This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. Doctor Heather Brown is so aptly known as the Reframe Queen, a pioneering and proving psychotherapist with over twenty seven years of experience and high high profile relationship expert. Her new volume is just in time for Valentines.
It's called Speaking with the Heart. Transforming your relationship and communicating with compassion and connection the keys to unlocking important layers to deepen your intimacy, compassion and closeness with your partner. Let's just start with, in general, the state of love in our nation, Doctor Heather Brown. Is it steady, is it declining? Is it getting better? I think it's all over the place.
That they were kind of a storm with how we love. Unfortunately, I guess maybe that's good on the level that there's a lot that we're not doing very well that we can change. There's a lot of passion going on, but maybe misguided and misdirected, I would say in a lot of places. One of the things that surprised me the most about marriage, and I've been married now for almost thirty one years, but the first thing that surprised
me. I didn't expect this, and I don't know if it was just my hy chromosome or what the intense end, all encompassing, all encompassing security. Yeah, there's always butterflies here and there, and there's passion here and there. But the one thing for me that doesn't go away is the security knowing that, Okay, I'm not in this world alone. I'm working on this life with someone else. I wonder if that's if that's something people forget
over time. Absolutely, but it also speaks a lot to the relationship that you have with your wife, because that is really why we go into relationship. I'm a widow and that was one of the first things that I realized. It felt so bizarre to now be in the world on my own and not have this person that I was thinking about caring for, just being able to check in and run things by. I felt naked. So we don't
realize how important that is. We take each other for granted, and then you lose that passion, you lose that respect, you lose that curiosity. And what makes that relationship is so fun in the beginning is it's new. It's exciting, you can't wait to see them, and being married thirty one years, you know what your wife looks like, you know what her patterns are, but you can choose to decide. I'm going to be excited you're in my life. I'm going to realize that we are both choosing each other
today and I want to have the best day can have with you. So let's play around with some different positions, Let's play around with some different activities. Let's come to each other freshly. You don't have to ever take each other for granted, and I would hope you wouldn't. What a beautiful, beautiful saying it is to have somebody in your life who wants to be with you, who chooses to be with you, and is willing to work with
you through all the little idiosyncrasies that we have. The people's biggest fear is to die alone. And as a literal, I know what that that fear is. It's like, I didn't come into this world to be alone. I didn't come into this world alone. We came into the world through a mother, made from a mother and a father. Most of us don't want to go out all on their own. It's a communal experience and marriage is one of the process but also one of the most refining and deeply beautiful places
that you can do. I think, you know having a child as well. I think those two areas are incredible for helping us grow and learn and change and learning, have a love and forgive and accept. Yeah, congratulations from thirty one yours well, thank you, thank you for that. And I, by the way, empathize and sympathize with your feelings because in the course of our marriage we went through a cancer scare with her, and that was that was the questions I asked from the beginning. What am I going
to do if I lose her? How am I going to live day to day without knowing she's going to be home when I get there? Those were all the you know, the big things. But let's keep this thing happy. Doctor Heather Brown, speaking with the Heart, Transforming your relationship and communication with compassion and connection. You get into the book with four important questions to ask before you step into any conversation. Yes, and it's so vital.
And this came out of being a psychotherapist for couples for so many years. We normally go into a conversation and just blurt out, I hate that you do this. You piss me off all the time. What the hell were you thinking? If you want to make meat loafs, you don't just open up the refrigerator and just throw everything in and think it's going to be meat loaf. You follow a recipe so you know how it's going to come out. That's the key to communication. What's the point of this conversation. Where
do you want this to go? What's the outcome you desire? If you ask yourself that before, you're going to start to footly, Because if I want you to love me at the end of this conversation, I'm not going to start with what the hell is wrong with you? You idiot? I'm going to say, sweetheart, So where do you want to go? Is very important? Number Two? Is this conversation gonna bless your partner and your relationship? If it's not, you're just venting. You're just dumping and that
no one really enjoys that. So make certain there's a reason behind it going to bless and improve. Number three, are you open to what your partner is going to say? If you're not, it's a lecture. So recognize that because a lot of a lecture, and number four, people don't think about it, and it's critical. Is this a good time? I ask everyone that I have an important conversation, like there's something that I'd like to talk about. It's about the car. I know we've got some things to
figure out. When is a good time for you? A couple of reasons for it. Number One, the other person might not already be thinking about this topic, so by letting them know you want to talk about it, their will start to race, so they can start to think about the things they need to to really be in the conversation. Number Two, it's respectful. And then when I come to you and say, Okay, thank you so much, I'm ready now to talk about the car. What do you
have, You've got to agreement with me. I'm already stepping in to your conversation. Willing to have your conversation. Completely changes it. So they're pivotal to ask. And then there's one other thing I always tell people to share, which is you and our relationship are so much more important to me than this topic. I know we need to talk about the car. I just want you to know that you were so much more important to me, and we're going to take pauses if we start to forget that because we need to
get to the other side. And I love you, And that changes the conversation hugely. When you speak with your heart and offer that energy to the other person, they feel it and then they don't feel attacked, they don't feel blamed, they don't feel shamed. They just feel your heart out there saying, oh my gosh, this is enough. Look how we're going to do. And then with that you start to figure it out. And I have lots of exercises to help you in that piece, but recognizing it's really
up to you to decide. Am I going to share my heart with you? Am I going to care about your feelings and your thoughts? If I'm not, I need to pull out and say I'm not ready, Like I'm all in me, I'm not open to being connected with you. It will change your relationships tremendously. Pioneering and proven psychotherapist doctor Heather Brown, the book she's talking about is Speaking with the Heart, Transforming your relationship and communication with
compassion and connection. She also gets into the five important components of communication, how to stop fighting the biggest lie that destroys relationships In the book and we thank you. We can't get to all that today, but have a happy Valentine's Day, Doctor and you, well, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven. And I Heart to be a presentation