Relationship Dish

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.

This week the therapists dish and dive about what the hell women really want. They ask themselves if they even know what they want? And if they don’t know, how do they expect their partners to know?  It’s a tough question and not a simple answer.  However, the therapists dive into some pretty solid research about it and come up with some surprises thanks to Drs. Julie and John Gottman and their  years of research into this issue. Listen in as the therapists try to figure it out for themselves and talk about how their partners are doing trying to figure it out as well. The men in their lives are pretty much in the dark about it and liken it to a moving target. Listen in as they dispel the myths and highlight the research and discover that it’s not as difficult as it seems.

This week the therapists dish and dive about boundaries. They find it tough to put them up but ultimately necessary. Pam and Iona discuss their struggles erecting boundaries and the price their relationships have paid.    They talk about what they learned about boundaries from their family of origin and start to better understand  their inner conflicts with them.  As it turns out, boundaries are important as they help us to honour feelings of anger and frustration and give them a voice.   The therapists then dive into the literature on boundary setting and give their listeners some helpful hints about when to do it and how to do it so as to not feel like a “bad” person.  

This week on the podcast Pam and Iona dish about triggers -  those things that pull us into big emotional responses and experience emotions that we just can’t regulate.   What triggers the therapists and how do they navigate these triggers so they don’t cause damage? Listen in and learn how to self regulate, self soothe and catch these triggers before the gun goes off! 

This week the therapists wrap up their first “side dish”- when the listeners get to eavesdrop on a conversation with three young, newly married 30 something women.   What are their relationships like? What are their struggles? What do they wish they knew before they got married? Newly married Jill Lansky from The August Diaries and her pals give us a glimpse into their world. This interview is part 3 of 3

This week the therapists continue to change things up with their first “side dish”- when the listeners get to eavesdrop on a conversation with three young, newly married 30 something women.   What are their relationships like? What are their struggles? What do they wish they knew before they got married? Newly married Jill Lansky from The August Diaries and her pals give us a glimpse into their world. This interview is part 2 of 3

This week the therapists change things up with their first “side dish”- when the listeners get to eavesdrop on a conversation with three young, newly married 30 something women.   What are their relationships like? What are their struggles? What do they wish they knew before they got married? Newly married Jill Lansky from The August Diaries and her pals give us a glimpse into their world. This interview is part 1 of 3.