Hello and welcome to Revolutionize your love life. Do you
want to know more about love relationships? What makes them
work? How to create the one of your best dreams?
Do you want to be in a really healthy juicy,
love relationship? In these podcasts, we will give ideas and
practical advice to light your way. Whether you're looking for
a love partner already in a relationship, you wish could
be better or leaving one that has run its course.
There will be something to inspire empower and support you.
Revolutionize your love life is a fortnightly podcast where you
will access the knowledge and wisdom of love experts and
relationship coaches from across the world to help you find
true fulfillment in love. I am your host, Heather Garbett.
Welcome. Good morning. I'm here today with Geraldine Murphy who
is a relationship coach. She helps women and couples uncover
the magic in their relationship. And even if they've been
together for a long time, she can make vast improvements.
She's done it for herself with her husband and found
it's much more fun to make a struggling relationship work
than to get divorced, which she has also done. She's
a massive believer in making the most of what you've
got rather than replacing it with someone new, something new.
Hi, Geraldine. Welcome. Hello. How are you? Thank you for
having me on Heather. Oh, you're welcome. I'm, I'm, I'm
really good. Thank you. It's fresh after Valentine's Day. So
we're all feeling flushed with love and wanting to share.
So today we're going to talk about negative biases, expecting
the worst in the relationship, expecting the worst response and
the negative habits that can be destructive in relationship and
being too busy and taking each other for granted. Should
we look at the first bit first? Yes. Yeah. It's,
it's one of my favorite topics which sounds weird for
negative bias really. Um, but it's the one thing that
I think if, if we could be trained in schools
or trained anywhere in life to even know that it
exists, it would make a huge difference to, to everybody,
everybody on earth. It would just be crazy because we'd
act and react so differently to each other. I'll explain
what it is. Negative bias we were born with. Um,
and this goes back to dinosaur times when we were
cavemen. Um, we are born with this part of our
brain that protects us and this has not evolved over,
you know, hundreds of thousands of years and it's the,
the little bit in our brain that when you were
running around with your club and, and being chased by
saber tooth tigers and things like that. If you heard
a rustle in the bushes, you could either assume everything
was fine or you could assume that there was trouble
and you just had to bolt. Um, and the people
who assumed it was fine sometimes got eaten. So we
ended up with these genes that, that protect us and,
uh, and often unnecessarily. Um, so you have this part
in your brain that doesn't know all the only job
it has is to protect you and keep you alive.
Of course, nowadays, we don't, we're not getting chased by
tigers. Um We are in physically, we're really rarely in
physical danger, but we still have this, this negative bias.
You know, we have this, this part in our brain.
It's in, it's the Amygdala, it's right in the middle
of your brain and it fires off when you see
something that scares you or you see anything at all.
Really, you will automatically look for the danger in it,
especially if it's anything new or any change. And I
think things like texts are amazing for bringing this out.
You can see a text and you will automatically look
for the danger or the bad in that. And that
is your negative bias and it's completely natural. It's unfortunate
but it's completely natural. So it can relate to emotional
threat, not necessarily physical threat, it can relate to any
sort of um, threat that you feel to your. Well,
being absolutely. And that's when it happens most often. Um,
because in reality, there's very little physical threat that we
have in our lives. Um, the majority of it is,
is emotional threats and it's not even emotional threats. I
mean, I have done it myself getting, you know, um,
you know, you get a text through from somebody that
you are expecting bad news for, from, or you not
quite sure and it might not be bad news when
it does come through. But you look at it and
you're like before you even see any of the body
of the text, you kind of like, you know, hairs
can go up on the back of your neck, you
can start feeling a bit tingly. Um and this is,
you know, it's the same, it happens with all sorts
of different things. The brown envelopes that used to be
a good one, didn't it? You don't get that many
the tax man and you see the envelope and think,
oh my God, what's what's in this assuming the worst
every time? But we also do that in relation to
our partners. And this is because it's naturally there. I
mean, there, there's really easy, easy ways to combat it,
but it's a muscle, it's something that you have to
practice and know that, you know, be aware of it
and learn how to catch yourself, you know, and the
more you catch yourself and correct it, then it just
becomes something that you get better at and it gets
easier. Yeah. Yeah. The, the one do you mean the,
the would be and how you yourself? Yeah. Well, there,
you know, your partner is out and they are, they're
late for dinner. You've got dinner ready and they're, they're
not back and you haven't heard from them and you
can start assuming that they are. Um, they're, they don't
care, they, they got chatting to somebody at work and
they didn't, you weren't really that, you know, you're not
as important. This dinner isn't as important as anything as,
as it should be. Um, but actually you can kind
of know that this, this is my brain working trying
to protect me. But actually the chances are I don't
have enough information here. Ok? He hasn't called, he's late,
anything, you know, it could have a flat tire or
it could have whatever phone could be out of charge.
The chances are, it's not any of these things because
if you look back, uh, this is another good technique
looking back at whenever you thought something bad was gonna
happen. Did it, did it happen? How many times have
you looked back and have you thought? Oh God, this
is this, this is terrible. This what if this happens?
This is going to happen and it doesn't happen and
all that wasted energy that you've expended on, on the
pain and the worry and the stress and the trouble
is, it's a bit like having a baby. You forget
about it, you know, when it's done you tend to
forget and you don't record it and then you go
on to the next one of like, oh, this always
happens and actually you think, well, the last 12 times
it didn't happen, it did turn out better than expected.
So, it's so, I actually write those things down and
stick them on the fridge. Sometimes this happened. This went
well, this went well, this went well, actually things are
working out for us and if you soothing yourself, yeah.
And, and, but educating and retraining this so we can,
we can hop over this Amygdala and, and just uh
it will always be there. It will always want to
do its job, but we don't need to trust it
in the same way as we did. Or at least
it's not even just, it's the blind trust of it
where you going to panic. This is what always happens.
Um And then I react. So the thing of husband
being late and then he comes in the door and
you're uh you didn't, you didn't call, you didn't. This,
this always happens. It's always like this, you don't care
about this dinner or whatever. And when actually, if you
had, if you look at all the information, you think
actually, I don't have this information, he's not back. He
is not answering his phone, the phone's probably dead or
whatever. And when the energy is completely different, when it
does show up and you're not firing off this negative
energy back at him where he's possibly been standing in
the rain, changing a tire or something. Do you know
what I mean? So he is not going, it's not
going to add insult to injury. Exactly. And then, and
sorry, sorry, I'm talking about you. But you can't, that
negative energy has happened. So if you haven't caught it,
it's, it's not gone, it's, it's happened and you have
created like, did you ever wake up from a dream?
And you're annoyed with somebody? And you think I, I
dreamt that I had an argument with them and you
still have that energy in your body when you get
up and you're still annoyed with them maybe an hour
afterwards. And you like, why, why am I annoyed with
this person? I need to and then you work out
and you think, and it didn't bloom, it happened. So
there's something you're saying here that's really important about soothing
ourselves, really being, um, an adult to ourselves and saying,
hold on, you know, is this really the way I
want to react? Is this really what's happened? You know,
I've got all of these ideas. None of which could
be true if I just calm myself down and wait
and I know that I can trust him. It's not
that he's doing this on purpose. All of my previous
experience of him is that he doesn't stay out on
purpose to ruin my dinner. You know, then you can
be calm and then you can be responsive and warm
when he comes in. Gosh, you're late. Darling. What's happened?
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And it makes me think. Oh, go
on. No, no, go on. Well, it makes me think
about little childhood patterns. You know how we first experienced
love when we were little that will overlay this Amygdala
reaction. So if you first experienced, um, emotional connection has
been shouted at and slapped, that's what you'll expect. So
that will feed into expecting the worst. Yeah. And it
just reinforces it. I'm making it an extreme to make
the point. But, you know, if you've experienced connection as
absent, like, um, your parents are too busy to be
with you, then you won't expect good attention. You won't
expect to be loved and cared for in an attentive
way. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And, um, because the Amygdala situation
is already set up. You know, it's already there, it's
already happening. You have to kind of actively work against
that. But as a child, you can't, you know, you
rely on your parents to, to be the ones to,
to help you with that. Um, but being in this
situation with your Amygdala as an adult and not realizing
that it is negative bias and it is natural is,
um, being quite childlike. You know, it's not moving forward
and not developing yourself. And this is a really funny,
I love this funny trick with the Amygdala and this
dinosaur bit of your brain is actually a bit stupid.
It's a bit dense. It's so old. It's not able
to count backwards. So if there's ever something you need
to do, like, um, I use it for getting in
the sea, in the cold sea, you want to go
in the sea, but your body is give you, the
longer you avoid going in the sea, the harder it
gets to get in that you've been there. Have you?
Everybody's been there like I know it'll be nice once
I get in there. But, oh, I don't really want
to and then I'll give it five minutes or I'll
go and get ice cream first or whatever and you'll
never get in to see if you say 54321 do
it. It switches off that bit of your brain. It
can't cope with counting back, but you have to go
straight in then. That's a brilliant trick. It is brilliant.
And then again, it's another one of those, the more
you use it, the easier it gets. And I have
used it once for going out, you know, those vertical
slides of death. Terrifying. Yeah. And I remember I had
Noah, my youngest, my youngest boy with me, we were
at this, just this kind of park thing when we
were doing that kind of stuff. And I was like,
I'm determined to go down this because he's looking at
me because I need to be brave. I need to
be a brave mom and because I'm an older mom,
I was like to be, he doesn't see that. But
I was like, I'm not going to be the one
that doesn't do that. I'm going to do it and
he couldn't look. But I did that several times because
I was like, oh gee I don't want to go
down this thing. I was like 54321 go. And I
was telling everybody do it this way, this way you
get down. But once you've done it several times, second
time is always easier. Third time easier again, you start
to rely on your own, you, you start to know
that it's just a muscle, it's just a, it's just
to do it. You know, you just do it. You,
you build your own reassuring experience. Yeah. Yeah. So you
break up that, you know that I love that thing
with the sign up thing. So you, you, when you
have a negative experience, you create a pathway and every
time you go over that pathway, you create, you go
deeper into the trench and it becomes more of a
pathway. So you scribble it out when you change that,
you know, you interrupt the pathway and the more you
interrupt it then that you create new pathways. So it's
all, it's like, you know, the other analogy is the
muscle creating that muscle where you, you create a new
habit but you keep doing it, keep doing it and
then you have a good new habit. That's brilliant. That's
brilliant. So we can do that in relationship too. We
can calm ourselves down. So we're not being reactive from
Amygdala or negative childhood experiences making meaning. That's negative. Brilliant.
That's brilliant. So what about the negative habits? You just
mentioned that, that what, what about the negative habits that
can happen long term in relationships that diminish it? Yeah.
Yeah. These are really interesting actually because most of these
negative habits, people don't even realize that they're doing it.
It becomes such a part of them and habits are,
there's, they can be so good and so bad. So
you can just have something that you don't even hear
yourself doing. And I had somebody talking to me recently
and um, she, her husband, um he, he, he doesn't
eat, he doesn't eat a wide range of food. Um
So it's, it's quite child type food in her opinion
and, and she feels this comes from his own family
and his mother. And um, so she comments on it
almost every meal time, it drives him nuts. So this
causes tension and friction. Um And as far as, as
far as this girl is concerned, it's kind of his
um his problem, you know, it's, but it's kind of,
it's not realizing that it's actually causing problems for both
of them really. You know. Um, so we're sort of
looking at that, um, and saying, well, this is, this
is also responsibility that she's taken on, which she doesn't
need to because it gives her pain as well talking
about it. So, we were, we were sort of saying,
well, why don't you just don't worry about it. He's
not your kid, you're your own person, let him do
his own. And, um, it's, we're just sort of exploring
it. We're not far into this, but it's, it, now
it's just starting to realize how often it comes up,
you know, and you, well, you, how often do you
eat? It's such a, you know, um, and so it's,
it's, um, once this has taken out the equation, this
is going to become a much, much easier relationship and
meal times will be much easier because there is the
thing of, um, she gets upset over what makes a
comment, it's jokey comment that set that sets him off
and then he's upset about, you know, not being enough
enough choice for him kind of thing. And then they
have this, it ruins meal times and meal times are
meant to be special. You know, I love food. I
like meal times to be good and calm. And, um,
so this taking this out of the equation where it's
not her responsibility. If he wants to moan about the
food, fine no problem. It's not her thing. She just
look after her own meal. It's gonna make life a
lot easier. So there's this sort of sense of being
a bit controlling, being a bit parental, um, thinking that
we know best and that it's ok to comment. Um,
even joking, it's barbed and it's demeaning, um, embarrassing and
shaming for the other person. I guess there's a point
where we might need to look at where that's coming
from. You know, do, does she feel it reflects on
her because he chooses to eat like that in a
restaurant? And is that what is going on? You can't
conjecture right now. But I, I would like that to,
if that was me, I would think, OK, why am
I doing this? Where's this coming from so that you
can ease, ease out of it as well as just
deciding I'm not going to do that anymore? Yeah. Yeah.
No, that is, that is an interesting point as well
and, and also where his reaction to it as well
because it's not meant to be mean. It's never intended
to be a judgment. Um, it just is read like
that. So we, the way this is more of the
negative bias that you expecting somebody to say when somebody
says something, you're expecting the negative slant on it when
it's not intended that way either. It's sort of, you
know, it's, it's complicated, isn't it? You know, this is
what I call the ratcheting conversation. Like you start here,
there's a trigger, there's a trigger, there's a trigger and
before you know it, you're, you're up here and banging
the bell, you know, and that's how, yeah, that really
happens in relationships where they just build on each other
and you build this, this habit of something that annoys
each other. And so, you know, nice meals that you
have this nice situation where you're meant to be, go
out and have a lovely time and then it ends
up not being a nice time because something bad happened
and it's something to do with the habit, which obviously
we were talking about earlier as well. Um So yeah,
it's, uh, it is really, it's really interesting that tweaks
in habits can really make quite a difference but also
finding out what's going underneath them. Mm. Brilliant, brilliant. Thank
you. So, the last point we want to talk about
is busy, sort of taking each other for granted, becoming
part of the furniture. I mean, it's, it's pretty obvious
that's not gonna be positive. But tell me more about
that. Yes. And, and it starts off with being, it
starts off as a positive, you know, that you can
rely on each other and, you know, you feel so
safe and comfortable with, with that person that they'll be
there forever. You feel like you, you're rock solid and
that can turn into just really taking each other for
granted because the kids are screaming and business is screaming
and this is happening, that's happening. So you, you're working
hard for your goals and maybe building business and you're,
you know, the kids have to be looked after and
sent to school and then you end up maybe with
parents that you're looking after or whatever and then the
kids are starting to leave home and actually get to
a point where you think, I hardly know this person.
I haven't had a really deep and, and fulfilling conversation
with them in four years. You know, and, and that's,
that's quite sad when that happens. But again, it's something
that can be reversed and without a huge amount of
its effort, that's, you know, that's what you have to
put, what you haven't been putting in is now what
you have to put in an intention to make things
better. Yeah. Yeah, because it is, it is better to
make things better than to part, in my opinion. Not,
it's not always the case, but it, it is definitely,
I always think, well, it's, if you're thinking, is it
time to, to leave or, or break up maybe six
more months and actually work at it and see if
you can, if you can get back to it because
when you can get back to it, when you can
actually bring back that relationship, it's so much better than
it was even when you first met because you have
these layers and depth and history and, you know, each
other so well. And now you have, you know, now
you maybe have a bit of money and now you
have the house to yourselves. You've got all those things
that you didn't have for a lot of the time
in the interim. It's like, wow, it's time to reap
the rewards. Don't just get divorced. It's like, let's get
the fun time zone. Yeah. And I think, I think
you're right. You know, that, that's a, there's so much
of what you said. That's right. But that last bit's
also triggered thinking in me about letting the fun go.
You know, if you, if you don't have things like
that, you both enjoy doing it, it will become barren.
So if you like dancing, you go dancing, you know,
it's for Ian and I, we love our dancing. Uh
I love art. He likes to come to see exhibitions.
I think there, there's something happened with the lockdown as
well. We got out of the habit of doing nice
things because you don't, we weren't going out, but we're
doing it much, much more now and it just makes
such a difference. Yeah. Yeah. Life experiences are just, um,
they're really, you know, they're like the rewards for all
the work and the, you know, and, and just going
out as a couple when you're out there is, it's
just kind of special because you can share these special
things and you have, you know, each other so, well,
everybody around you is a stranger and which, you know,
can, can really bring new things into your relationship as
well when you start chatting with people. And it's really
lovely. You just develop more memories, you know, for chatting
about when you go home. Otherwise you sent them to
the TV. Yeah. Yeah. Much in the same old, same
old. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Oh, thank you so much,
Geraldine. It's been really lovely to talk with you. And
how can people contact you if, if this is for
them? Oh, yes. Um Yes. Well, you can, I have
my own um Facebook community there where I have um
I run some events, some free events. Um I, if
you want to find the magic in your relationship and
uh improve your communication and deepen your um intimacy and
connection with your partner, then come to my page and
uh and I'm also, I'm also on um on Facebook
my personal profile as well that you confront me. I'm
Geraldine Murphy. Yes. So that's lovely. What's the name of
your community? It's uh what is the name of my,
put it in the chat in your own number? I
know what you mean. Thank you so much. See you
again soon. Bye for now. Bye bye. Thank you so
much for listening to this episode of Revolutionize your love
life. I'd like to know what has been your biggest
takeaway from this conversation, do take a minute and share
this with us and visit us on our Facebook page.
You can connect with me personally on my email at
Heather at Heather garber.com. If you can think of someone
who will benefit from listening to this podcast, please do
share it with them. If you have any feedback on
how I can improve it, please do reach out to
me as I'm always keen to learn more. Thank you
so much again for listening and we'll meet again on
the next episode of Revolutionize your Love life.
We recommend upgrading to the latest Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
Please check your internet connection and refresh the page. You might also try disabling any ad blockers.
You can visit our support center if you're having problems.