise, oh, hang on, I'm going into this state of threat.
I'm going into this, this reactive defensive mode and I, I can feel it coming or I can feel my, my jaw clenching, my, my fist clenching, whatever it is that for you is your reaction physically, that's a good trigger for us to recognise. Oh, hang on, I'm sliding, I'm sliding down this path again. Let's remember, let's try and bring ourselves out of that. So notice what happens for you. Flip side is the same.
If you think about what's happening when you're triggered, the flip side when you're not triggered, when you're open and calm even in the face of a difficulty, is your body softens, your jaw probably unclenches, your breathing slows, you might lean in more. Curiosity can shift us from tension to openness and can set us up for success in navigating difficulties. Relationships will have challenges. They will because you're two people. You're 2 completely different
people. Even when you're super similar personalities, you are two different people navigating the world around you. And it's not even just you 2. It's all the circumstances that come into play. So you will have challenges and that's important and it's necessary. It's an important and an OK part of relationships. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you can set yourself up with the softness, set yourself up to succeed in the face of those challenges, that's how
you're going to see longevity. That's how you're going to have constructive patterns playing out in your relationship. Hence practising the curiosity. So curiosity is a skill we can practise, we can hone. You may not be a naturally curious person, you can become one and we've seen that play out in our relationship. I am a very curious person. I don't know if it's a natural thing or something I've just
learned from my upbringing. I am a very curious person in a lot of different ways and when we got together, Blair and I were not at the same level of curiosity. I had other things that I really struggled with that he was a lot more advanced in, but his curiosity level was something that he had to start to implement more and more. His self awareness and his willingness to learn were the
game changers there. The fact that he's been able to challenge himself to do that and he's recognising importance is what's meant meant that he's developed that skill now and he is so much more curious now just naturally than he was 11 years ago when we got together. So it's a skill you can learn. You may not have it naturally. It's something you can learn. It's not just something you can learn, it's something that you should learn and that's why we're doing this today.
You are selfish, you only think about yourself and that is why your relationship is struggling. When I said that just now, how did you feel? What did you feel in your body? Did your chest get tight? Did your shoulders come up? Did you feel A rush of confusion and frustration? Heat rising? Do you think that's not fair? No, I'm not defensiveness. Did you want to turn the episode off? I mean, I said that on purpose.
Hopefully that's clear. I said that on purpose because I want you to notice when I come out the gate and I say something provocative like that. Where are you feeling that? What does that make you feel in your body? You're selfish. You only think about yourself, and that is why your relationship is struggling. Where do you feel that? I want you to notice what happens inside you when words come at you without curiosity. They're sharp, they're heavy, they're threatening.
Your brain reacts and then your body reacts, and I want you to notice that. Then we're going to take the same idea and reframe it with curiosity. I wonder if sometimes you get so focused on protecting yourself that you can't even really hear what your partner's trying to say. Same thought, different. Reframe. This one has curiosity. I wonder if sometimes you're so focused on protecting yourself that you can't even really hear what your partner is trying to say. See the difference?
The difference? When words come at you with curiosity or without it, your body softens. You're able to hear the challenge that sits behind it, not just the words that are said. You're able to reflect more. It feels more like an invitation, a conversation, than an attack. It's the same core thought, the same core challenge or statement at a completely different impact. And that is the power of curiosity.
And this is what's really interesting about this is it's not just my words that changed, it's also your body reacting differently. The first time your body took my words at face value in a closed way, not with curiosity. It braced, it defended. But imagine if you were practised at curiosity. What would have happened to that blunt judge mental comment? Maybe you would have paused, been a bit confused, and thought Amy doesn't normally talk like
this. I wonder why she said that, and I'm curious how many of you did find that. Why did she say that? That is the power of curiosity. It changes how we speak, but it also changes how we receive. There are two roles that we play in relationships, the giving of and the receiving of curiosity. There's two responsibilities that sit with us, the way we give curiosity and the way we
receive with curiosity. And I, I want to focus on both of those because it's one thing to navigate this topic when you're working on only having curious statements, only having curious attitudes and approaches to the things that are said. It's a whole other thing when you're facing situations without someone giving you that benefit of gentle curiosity. You are still responsible in that circumstance to work on the curiosity you've got going on inside yourself.
So let's come back to that Reddit story that we talked about earlier, the one about the boyfriend who hardly does any of the chores around the house, who gets angry when it's brought up, and even texted his girlfriend when he wasn't working asking her to do more cleaning. Let's come back to that story. When we first heard it, we probably all mostly landed in the same place with that story, which is this guy's super lazy.
He's super immature. Our gut response was probably frustration, thinking about the words we would say. But I want to step into his perspective for just a second and work on this curiosity piece. What might be happening under the surface for him? Could it be that he grew up in a household where chores were always someone else's responsibility and so he genuinely does not even see the gaps?
Could it be that his anger isn't actually about the cleaning, it's about feeling criticised and something in the way that she's communicating or the way he's receiving it is making him feel criticised and undervalued? Could it be that he's under stress, overwhelmed or burnt out and he hasn't learned how to communicate those things and irritation is his only language now? None of these things excuse his behaviour or his responses, and that's really important.
None of these things excuse it, and as we're navigating the world around us and we're navigating our relationships, the curiosity piece doesn't excuse someone for being responsible for their own behaviour. But what it does do is keep us soft to exploring what might be happening behind that behaviour, and it gives us possibilities to explore. It gives us a way forward. It gives us hope in circumstances that don't feel
like they have much hope. If you think back to your first gut reaction when we read through that story the first time, the words that you would have said, the physical response you would have had, think back to that and try and remember it. If you were to just shift that now and respond again, but differently this time with curiosity, how might it sound different? What would be different this time? Maybe instead of you're lazy, you never help, or you're super immature.
Maybe it might have been like I'm feeling overwhelmed and I need to know if you see this as a shared responsibility or when you don't follow through. I feel unappreciated or even just a simple when I ask you to do something like this, what happens for you? What's going on? I can see you're struggling with my request. What's happening for you in that gentle, not passive aggressive comments to explore what is happening for him?
Why is he so defensive when I'm asking him to help or even exploring what's going on for you mentally? What's feeling heavy right now? What's feeling heavy for you right now? What's on your mind and seeing if you can explore what's going on for him. Potentially there's a reason that he's not doing more around the house. Again, doesn't excuse that. Potentially there's a reason he's so defensive when you've asked him to do things. Again, doesn't excuse that.
But once we can start to explore those things, there's a way forward to strengthen the relationship. Notice how those reframes can shift the conversation and can open up a future. That's one. One way of thinking of it too is this curiosity opens up a future judgement reactivity. It shuts down that future. It doesn't have the forward thinking, the big picture thinking. Curiosity opens that up.
If you're in a workplace and you're trying to navigate a really difficult problem, you don't sit there and just think about the problem in a group setting. You don't have a meeting plan it and then just everybody like whinges about the problem and you can't see pastor. You're like talking about how bad this problem is, getting frustrated and overwhelmed. That's not how we navigate those things. What we do is we sit down and do
green lighting sessions. We bring someone in with a different perspective, and that's the same thing here. You have a problem, your reaction is to just ruminate on the fact that this problem is there. You're not going to see the future. You have a problem. You sit down with a green lighting session, you sit down with a different perspective. All of a sudden you see ways forward. And the same thing goes for him in return. It's not just the woman that's writing in this story.
If he had been approaching her request with curiosity rather than defensiveness, he would have been able to explore what's going on one for himself there. Why am I so defensive every time she asked me to clean? Like what's going on for me there? Two, what's going on for her? Like, what is she? What's her rate of this situation that she feels like she has to keep asking me to do stuff? Are the things I'm trying to bring to the relationship, the things I'm trying to input into,
are they obvious to her? Am I making them clear my efforts in the relationship? This kind of curiosity opens up that conversation for her and for him, both about themselves and about their partners. So this is exactly what plays out in our own relationships. The Reddit story is a distant example. It's not our story right now, although it might have been relatable to some of us. It's not our story, and that's why I wanted to do it. Let's workshop this. But it's a distant example.
But we all have these moments where we struggle with curiosity. We all have the ability to strengthen that in our relationships, in our approaches to our partners, and in our approaches to ourselves. So just think about it. The difference between close mindedness and curiosity. Close mindedness might say you never listen. Curiosity might say what's feeling heavy for you right now? Closed mindedness might say you
don't care about me at all. Curiosity might say when you ignore this, it makes me feel really underappreciated. Closed mindedness might say you're impossible to talk to. Curiosity might say I notice you shut down when I bring up X. What makes this feel so hard for you to talk about? The problem is still named, The thing is still tackled, but the tone shifts and the approach shifts. 1 is an attack and the other one's an invitation. 1 is a statement and the other one is
a conversation. But the other part, and I think this is the most important part of it, is being curious about our partner is a skill we can practise, and we do need to practise it, but it's often easier to learn to be curious about our partner and harder to learn to be curious about ourselves. And I'll put this out there, it's easier to excuse ourselves than it is to excuse our
partner. We talked about that the other week, that we often excuse ourselves on our intentions and we judge our partner off their impact. So it is easier to excuse ourselves. But I think it's harder to be curious about ourselves, staying curious about what we are bringing to the table, about why we are reacting, about how we might be seeing things in an inaccurate way. Too often we excuse our behaviour because we've got the context. I was tired or I was stressed or we spiral into shame.
We shut down and say I'm the worst, I'm awful. I'll never change. I'll never get a handle of this. But we don't sit down and be curious about what's going on for ourselves. There's a lot of the reasons why we'll struggle with internal curiosity or or self awareness. You could put it. Sometimes it's trauma, family backgrounds, patterns that are deeply, deeply entrenched.
Sometimes it's an overwhelm at the at the thought of how much work would have to go into becoming aware of the stuff that we're doing, habits, burnout, exhaustion, mental health issues. There's a lot of the reasons why we'll struggle to internally reflect and be curious about ourselves and our own impacts, but it's an important thing. So I want us to practise this right now.
I want you to think about what was the last moment you had with somebody that you love, somebody in your life that made you feel really frustrated, really mad, really triggered? What was happening under the surface for you physically or in your mind? What happened in that moment? Think about that example. What do you think, thinking curiously now, holding loosely and openly to that thing? What do you think might have been triggered for you in that moment? What do you think might have
been pricked? What might have happened that made you react the way you are reacting? What need or value that you hold might have been involved? And if you could replay that moment, what might curiosity have changed in that circumstance? Even if it's just how you felt, how might how might that have
changed for you? And this is where the real growth starts, having that approach of curiosity and reflection using those examples so that we can learn, not being frustrated at the examples that we've got. Those are important for us to learn. Don't be looking back at all these examples that just popped into your head and think, look at me, I'm doing this again. Those are important. We learn from those. This moment right now is that moment to be curious and reflect
on those things. So if we're going back to that Reddit story, how could it have ended? How could it have panned out if we were implementing this curiosity piece, if both people in that relationship had chosen curiosity about themselves and about their partner instead of the girlfriend bottling up her frustration and avoiding the conversations, curiosity towards herself might have been more like, why am I hesitating to bring this up? Why am I nervous to talk about this with him?
What am I afraid of? And that doesn't mean he's off the hook sometimes that might highlight some really important, significant issues you have to navigate. What's making me nervous to bring this up? What do I really need in this moment? Do I need him to do the thing, or is there something else that I need? And once she has that awareness of what's going on for her, that conversation with him could have
been a lot more soft. I'm starting to feel really overwhelmed in the house and I want to figure out how we can make this work better in a more sustainable way. Instead of the boyfriend defaulting to anger and defensiveness, curiosity towards himself might have been like, why am I getting so reactive when she asks me to do the dishes? What's feeling threatened here? Am I feeling criticised? Is there something in her tone or is there something from my past that's connecting to this
and making me feel triggered? Why am I getting so angry and irritated? Is it fair for me to be angry and irritated? And with that curiosity, he might have responded more with I can hear you, but can you help me understand what's going on for you in this conversation? Or I can hear you and I just want to express that I'm not used to this stuff and I need to learn it. I've never seen this played out in my life, and now I need to learn how to do these things. Imagine the shift in tone.
It's the same problem. That problem hasn't gone away, but that shift in tone makes it a conversation that brings them closer together. Even if it's difficult and uncomfortable, it brings them closer together. They understand each other and themselves better and moves them forward versus what's ended up happening here which has drifted them apart and ended up with her riding into Reddit for advice. And that's what I want you to hold onto. Curiosity doesn't magically erase the issues.
Curiosity does not excuse people's behaviour. But curiosity helps us to keep moving forward and helps us to keep soft. And even if you're only doing that for yourself and for your own mental health and your own self awareness and your own progression, that is worth it. So here are some practical ways you can continue to implement self focused curiosity. We are so excited to share that we won the CM AA Emerging Talent Award for the podcast. Thank you so much for being here guys.
You being here and following along has made that possible and you're the reason that we're doing this. So thank you so much to you guys for your consistency over the last year and thank you so much to CM AA for the honour of being awarded Emerging Talent. For those of you following along on YouTube, you can see our beautiful trophy reflecting the outside here. Thank you so much again.
And Blair had such a blast up there with you guys last week and we're excited to share more about that experience over on this coming blog. So make sure you check that out to see behind the scenes of his journey, behind the scenes of winning. And thanks again so much for your support over the last year. So here are some practical ways you can continue to implement self focused curiosity.
Check your body first. Like I said before, if you feel these triggers, notice what it is that plays out for you. When you feel these triggers, if you start to feel them, if you start to feel activated, ask yourself what is happening in my body right now? Release those things. So if it's clenched jaw, choose to release those things. But also why is it happening? Then name the trigger instead of what's going on. That it's not they made me angry. It's I feel defensive, I feel
criticised about this thing. My kids don't make me angry, I am angry because of the circumstances and my lack of regulation. So changing, naming the trigger rather than your reaction to it is a really powerful way of reframing the situation that shifts you from blame, which then takes you off the hook for having to think about it to self awareness. Asking yourself, and this is such an important one, what else could be true?
And this is again, not to not to ignore the important things going on or to excuse someone's behaviour, but what else could be true? If your mind rushes to I'm being disrespected right now, what else could be true? Am I being disrespected or are they tired and they're not aware of their tone? Am I being disrespected or have have they had to repeat this to me too many times? Or have I overlooked something that's hurt them?
What else could be true? Helps you expand your perspective of what's happening and helps you see a way forward. Again, separate the story from the fact what actually happened versus what am I telling myself about what happened? That is a really important way of calming your body down because you're removing yourself one step from that emotion and you have then a clearer way to look forward and progress forward and reframe yourself. Talk. I'm, I'm awful, I'm bad at this thing.
I, I never get it right or even the victim side of that is like they're always at me, they're always at me, they're always criticising me. It's not my fault, it's not my fault. Reframing that to I'm feeling neglected or I'm feeling criticised, this is a value of mine that's been pricked. So this week I want you to pick
one of these things. We've talked about checking your body, naming the trigger, asking yourself what else could be true, separating the story from fact and reframing yourself talk. I want you to pick one of these things and I want you to practise that, implement that. Curiosity is not about excusing behaviour. It's not about pretending everything's fine when it's not.
But what it is about is giving us a new way to tackle the challenges that come up in our relationship, a new perspective and a new way to keep us moving forward rather than keeping us closed. So thank you for joining me today for this different type of honey. We need a chat and I hope that this is a nice way to wrap up this relationship reset miniseries we've done having time to reflect on what is going on for yourself.
If this was helpful for you, please share it with somebody that you think it might be helpful for. We are all learning all the time and every time, I say this all the time, but every time I do an episode, it's often for me. So I'm taking things away from this today and I hope you guys are too. We will chat to you soon. Can't wait to see you next week. Thanks guys.