The Secret Key to Lasting Love - Episode 67
Here we dive into the secret key to lasting love – holding space for your partner. In this episode, Akko and Tamo take you through their experiences and stresses the importance of an open communication within a relationship. They talk about their journey into the heart of relationship as they explore the challenges and nuances of holding space, sharing valuable insights on the emotional intricacies involved. They delve into the significance of maturity, courage, and the delicate balance of staying present without succumbing to defensiveness.
Join us as we dive deep in exploring the depths of emotional connection, understanding, and resilience.
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TIMESTAMP:
►00:00 - Intro
►00:02 - TOPIC: The Secret Key to Lasting Love
►00:12 - Recent Happening: Beach cleaning with our parent participation preschool
►02:33 - What is Holding Space?
►03:15 - Key components of holding space for your partner include
►09:36 - Addressing the challenges and emotions involved in holding space
►14:56 - Recap of holding space
QUESTION: What are your thoughts on holding space? If you have done it, we want to know. And if this is the first time hearing about holding space what kind of triggers did you feel listening to this relationship technique?
MUSIC:
► Copyright Chillhop Music - https://chillhop.com
#holdingspace #artoffighting #consciousparenting #realizeyourtruenature
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Podcast Transcription
The transcription below is provided for your convenience, please excuse any errors made by the automated service.
Tamo: This is episode 67.
Akko: And the topic of the day is the secret key to lasting love. And before we get started, please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show. Now, let's get back to our recent happenings. So recently our son and I we went to a beach cleanup event that was sponsored by our parent participation preschool.
And it was our field trip of the month. And so that was pretty interesting to learn about all the things that are being found during these beach cleanups and the things that are found in the, ocean and just like more educational. And so I thought it was just really interesting and a lot of people start to make stuff with these recycled items that they find, during these cleanups and it's pretty cool. It's a pretty amazing what they can even make with these so I thought it was pretty cool. And yeah, it was pretty cool. We made our own sand Sifter
so that was really cool.
Tamo: Did you find any nice colored glass?
Akko: I did find glass, like glass shards, like small glass shards, so be careful out there, there may be glass, because I think I found two to three pieces of just small little glass shards, so it's, yeah, it's scary at the same time.
Yeah, I've
Tamo: been, I go to the beach very regularly, almost every day to get some sun and, ground myself in the ocean, and, yeah I see broken bottles. Luckily, usually, those broken bottles are smoothed out by the sand and things like that with the waves.
But, if it was a fresh broken glass, that's quite dangerous, right? Yeah, you have to be careful.
Akko: Yeah, definitely. And, yeah, we saw a lot of balloon scraps. From popped balloons and stuff. Yeah, mostly those. Nothing too bad. I know some other people found cigarette butts and whatnot.
Which also is unpleasant to find, but the glass can really hurt you too.
Tamo: Okay, cool. Yeah, that's awesome. You guys got to do that.
Akko: Yeah, it was cool because it teaches the kids at a young age to treasure their environment.
Yeah. To really care for their environment. the environment that they're living in because this is what they're going to be breathing. This is what they're going to be are surrounded by. So early education and a seed hopefully was planted in our son to clean up.
Tamo: I think it it has because I take them out to have a outing with daddy on the weekend.
And when we went out to eat Our son, he dropped food on the ground and instead of just leaving it there, he picked every piece up and then threw it in the trash can and I didn't have to tell him anything. Oh, that's awesome. And I thought that was really awesome. That's
Akko: so cool.
Tamo: Yeah, so let's get into the topic of the day, which is the secret key to lasting love. Akko, please tell us that secret. I want to know that secret.
Akko: Yeah, so the secret is being able to hold space. And so what is holding space? So, holding space for your partner refers to the intentional act of being fully present and empathetic and supportive while allowing your partner to emotionally you give them the emotional space to express themselves authentically.
So what does that mean? , creating a nonjudgmental environment
Where your partner can share their thoughts and feelings and experiences without any fear or criticism or any interruption. So how does this look? What exactly is this? This pretty much means first of all You have to put your phone down so that there is no screens or technology involved like you are fully present for your partner And something that is really important is for both partners actually to be able to check in and make sure that they're in a good spot, like good space.
That makes sense. If you're having like a terrible day, it's probably not a good time to hold space for your partner. It's going to probably trigger you here and there. So it wouldn't be a good time for you to be able to hold space. So really the first question is, are you able to hold space for me?
so that's what you would ask your partner, and your partner would reply with a yes or no or maybe some other time, depending on how they're feeling, right? But let's say...
Tamo: And that's really important because holding space requires you to be open to what your partner is saying.
And what your partner is saying, most likely you're not going to like it because... That's the whole point, right? That's the whole point of holding space. It's because your partner may have some issues with the relationship or usually if you look down deep into it, it becomes that It's The person needing to vent they have things that they need to resolve, right?
But again, it's, a lot of stuff might come out, so you want to just be conscious of that and make sure that you're not in a bad state yourself, that you can't hold space for your partner. Yeah,
Akko: Exactly. That would be like the first thing that you would probably have to think about before holding space for anyone.
And it involves actively listening. Let's just go into what, what is needed.
So first of all, you are creating the safe environment for your partner to vent verbal diarrhea Whatever their thoughts are right and so that environment needs to be safe. shouldn't be in an environment where you're actually physically not safe. Let's say something's happening outside and you don't feel safe.
Tamo: And don't do it while you're driving. Yeah,
Akko: yeah, probably not the best. You should probably be at home or wherever you're comfortable. Yeah, quiet space. Yeah, quiet space. No one can interrupt you. There's no one that can interrupt you, and so you want to probably do it in a space like that. And you also want your partner to feel safe as well. You want to make sure you're both safe. And so that you can express your emotions fully, right? Because again, like Tamo was mentioning, this is probably something that your other partner that you're trying to like, let them know they probably don't want to hear that type of
Tamo: stuff.
So the person holding the space. If that's you, you probably don't necessarily want to hear all this stuff. . And,
Akko: yeah and so really number one is respecting their emotions and respecting their space and respecting whatever they have to say. There's no judgment like I said, in the definition, like there's no judgment with what they are needing to say to you and try not to take it too personally as well.
Tamo: Yeah, I think that's a big key to not taking it personally because even though they say things that may sound like they're directly attacking you and, At the height of emotion, maybe it is, , maybe it's that your partner does want to attack you, just because emotions are running high, and of course, when that's happening, you're not really using your brain well, right?
It's just going into the limbic system, and just it becomes like an animal fighter flight, things like that and, Things that person doesn't mean most likely will come out and being okay with that and whatever they're saying, being able to be open to it and listening with empathy like Akko was mentioning.
Akko: Yeah. And also even what they're saying might not be what they're saying, if that really makes sense. sometImes your partner might say things that they don't mean to say and what I mean by that is not like verbally say things that they don't want to say but they don't understand where it's even coming from.
Tamo: They might not know and they're feeling that this surface level annoyance is what the true cause is but it's actually sometimes you...
Like a deeper rooted... Right, right, right. So, For example, it might be that, I find hair in the bathtub and I find that it's Akko and I'm not happy about it. I'm like, yeah, but that might not be it. That actually might not be the reason that I'm angry because you know that small thing.
It's coming. It's just a trigger for something bigger. Maybe it's that I felt bad that she said something, at an earlier date, maybe, a day before, maybe she said something that I felt hurt by, and then there comes along her hair in the tub and I get triggered and I start to go blah blah blah blah but so it's you know it's actually requires a little bit of sleuthing like being a detective too.
Akko: Exactly, so You have to be like, okay, what kind of emotions are you feeling? And then you go through your emotions. Were you feeling anger? Okay. What's the anger? From a zero to a 10? What kind of anger is it? Is it disappointment? Is it sadness? Is it loneliness? Is it hurtfulness?
All these feelings and try naming it and try actually scoring it so that you know, like where you're at in that whole, like emotional whole pyramid
Tamo: there. And before going into that you want to make sure that the steam is let out by your partner. Yeah, absolutely.
Because, when they're in the depths of sharing their frustrations, if you're like, oh what do you rate that as? Zero to ten, I don't know if your partner would appreciate that. So it's holding space is just... Being there for them and listening with empathy and not defending yourself.
So you want to be careful not to try to defend yourself because that's not the point of this holding space. It's more just letting things out. It's pretty much like writing putting things on the table. As a conversation so that you understand what's happening and then you can start becoming a detective.
Yeah, that's
Akko: true. That's true. So yeah if scoring is not your thing, then don't score it's, this is all like. Like we personally don't score. We'll just probably go through our emotions. This is what I'm feeling. If we need to score those emotions, yes, we will so that you can let them know how disappointed you are or, just the severity of what you're feeling.
That's probably the only reason why we would probably do it. But yeah so you'd really have to be a detective. Tamo was saying okay, is it because of this? Are you sure it's because of this? Okay why? Or, is it because of this? If you know, like, why, you can always voice out, oh, is it because of this?
And it's yeah, it's because this was said, or that was said, or whatnot.
Tamo: Yeah, and I think going into this holding space with understanding that, you're both on the same page, it's just that you're trying to figure out this this problem that's coming up and releasing that emotion in a constructive way and then from there helping each other trying to figure out what, what happened and then maybe getting down to the root of the issue is Quite important.
Akko: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I like what you said where, we're both on the same team and we're pretty much trying to find out what this, whether it's a misunderstanding or whether there's like feeling this bad feeling is, and we're trying to decipher what that is, but we're on the same team.
So I what you said there. And so yeah, and above all that , if you're being triggered by what your partner is saying, you can call a timeout Hey, you know what? We got to stop right there. Like I'm being triggered. Hold on. And then when you hold on, take three deep breaths so that you guys just both ground yourself a little bit more during that situation.
And then the person that called the timeout is a person that's going to be speaking next because They need to, obviously they need to let something out as well, but I would take precaution using your timeouts because it's really a session where you're holding space for your partner, not where your partner holding space for you.
So , if it needs to be done, it needs to be done. But if you don't need to interrupt, cause it is a way to manipulate the situation as well. So if you don't need to interrupt and try not to interrupt as much as possible. Because you're trying to respect what they're trying to say, you're trying to respect their feelings, respect what they're needing to
Tamo: say.
Yeah, and for timeouts I think an important one to consider is to get more clarity. So you can call timeout to ask about a certain thing that you're confused about or want to make sure that you've understood it correctly. And another kind of subtle... But very important detail is for you to not create something that makes the situation worse.
So if you're listening to something and this is something the mind does. So just being aware that you don't want the mind to make it worse than it really is when you're listening to it. There are times where the mind what it does is we'll hear something. Let's hear something and just make it even bigger in there.
The person holding the space is mind. And making sure that you don't do that. Just being really grounded and stable and not letting your mind go crazy and start getting
Akko: riled up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have to say, It's so easy to do that. So holding space, it truly takes a lot of effort and energy because you're doing everything you can to just hold it to bring yourself together, hold your space and hold your partner's space.
So it really takes a lot of maturity to do this. And so you always, bring everything that you need to bring so that you can actually help yourself hold the space for your partner.
Because essentially it's, your relationship being on the line. So bring everything you need so that you can hold space for your partner. Because this truly takes a lot of energy and a lot of effort during your beginning sessions of these holding
Tamo: spaces.
Yeah, and it takes a lot of courage, too, because there's going to be a lot of things that you might not want to hear. And being courageous enough to be okay with that. And, think about it, This is all a journey towards a better relationship, right? And this is what it takes to continue to improve your relationship.
And, you look back at it a year later, two years later, it just, you'll see how much benefit it has, had. for you and your partner.
Akko: Oh, absolutely. This is like next level growth with your partner because you're pretty much knowing what your partner's thinking and it's truly a way to really grow your
Tamo: relationship.
Yeah, and another thing that I want to say about that is when you're holding space you don't want to tighten up. So this kind of goes into more of your inner state where You know, obviously when someone's saying things about potentially you that you don't like or things that you don't want to even hear, you will tend to tighten up literally physically, you might close up physically you might make a fist, you might feel tightness in your chest, things like that and that's also happening in the inner Part of your yourself.
In the mind, you might try to block things out or constrict and one thing that I want to say is, yes, this part is tiring, but it becomes even more tiring when you're constricting. If you're flexing your muscle all throughout this conversation, of course, you're going to get even more tired. As much as it sounds difficult, just really letting go and being as relaxed as possible.
That's another key that you can use and something that you want to know so that this holding space has the best opportunity to work the best for you
Akko: guys. Oh, yeah, for sure. I find myself like, sometime when I'm holding space for Tamo. I feel my chest becoming tight sometimes and then my mind starts going like crazy and so I have to tell myself like, hey, you need to calm down, you need to calm yourself.
Don't let your mind get the best of you and then really honor, and just feel gratitude towards Tamo for sharing his emotions and sharing his thoughts. And just knowing Hey, I love this guy, and so that's what kind of helps me loosen up.
And so that's maybe what you can do too when you're holding space for your partner.
So to recap this holding space, the key components of holding space includes actively listening, so you want to really engage in what your partner has to say, really focus try not to interrupt them and offer solutions or pass any judgment. It's really just reflective listening where it's really listening, where you're just listening to what they have to say.
You can paraphrase or summarize what your partners are saying so that there's clarification. Of what your partner is sharing, but you really just want to listen as much as possible and be empathetic, demonstrate empathy by understanding and sharing your partner's emotions. I'm sorry you, you're going through this.
I understand and recognizing and validating those feelings without necessarily trying to fix a solution. And not judging , as I just said, creating that judgment free space where your partner feels safe and accepted of everything that they have to say is really essential because you don't want to start criticizing them when they're being vulnerable and expressing their feelings.
Akko: And then another important one is being respectful, right? Respectfully present and respectful of their time and respectful of their courage to be able to share this. Because honestly, sharing your feelings, like truly sharing your feelings to your partner can be very hard.
And so encouraging, and respecting their courage to express their feelings is very big and also creating that supportive environment, right? You want to create that container where you stand defenseless and so that they can just share everything that they need to share while also holding their space.
Tamo: And standing defenseless may sound a little harsh but one thing that I want to mention is it's not you're having them run all over you. That's not the point, and it shouldn't be the point of the person who is speaking either. It shouldn't be a blatant attack. It should be more a constructive, okay, this is how I'm feeling, sharing that so that putting it on the table, then being able to speak to what the issues are.
And with that said, I also want to say for the person who's holding space there also is a need to be present like Akko mentioned. And not spacing out, zoning out, or like going into your mind to think about something else, maybe Like what you're gonna have for dinner or things like that.
You just want to be really present and being there no rolling your eyes or Weird things like that. Just being just really being there and just being the stable foundation for your partner to Express and share what they're feeling and again I think it is an important thing to mention that the one speaking shouldn't be an attack.
It should be more expressing how they're feeling and possibly why they're feeling that. Yeah.
Akko: Those things. Yeah, I agree. It's not like a free pass where you're like, I'm going to just say all the nasty things that I want to say to this person. No, it's no, not at all like that. It's thought out.
It's intentional as far as what you are feeling and what needs to be said so that you can be a little more free in your emotions.
Tamo: And then from there, once things are released, then you guys can work on, okay yeah. What can we do to improve this situation? And sometimes it's just the person speaking, they need to let go of things.
And maybe it is something that you can make changes in your life and behavior that if it goes in line with where you guys want to go as a partnership.
Akko: Yeah, absolutely. And also if it helps to just be physically connected so when you're having these serious conversations, you can always just physically touch them pretty much saying, Hey, you know our Relationship is what matters. This like for lack of a better word, drama that we're having is nothing compared to the love that I have for you. So that's what the whole touch represents. If that needs to be done, you can also do that to help you. And sometimes, yeah I love it. oNe of my love languages touch, so I feel like that helps me. And so I'm usually , connected with Tamo. I would say majority of the time when we do hold space for each other, I am connected physically with him. Whether it's like a foot or an elbow or whatever.
Tamo: Yeah.
Yeah. And for me, I'm not necessarily the physical type. Sometimes you just have to make that kind of concession and that's totally fine. If it's going to improve the situation that much more, do what it takes. And yeah, sometimes it's her putting her leg on my leg. It could be something simple depending on the situation.
Akko: So if you think this episode is helpful for other parents, please share it. And if you haven't, please take a quick moment to subscribe to our show
Tamo: and the question of the day is holding space. What are your thoughts on holding space? If you have done it, we want to know. And if this is the first time hearing about holding space what kind of triggers did you feel listening to this relationship technique?
Akko: We'd love to hear from you. Please come say hi by commenting on our website by going to akkoandtamo. com and clicking on the podcast tab. And we're also on Instagram at akkoandtamo. So come say hi. All right. Take care. Okay. Bye.