Tips For Staying Connected While Having Argument With Your Partner
Reid: Gonna work… there its working whooh…
Vera: Yay!
Reid: Hello Facebook and YouTube because this video also go up on YouTube
Vera: Yeah
Reid: This is Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ and I am wearing my Halloween orange sex geek shirt and I’m here with Vera of sexdoula.com. Hello guest star!
Vera: Thanks, hi!
Reid: Let’s…let’s move around a bit and let’s see if we can get better lighting.
Vera: Okay.
Reid: Oh, that’s a little bit better.
Vera: Is that better?
Reid: It’s harsh but it’s pretty good.
Vera: Yeah. It’s so bright.
Reid: So hello everyone as you sign on let us know where you are right now. We are… where are we right now?
Vera: Ahh… we’re in Escondido, California.
Reid: Escondido, California
Vera: Yeah
Reid: and tomorrow I’m teaching in the OC in Irvine.
Vera: Behind the Orange Curtain.
Reid: Behind the Orange Curtain.
Vera: In LA… LA folks.
Reid: So is it good that I’m wearing orange?
Vera: Yeah.
Reid: Yeah.
Vera: That’s what it’s referred to as behind the Orange Curtain.
Reid: Behind Orange Curtain. So tomorrow I’ll be behind Orange Curtain much like the Original Housewives of the OC…is that the show?
Vera: I think it’s the Real Housewives.
Reid: The Real Housewives of the OC but I don’t know that any of them are coming to workshop tomorrow.
Vera: I hope they do. I hope they’ll watch it.
Reid: That would be nice. That would be very nice.
Vera: Yeah, that would be great.
Reid: So I’m gonna be teaching tomorrow for three hours.
Vera: Yes.
Reid: Because of you…you set us up and so we have a free workshop going on tomorrow in behind the audience Orange Curtain and if you…if you want to check that out then you can go to https://reidaboutsex.com/calendar and I’ll just bring you my calendar then you can click on tomorrow’s event and I’m gonna be geeking out on… relationship discoveries. And I just wanna say thank you Vera for…for hooking me up with that whole thing and putting it together.
Vera: You’re welcome
Reid: Vera trust me with her people
Vera: I do
Reid: And
Vera: Maybe I’m crazy to do that
Reid: Yeah
Vera: But
Reid: Yeah
Vera: We’ll see
Reid: Yeah. And your family that live up there, are they coming? Are they coming tomorrow?
Vera: I hope my family comes….some yeah I grew up in Orange County so this is my home turf
Reid: U-huh
Vera: and my world will be colliding but hopefully it’ll be in a good way like Adam’s colliding.
Reid: So…so first of before we dive into what…what are some tips for staying connected to each other when you are in argument, just tell people who have never met you before if you never met Vera or if you do know Vera’s work hit some emoticons. But what…tell people what you do so that they…they know you a little bit better.
Vera: Yeah. So I am the sex doula. I work primarily with moms, postpartum women around sex and relationship and getting back to vibrant sensual and sexual lives after baby that is what I do professionally in the sexuality world. I also run Sex Positive San Diego we love having Reid down for workshops
Reid: Yeah
Vera: and I’m a mom and in relationships and
Reid: all-around kick-ass person
Vera: an all-around kick-ass person I guess. Thanks. [Laughing]
Reid: So if you want to learn more about more about Vera’s work go to www.sexdoula.com and how do you spell doula?
Vera: D O U L A
Reid: Okay good I’ll put that in the description. So now as a fellow relationship nerd and I would imagine for couples who’ve just had a baby maybe they get to arguments sometimes
Vera: Yeah
Reid: So especially…especially for couples who might be sleep deprived, they have to they have huge adjustment going on because they…their world has now been turned upside down if it hadn’t already during pregnancy now it’s…now it’s for reals
Vera: Yup
Reid: There is a…is another person or persons, they have multiple kids at the same time, what’s…if they’re in an argument…what’s a bit of advice? ‘Coz they’re sleep deprived the stakes…the stakes are higher
Vera: ‘coz they’re sleep deprived, yeah it’s higher. I’m just gonna share my personal favorite you know whether you teach us or not is irrelevant when I use it, it works and that for me is to breath. When I’m in an argument it’s hard for me to see the other person as a…as a human with thoughts and feelings and to connect with them and so if I take a deep breath and breathe out for good long time, it is calm and relax my breathing and I don’t just do this in relationship with partner I do this in relationship with my children as well. The great thing I think about your work is
Reid: is breathing
Vera: It’s usable. Breathing is always good you should try doing that.
Reid: Well, I’m sure you’ve ever been in one of my workshops I do the whole like take a deep breath let out some sound uhhhhh like I’m a big fan of that.
Vera: Yeah you’re a great fan of that. So I don’t let out sound in the middle of the argument but I do
Reid: Ahhhhhhh…. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Yup
Vera: I do take a deep breath and breathe out slowly and it helps to calm and relax my nervous system and then come back to seeing this person that I care about in a new way.
Reid: Alright. So breathing you took…you took breathing like so you can’t have one
Vera: You can’t have that one from me
Reid: Ah so I’m gonna, this one, this was something I’ve been doing but I think that I got it from who put it into words was actually Cathy Vartuli and
Vera: I love Cathy. Hi Cathy
Reid: Hi Cathy. Go see Cathy’s stuff out the http://theintimacydojo.com/ but Cathy…Cathy and I when we’re in arguments and we get into arguments a fair amount, we will like touch toes like we’ll…. yeah and something that I will do and again like this isn’t like stuff that I invented, this is like if you talk to a kick-ass therapists and other like nonviolent communication folks like in nerd world about communication often when you’re having a disagreement staying in physical touch somehow can help like you’re actually physically connected. And so I always have fun with it like when…when I’m in a cranky…cranky mood like with Allison and what we’ll do is because we have this really big long couch it’s like super long, I’ll be like well let’s…let’s sit on opposite ends of the couch but make sure our feet are touching. And so like you literally kind of like push, you can lock your legs and be like “Get away! Ahhh” but still be touching and it’s like the bottoms of your feet are touching.
Vera: Yeah
Reid: And again like this doesn’t work in like maybe not in a business meeting or something like that or with your boss but like little things where you can touch knees like sit across from each other and have your knees touching and be present with each other and breathe, those are things that can be really powerful to interrupt patterns or to shift how things are in the relationship. And also I’ll just steal one that I don’t necessarily recommend for your relationships but maybe for your kids.
Vera: Oh
Reid: This something my dad pulled and it was genius…when my dad caught my brother and I fighting, he would he had a thing he just called it nose to nose. And so we would, we would be like we were like fighting. He would make us stand
Vera: We would do this on camera are you?
Reid: Yeah, you too toe-to-toe and then we had touch noses and we couldn’t say anything.
Vera: [Laughing] It’s so awkward
Reid: And like imagine like we were often like bleeding because we were like we hit each other with like a Ping-Pong paddle or something, right? And he’d be like nose to nose and you just be like seething and we’d be like “Dad Vera’s breathing on me” and he’s like “Shut up no talking.”
Vera: [Laughing] He’s breathing my air
Reid: Yeah and it would like and but it like three minutes later or five minutes later we’d be giggling like we were it was impossible for us to stay angry at each other.
Vera: Interesting
Reid: Now like we were not mortal enemies we’re just brothers and so you know like we loved each other anyway even though we wanted to kill each other often but I think that’s you know
Vera: I’m gonna use that with my three children and I want [Inaudible 00:08:03] Laughing
Reid: It’s…it’s awesome like they have to keep their hands behind their back or by their sides
Vera: Good
Reid: and nose to nose. Now again like I don’t know if that would work with a couple but maybe one of you and your partner are bold enough to try
Vera: Could be
Reid: I don’t know let’s find out. So that would be the tip therefrom dad, thanks, dad! You know they…they got a lot wrong but they did a couple of things right.
Vera: [Laughing]
Reid: So if you’re curious about coming to the OC tomorrow, we’ve got a bunch of people already RSVP
Vera: Yeah
Reid: there’s a bunch of interests on the Facebook group if you go to https://reidaboutsex.com/calendar click on that you’ll see the listing and then their Facebook link is…is on the listing as well.
Vera: Yeah
Reid: And so I’m gonna be geeking out for three hours on relationships like new relationship discoveries that I’ve been geeking out on and that workshop is also a precursor for a three-day event that I’m going to holding in the behind the Orange Curtain the first week in December which is called High Performance Relationship Mastery. So if you’re interested in getting your relationships performing at a higher level, better gas mileage, more horsepower and you wanna have some fun then…then you can check that out and I’ll drop in the link for High-Performance Relationship Mastery in the description as well because finally the sales pages is ready and I apologized to everybody who’ve…who been emailing me for being this tardy but apparently moving and buying a house just fuck’s up your promotional schedule. So there you go
Vera: I hope to see you, I would love to welcome you all there for sure I would love to welcome you
Reid: Thanks for all your hard work Vera.
Vera: You’re welcome. It’s gonna be amazing I really believe in this work so that’s why I’m doing it.
Reid: So if you have friends in Southern California or who are rich or owned an airplane and can fly in tomorrow to…to behind the Orange Curtain then…then please share this video with you friends and post it in your groups and come out for free nerding out tomorrow and I will also have stickers on hand.
Vera: I see Jim. Hi Jim!
Reid: Free stickers, free stickers come tomorrow. Thanks Vera
Vera: You’re welcome
Reid: Bye
Vera: Bye
Reid: Nose to nose.