Relationship Dish

Happy Valentine’s Day! This week listen in as the therapists dish and dive about what it truly means to love your partner. Sometimes we have to do away with the image we create  of our partner, so we can meet and fall in love with who this person really is. They learn that this is not a selfish thing, that another person is not out on this earth to fill all of our fantasies, but rather to be loved for who they truly are. Listen in and decide if you’re willing to fall in love with the actual person you’re with,  instead of the fantasy of what this person can offer you. 

This week the therapists continue with part 2 of Yours, Mine and Ours.   They continue to delve into issues and feelings that are hard to separate out and try to get to the bottom of whose responsibility they are.  They learn that it is clarity that helps us to  name and own our own feelings and teach the listeners how to get this clarity that we all need to untangle the mess and have better relationships with the ones we love.   Learn how to overcome family of origin dynamics that can block clarity and ultimately block our way to intimacy with our loved one.      

This week the therapists work hard to figure out what’s yours, mine and ours regarding feelings and responsibility for action in relationships. It can be really tricky to pull that knot apart and really understand what we ourselves are responsible for in our relationships. Typically we are responsible for our own feelings, and for communicating those feelings to our partners, but faulty messages from family of origin can create enmeshment, confusion, guilt and resentment around responsibility for our own feelings and needs. Listen in as the therapists learn to de-tangle their own confusion and help listeners do the same for their own lives. 

This week the therapists dish and dive on the dilemma they have being big complainers about their partners, yet still wanting to be supportive of them and wanting them to feel like they have their backs.    Knowing their partners emotional state is helpful to increase compassion and understanding when they are also triggered by their behaviours. Of course they know that its important to avoid the most damaging forms of criticism if they want to stay connected.    They dive into the literature on the “couple bubble” and harnessing the power of the brain for love instead of war. Learn how to keep the integrity of your relationship protected while staying true to your own feelings of disappointment and frustration with your partner’s shortcomings.   Make the relationship more important than your need to be right!

Welcome to season 3 everyone!   This week listen in as the therapists open the new season with a dish and a dive about the difference between surviving and thriving. Iona talks about being stuck in survival mode for so long that she doesn’t even notice that some of her responses in her marriage are still coming from that place, even though there is no evidence that she is in any emotional danger.   Pam weighs in on the issue and finds that her responses in her marriage can also be survival based. It takes an awareness of the price they pay for their automatic responses to move them out of survival mode into a healthier place of thriving.   Learn how to recognize if your responses are survival driven and how to get out of the red zone and into thrive mode to have a happier and less stressful marriage and life!

Hey dishers, we're back with Season 3! We have some exciting new episodes for you, so please listen in on Jan 16 for our season 3 debut! and as always Happy coupling!   Iona & Pam

Here is a quick little 1 minute Relationship Dish Appetizer for you on how to regain your composure and focus when things are getting a little out of hand. Insert Deep breath here. See you soon with a new full episode next week!

Here is a quick little 1 minute Relationship Dish Appetizer for you about what couples who are having great sex are doing.  Listen to this and then share with your partner, lover, and friends. Happy 2019!

Happy holidays! This week the therapists dish and dive about New Years resolutions. What makes them stick? What makes them slide? Listen in as Pam and Iona share some of their relationship resolutions for 2019 and learn what to do to make ‘em stick. 

This week the therapists dish and dive about the holidays and what makes them so difficult for couples. Did you know that the month of December is typically the busiest for therapists? Listen in and learn how to navigate the holidays without hitting an iceberg! Learn what to watch out for and what to do to make sure you have a good time together and stay together. Happy holidays and happy coupling!

This week the therapists dish and dive about feeling like imposters. If they aren’t “therapisty “ all the time, does that mean they’re imposters? Are there many parts of self or do we have to be one way all the time to feel truly authentic? Listen in as they learn just how widespread this “imposter” phenomena is and what you can do about it to feel true to yourself all the time. 

This week the therapists dish and dive about feeling in their relationships,  like two ships that pass in the night.  Pam and Iona worry that this is not a good thing and look for the reasons how this could be. They then dive into the literature on what helps couples to feel and stay connected and learn how important it is to turn that ship around at the first sign of trouble! 

This week the therapists dish and dive on powerlessness. Iona laments about her lack of power in getting her husband to do certain things and Pam dishes about her lack of power to get what she needs from her man. The therapists then dive into the literature and learn that while they may not have power around certain issues, they do have something even more valuable....choice! 

This week the therapists dish and dive on compromising in our relationships.   How much is too much? How do we know when we are settling versus compromising? The therapists learn that it is important to know what we value and to prioritize our values so we know if we are accepting too much. Pam and Iona talk about their own needs and how they’ve compromised them over the years in order to stay in relationship with others.   Listen in as they offer some valuable tips for recognizing what matters most.      

In part 2 of our episode about this revolutionary therapy model, the therapists dish and dive about the body and how our physical sensations can lead us to understand and experience our emotions. The body doesn’t lie and has a wealth of information for us if we could just learn how to hear and understand it’s messages. Listen in as the ladies try to untangle the connection between the body’s cues and signals and our emotional needs. Want to understand yourself and your feelings better? Start by listening in this week!

This week the therapists dish and dive on a super effective therapy called Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy. They discuss how it has impacted their lives and how it continues to inform their relationships.   Sometimes, learning about their defense mechanisms and understanding how they undermine intimacy can be really frustrating and exhausting. It's even more difficult when their partners don’t do the same work that they do and their defense mechanisms creep into the picture.   Listen in and learn how to identify your defense mechanisms  and work with them so they don’t sabotage the intimacy in your life.      

It’s Halloween and the therapists are scared silly! This week, Pam and Iona dish about what scares them about their partners and about their relationships!  And, as always, Pam throws in some brainiac science about the brain, that actually is quite helpful! 

Ugh, comparing ourselves to others, why do we do it? How is it helpful? Well, we do it because we are gluttons and no, it is not helpful! In fact, it is hurtful! This week the therapists dish and dive on comparing themselves to others, or what they perceive others’ lives to be like. Its not fun because when we compare our reality to another’s fantasy, its not fair or even reasonable. Listen in as the therapists discuss how and to whom they’ve compared themselves and what the results of that are. Hint- they don’t feel great at the end of it! Learn how to stop comparing and start appreciating the life you do have

Anxiety- yikes! This week the therapists dish and dive on anxiety. They talk about how anxiety has permeated their lives and how it impacts their relationships with their partners. It ain’t pretty! Afterwards, they dive into the literature on anxiety and learn how to live with it and how to stop it from robbing the joy out of their love lives. If you or anyone you love struggles with anxiety, don’t miss this episode!

This week the therapists dish and dive about defensiveness. If things are escalating quickly, it's a sure sign that defensiveness is in da house! Iona and Pam dish about accountability and how difficult it can be to own their pieces of the problem. But, they discover that ownership begets ownership and the more likely they are to own their stuff, the more likely their partners are to do the same. Conversely, ownership can also feel like a hot potato, tossing blame back and forth between partners, no one wanting to hold it for very long. The therapists then dive into the literature and learn that the tossing of the hot potato  can lead to major consequences- divorce being one of them. Listen in as they learn more and more about accountability, blame and how to safely own your part of the issue so you can feel more like a team.