Valentine’s Day Emotional Fitness Tips for Couples: “30-Second Challenge”

Valentine’s Day is this Saturday. This is just a friendly reminder. Couples will celebrate their love. But sometimes couples need help communicating and resolving conflicts. And joining us today to help us with our emotional fitness are our partners, our couples counselors, Tracy and Gary Dumas, who have been married for 30 years. So the first thing I have to ask Tracy is, what’s the secret? Learning to be cool for a woman. What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you think the secret is, Gary? Oh, I definitely respect her as a woman. And not just as my wife, but respect her in her own right. And I love that you didn’t just say, you know, always listen to my wife. People. People, you know, it’s become kind of a cliché, happy wife, happy life. But it is very important to respect him. Yes, I find it even more intelligent than when a man listens to them all the time. Because what if he’s wrong, right? So, yes, you have to balance them. Ok. And so as we approach Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about some emotional fitness tips for couples. How does he look like Gary? Well one of the things, as you know, I like to do things that are unconventional and non-traditional in terms of communicating with clients and giving them some new ideas and ways to become better, because everyone wants to become better, right? And so we will be seen as the 32nd exercise. Now, I know this is a very lofty, ambitious goal for 30s, but it allows them to become a better communicator. This allows them to present their emotions in a way where it does not create any increased or additional emotional dysregulation opportunities. Okay, so let me get this straight. So everyone gets 30s, is that how it works? You need to be timely and specific. What does it mean. There you go on time and specifically. Now the reason why we included both of them intentionally is because how many times have people tried to share what’s on their mind? And then during that effort they were the same everywhere? This is not only a problem for the presenter, but it is also a problem for the listener, because when it is their turn to speak, they don’t know where to start, which can heighten emotions even more. Okay, so Tracy, when you’ve done this, what does it look like for you? For me, more listening, active listening is not like sometimes you listen and you, you’re thinking about your response, your response. So just listen actively so you can really hear what is being said. Well, and I like Tracy, the timely part of it because this is not the time for us to bring up something that happened two weeks ago or two years ago that we even remember. Yes. Correct. This is the only time in this incident that we have considered bringing up things that have already happened, unless it falls into the category of an unresolved issue. Now, the hope is that if this has indeed come up, it can be brought up and addressed in a situation where you are thinking rationally and being considerate of the listener every time you speak, and you guys really do that in your marriage. And it helped. Oh hell yeah. Yes. Yes. Practice privately. The person you see in public. And it has lots of benefits. This prevents misunderstandings. This makes feedback useful. And it also prevents emotions from developing further, which can be helpful because things can escalate very quickly. And you can easily leave it incomplete. What do I mean by that? Exiting conversations that turned into debates with what should have been, should have been, could have been. I should have said this. I would have said so. Maybe I should have said this. Well, if they practice exercise 32 with those results in mind, especially to make the feedback useful, because when you share your ideas, you get feedback. You want it to be usable in a way that contributes to stress reduction techniques. Well, Tracy and Gary, thank you so much for joining us. This is a great 32nd challenge. Really simple.