For a sensitive person in love, relationships can be more challenging. You can experience incredible delight and intimacy, but it’s easier to feel hurt or offended by your partner’s comments or actions. The highs can be amazing, but the lows can cause unbearable pain. Today, a trained therapist and psychologist talk about their struggles and what makes a relationship successful.
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Relationship Success for a Sensitive Person in Love: Show Notes
I wish I could say love was enough to make dating go well, or a relationship last, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I was in love with my ex husband, but our styles of partnership were so different that we couldn’t find common ground. And on today’s podcast I had a conversation with a couple — one of whom is a marriage and family therapist, the other is a psychologist — who struggled in their relationship to the point of break up, even with all of their relational expertise. They managed to find their way back together, but it took humility and self growth!
Love is often experienced as a feeling toward another person. But feelings fade. And they fade fast if we don’t know how to communicate and connect about our fears, hurts, and desires. If you’re a sensitive, or highly sensitive, person — meaning you feel more, and have stronger reactions, than the average person — it can be even more challenging to maintain a loving relationship.
Joree Rose, LMFT and Dr. John Schinnerer have their own private practices, and are the hosts of the podcast Love Isn’t Enough. They describe themselves as having gone from bliss to break up, and back again. They help couples have the best relationship possible by healing past wounds, so they stop interfering in the present.
In our lively and powerful conversation we discussed…
- The importance of validating someone you love, even when you don’t agree
- How core wounds create a domino effect of triggers
- The art of balancing independence and togetherness
- How to know when to self regulate and when to co-regulate
- The benefit of keeping your partner in the loop about your moods and low times
- What caused Joree and John to break up and how they came back together
- The challenge of blending families successfully
If you’re a sensitive person, whether you’re single or in a romantic relationship, you’ll get a lot out of hearing about their challenges and how they navigated them to come back together. If you’re single, you can make future relationships easier by doing some of the work Joree and John did. If you’re in a relationship you can build more trust and intimacy than you’ve ever had.
When you’re done with this one, you can listen to Dr. John on my Man Alive podcast episode on the key to real happiness for men.
Links:
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Connect with John and Joree
Bio:
Joree Rose, MA, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, transformation coach, couples counselor, mindfulness and meditation teacher, author, speaker, and she also leads mindfulness retreats around the world. Joree has helped thousands of people to live happier and more fulfilling lives through living with greater awareness and compassion, allowing them to decrease their stress, anxiety and shed unhealthy habits, patterns and mindsets. Joree is host of the podcast ‘Journey Forward® with Joree Rose’ and has authored the newly released A Year of Gratitude, Daily Moments of Reflection, Grace and Thanks as well as 2 mindfulness books, Squirmy Learns to be Mindful and Mindfulness, It’s Elementary. Joree has been featured in prominent media outlets such as Oprahmag.com, NBCnews.com, Business Insider, KTLA News, and so many more! She is one of the preeminent couples counselors in California.
Dr. John Schinnerer coaches men to perform at their peak from the boardroom to the bedroom. He also leads retreats for men and couples around the world. Dr. John graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a Ph.D. in educational psychology. He was an expert consultant for Pixar’s Inside Out. He has spoken to organizations such as Stanford Medical School, U.C. Berkeley, Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, Gap and UPS. He has been featured in national media such as U.S. News and World Report, Reader’s Digest, and SELF Magazine. His areas of expertise range from high performance, to couples counseling, to stress management, to positive psychology, to anger management, to creating happy, thriving relationships. Dr. John hosts a podcast to help men evolve, The Evolved Caveman. Over 20,000 people have taken his online anger management course. He recently recorded micro courses on anger management and forgiveness for Simple Habit; they have been listened to over 150,000 times.
Transcript
Shana James, M.A. (00:01)
Hello and welcome to this episode of Practicing Love: Have the best love and sex of your life after 40. I’m excited to be here today with an amazing couple, both of whom are in the psychological field. Joree Rose is an LMFT, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and John Shinerer is a psychologist.
They are in a relationship. I’ll let them tell you more about that… And the purpose of this podcast is really so that you can hear from people who, like you, struggle in relationships. And particularly I started out by recording with experts because I wanted you to know that we struggle too, and that we work with those struggles, and we consciously navigate and practice with those struggles.
And so you don’t have to feel bad about whatever you’re struggling with. I also want you to be able to get a sense of the different kinds of struggles. Maybe you’ll learn something about yourself or your partner, or if you’re dating then experiencing new people. So thank you to both so much for being here today and letting us in on your love life.
Joree & John (01:17)
We’re really happy to be here. Thank you so much for having us.
Shana James, M.A. (01:20)
Great. So can you give us a sense of your current relationship, anything that stands out, anything you want us to know to understand the context of what you’re living inside of?
Joree & John (01:34)
We’ve been dating for nine years, both married prior, and engaged for five of those years. Not yet married, kind of married. Sort of married, but that’s a whole other story. Happy to go into that, but not that fruitful. The relationship was fantastic for many years. And then we started to get bogged down in sensitivities.
There were some patterns that we were very deep in and we were getting stuck in and couldn’t seem to find our way out of and it led to a brief but really painful breakup about two years ago. And I think that breakup really woke us up in terms of, wow, I really love this person. I got to get my shit together and figure out how to change some of these patterns. For me, I had never been able to change in my 50 years of living. It was great motivation. And it was also great. reaffirmation of the love that I have for Joree.
Shana James, M.A. (02:37)
Yes, there’s a distinction between the love we have for someone and then the habits and patterns that we get into where we can’t necessarily feel that love because we’re stuck in some of these old wounding or old habits. And so again, I appreciate you for being real about that and that, even doing the work you do, that it’s hard to witness our own patterns.
Joree & John (03:18)
May I speak to that Shana? Being in relationship for as long as we have and both being in the mental health field, we were really excited years ago to start doing couples work together. And it was so exciting on so many levels and really quite embarrassing to have joint clients. I saw the woman, he saw the man during our breakup.
I was like, shit, if we can’t figure it out, what message does that give our clients, who are seeing us as these experts and yet we’re still human? And it actually has most informed and deepened our work we do with couples by really experiencing, wow, we love each other and that wasn’t enough to break these negative repetitive patterns we kept getting stuck in.
We now have a very securely attached relationship, which previously was stuck in some anxious avoidant dances. But it’s been a reaffirmation in the work we want to do in serving others and our new joint branding of couples work of “love isn’t enough.” Cause I think ultimately it’s not enough. Our breakup was not a function of how much we loved each other, which is what made it so painful.
Joree:
But that’s also the story that we were sold from a very young age, right? That you fall in love and then you live happily ever after, a la Disney. No thanks, Disney. Part of what we really understood was getting in the way was not the knowledge or the tools. We know those, right? We know and we understand and we teach that, which was part of my biggest frustration, and was a wound.
I would kind of repick it and say “John, you teach this, why can’t we do it?” And I know that was hurtful, but it was also my frustration, and I was getting stuck in the same ways. It was easy for me to externalize that, so anyone that’s listening out there, don’t ever do that. Once again, love, I’m sorry. But it was such a deep frustration of why can’t we engage in the patterns that we so believe in, that we teach?
Shana James, M.A. (05:09)
Right. You can tell someone you do this, but why can’t you do this?
Joree & John (05:30)
And we know from research and blah, blah, that they work, right? And what was preventing us from accessing those? And so part of the work that we do now with couples is really understanding what we found to be quite a big flaw in a lot of couples work – where most looks at: how can we communicate better? How can we repair? How can we have more effective arguments and fight fair, or how do we respond to bids for attention…all the things that are a couple skills.
But what we got simultaneously curious about is: what is the individual stuff – our own work, that preceded this relationship from childhood, or previous relationships or traumas – that are preventing you from accessing the tools? I think what we found is roughly 70 % of the stuff we were getting hung up on far preceded this relationship!
Shana James, M.A. (06:03)
Right, it makes 100 % sense.
Joree & John (06:28)
It was about a past romantic relationship or our childhood. So we had to look at really not just our patterns, but what’s my own stuff that I have to heal, and I have to work on.
Shana James, M.A. (06:41)
Right, and then we project on others
Joree & John (06:45)
Exactly. Because that’s what was happening.
“You don’t know me. If only you… If only you stop doing this, I’ll be better.” But that’s not the case. And there’s no accountability in that being the view.
Shana James, M.A. (06:49)
Yes. Okay. This is amazing. I’m so excited to hear more about your findings. And maybe first, can we go into a little bit of the sensitivities or that dance. Paint a picture for couples of what was happening in that time.
John (07:19)
Let’s talk about all the places where you were wrong. Ha! I didn’t see it going there. I think this sounds great. That’s a great direction. Thanks, Shana.
Joree (07:35)
I don’t even know what to say to that John.
I can start.
I think part of it was that one of our greatest strengths as a couple became one of our biggest challenges. We’re each a highly sensitive person, and we both feel very, very deeply. And at its most basic level, our sensitivities at times were in competition with each other.
Shana James, M.A. (07:35)
Ok, can we start with each of you actually reflecting on, “what was I doing?”
And acknowledge that likely that drew you together because when you’re a sensitive person it can feel amazing to find someone else who is sensitive.
Joree & John (08:05)
Yes, my God, you feel so deeply. I love that about you. And that’s the way it works with everything we find – that the very things that attract us to a partner later on kind of grind our gears. I love that my partner is so outgoing and social and she can talk to anyone at the party. But then later on, it’s like, my God, can’t we just stay home one night? Or I feel like you ditch me at every party because you’re talking to everybody else.
Our deep sensitivities are what allowed our love to go so deep. And we didn’t always know how to go ahead. For example, we didn’t always know how to mitigate or give room for the other person.
I’ll start with one of my examples. One of the areas that I realized was my work was when we would get into a disagreement, I could go 15 minutes or so in disagreement, give or take five minutes.
And then I would start to get emotionally flooded. And I would start to get angry. Andmy interpretation internally was, shit, I’m getting angry. I need to shut down because I don’t want to say anything in anger that’s going to hurt her feelings. So from the inside, it seems like a very noble approach. The problem with that is that it’s also stonewalling, which we know is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and not a great habit.
It’s not a great strategy for connection. I’m unilaterally withdrawing from the discussion. And then she would get triggered. She would get anxious and she would pursue. I’m trying to calm down for 20 minutes. And we were stuck in that anxious avoidant trap. But the thing that was kind of fascinating to me and that was my work about that was I realized, and this was kind of in hindsight, that where I was going for moments in that period was shame. And if you had asked me…
Shana James, M.A. (10:09)
Yes, right. I was going to say that right underneath that sense of being angry, and I don’t want to say something that’s going to hurt her, is: am I OK with the fact that I’m angry? It sounds like not. There was shame there.
Joree & John (10:21)
Yeah. And I mean, if you had asked me five years ago, do you have any shame? I would have been like, no, no, I don’t feel any shame.
But with a little more digging, I was like, whoa, there it is. And the way I identified it was I heard thoughts. They were very brief. They maybe lasted seconds that sounded something like, “I’m just no good at this relationship thing. Or she’d be better off without me.”
At times, too, before our breakup, I saw the belief that I’m unworthy of love, connection and belonging. And so once I realized, shit, I’m going to shame – that’s a pattern that’s followed me my whole life in relationships, and that’s on me. That’s my work.
And so what I did was I actually got into internal family systems, and started talking to that really young five year old part of me that was feeling the shame in those moments, and set about healing that.
Shana James, M.A. (11:19)
Well, what I love that you’re pointing to is how it can be so brief. You can think, “I don’t have any shame,” and then to start to notice, there’s these little voices in there and I can hear them.
And you’re a psychologist. And you look at this all the time, And some people don’t even hear them. They just feel the bodily sensations. Different for everybody. But it’s there.
Joree (11:25)
Yeah. It’s fleeting. It’s whispers. They’re fast. They’re pernicious. They’re sneaky. And part of that dynamic for me, one of my core wounds, is abandonment. And that’s very real based on my family of origin and traumas in my family. And part of my other core wound is this fear of being too much – that if I express too much of my emotions, or come across as too needy, that’s going to push somebody away.
So the dynamic would often flow from me bringing up something I was hurt by, which was vulnerable for me to do. And it would highlight one of John’s sensitivities… Which was, I’m not enough. I’m not enough. And that old narrative from his passive, I can’t ever do it right, so why bother?
I’m not good at this relationship thing, which then, as he said, caused him to kind of shut down and withdraw, which to me looked just like abandonment, which to me was abandonment. And then he broke up with me and it was like real abandonment. And then it was, okay, so what’s my part of this dynamic? What do I need to do?
And part of that was for me to do the work around my abandonment, and to learn to self-soothe and to regulate my own sensitivities and needs, because he wasn’t always going to be available for me.
Shana James, M.A. (12:58)
Right. And it’s so powerful to see, even though “I’m the one who got left,” that’s real and in a way, and it’s a story. Recognizing I actually still have a part in this, and how do I find my own ground, my own center, so that I’m not leaning in trying to have someone else be that center for me, so we can actually be equal in this relationship.
Joree (13:33)
The other piece of that was looking at what things preceded that dynamic within our relationship, that didn’t make him feel that his needs were being met, that I wasn’t able to easily see.
And so part of my own individual path of growth and healing, some of my enmeshment patterns from the past, tilted the wrong direction of some hyper-independence that to him felt like not feeling connected.
But for me, I’m like, “look at me, I’m such a big girl now. My inner child is growing up. Look, aren’t you proud of what I can do on my own?”
And he’s like, “that doesn’t feel very relational. I want to feel like I am the most important person you say that I am, but based on some of your actions I don’t feel that way. ” And I wasn’t doing anything quote wrong, just, again, some of our past led us compete.
Shana James, M.A. (14:16)
I want you to need me. I think you’re speaking about the dynamic of so many couples. I’m hearing so many things I’ve heard that people don’t always know how to put words to.
Joree & John (14:34)
One of the key value differences there was independence versus relationality, which I think is a great way to summarize it and to get people to think, am I being too individualistic here or to what extent am I leaning into the relationship?
And where’s the balance there? Because both are necessary. Neither one is bad. But it’s a balancing act and it’s delicate. And it met my individual personal growth, but it was hurting our partnership.
And so again, what is my role in taking care of my own needs while also meeting my partners?
Shana James, M.A. (15:16)
Yes, right, that there is a WE! It’s not just about meeting your own needs, or meeting the relationship needs. How do you actually balance both?
Joree & John (15:19)
Right. And we have also blended our families. And I think that enters into this as well. Because if you’re in a first marriage, the couple, the relationship, the dyad is number one, period. And then the kids are number two, and then everything else comes after that.
But if it’s a post-divorce, that shifts a little bit. And we had agreed to put the kids first.
Shana James, M.A. (15:28)
That’s huge. my God. There’s a lot of number ones in there.
Joree & John (15:48)
We did that for nine years. And so we’re just now living together for four months, after putting the kids first for nine years, because we didn’t want to force them together.
And luckily, that was a shared value. If only one of us held that value, that would have probably broken us because I don’t think either one of us would have been willing to not put the kids first, especially given the dynamic of our kids’ other parents.
We were the primary parents. So to not be available to them would have not been the right thing for their needs and their mental health, and their sense of safety and security. So luckily we shared that core value and it was still really hard for us. Because as we often say, time and attention is the currency of relationships and we weren’t able to give each other as much time and attention, and yet those patterns were still showing up even when we did give each other the time and attention.
Shana James, M.A. (16:24)
Right, and I like seeing time and attention as a currency of relationship. And yes if you didn’t have that shared value, it’s not that either one of you would have been wrong, it would just be different.
I love helping people see that nobody has to be wrong. Certain things don’t match up or don’t line up enough. Once you get that you have enough shared values, there’s what you’re talking about, which is that now we have these core wounds to work with.
Joree (16:48)
Right. I’d love to speak to another big, huge piece of this that was really revolutionary for me – that one of my core wounds was afraid of being too much, and that my emotions would push people away. Also at times, this prevented me from truly, authentically expressing myself. And one of the things that John encouraged, and gave me plenty of opportunity to practice, was getting in touch with my anger.
This was interesting because in the pre-breakup, John was quick to be defensive in his listening or justifying his actions, without really hearing me. So there were some patterns of defensive listening.
Simultaneous to him encouraging me to get in touch with my anger, he was practicing non-defensive listening, to give me room to express it. And he could receive it well. That was a game changer.
Shana James, M.A. (18:08)
Yeah, how did that change things for you?
Joree (18:15)
I could start to trust my emotions wouldn’t push somebody away. Again, he was simultaneously learning how to not stonewall. So he was doing his work simultaneously, but it gave me a lot of trust in the relationship so I could feel safe and be honest or authentic.
John
I think it also allowed you to feel heard emotionally, I think for the first time ever. Yeah. And I think there’s power in that, that when we can speak how we feel, and the other person really hears you and listens to you and understands how you’re feeling without defending.
It allows you to get rid of that emotion to a large extent. I don’t need to hold on to it. I come from a family of origin that’s very enmeshed, in which individuation and personal belief systems get punished. They’re not allowed. If you’re not part of the enmeshed belief system, then you’re wrong. So, because my fear was abandonment, I would choose connection over honoring my emotion. Because the risk of not honoring that.
Shana James, M.A. (19:17)
…and losing part of yourself.
So then John, did the two of you set up a way where Joree could be angry in any way? Or did you have any agreements like no blaming, no shaming, no attacking? And how did you step into that?
John (19:40)
There’s a lot there. I think that I knew non-defensive listening was important, but I’d never really practiced it. And so it came into my awareness a little bit before the breakup, I’ld say. And so I was starting to delve into it and to begin to practice it.
But it’s a process, right? And I knew when I encouraged Joree to get in touch with her anger that I was going to be the recipient of it at some point. I had no doubt about that.
So I guess I was preparing for that at some level. But I remember there was one time when Joree got in touch with her anger, and we don’t name call, so we didn’t have to have agreements because that’s just not in either one of our natures…
But this one time, she got really angry at me and she was yelling at me and swearing and I don’t know if there was name calling, but…
Joree:
I don’t think I swore at you. I think I was just swearing in anger.
I agree. I knew this was coming and so I was somewhat prepared for it. And so I just responded with, yeah, I can see that you’re really upset. I can see that this really hurt you. I get it. I hear you. I understand. I can see that you’re really sad about this.
Shana James, M.A. (20:58)
Wow, you kept your heart open.
John (21:02)
And then at the end, I just said, thank you so much for sharing how you feel with me.
Joree:
Sharing that was the part I was waiting for him to say: thank you for sharing your anger with me.
It was a container that made me feel safe and allowed me to express but even more what it showed me was he actually honored it. And that made me feel I’m not too much, I’m just human.
Shana James, M.A. (21:07)
Wow. It wasn’t like he was tolerating it or just, you know, trying to get over.
Joree (21:32)
Just like he’s not enough, he’s just human. And how you felt made sense to me too. I think all too often we’re trying to shut down people’s emotions or dismiss them, or we get uncomfortable with them.
Shana James, M.A. (21:42)
Yes. In that situation, it sounds like what you were expressing made sense to him, but I know a lot of situations where men say: this doesn’t make sense! But we can still listen non-defensively.
Joree (21:50)
Right, you don’t have to agree with why they’re feeling what they’re feeling. You just have to validate the emotion.
But I think the thing you didn’t name is the HOW, which is you would coach yourself in the moment to stay calm, to breathe, to regulate. So that took practice and a muscle for him to build. That’s a practice that had gone back 10, 15 years. Right. But it didn’t translate to the non-defensive listening.
Shana James, M.A. (22:06)
So then you got to take this practice you’d had – which for people who are new to this and who haven’t done that kind of breathing, meditation or regulation, can be harder. Because then suddenly they’re flooded with all of this emotion and intensity and wonder: what do I do with this? They often feel they’ve either got to lash it out or shut it down. But there is another option, which sounds like you have experienced – grounding yourself, letting it through you.
Joree & John (22:45)
Well, and we know we’ve got to practice those grounding skills outside of the moment of overwhelm, or we’re not going to be able to build that muscle when we’re frustrated. I used to teach mindfulness for years in schools and I love this. I asked all the kids at this K-8 school: If you’ve been breathing since the moment you’re born, why should we practice that?
This one brilliant third grader, she was nine, says: I imagine we practice our breathing for the same reason we have a fire drill.
She said, we have a fire drill so we know what to do in case of an emergency, and I imagine we practice our breathing so we know how to use it when we need it.
Shana James, M.A. (23:12)
Wow. my god, this is an eight year old?
Joree & John (23:22)
Yeah, eight or nine. She was in third grade. And I literally was in tears. I’m like, my God, she nailed it. And so I think that’s the reminder. You can’t practice it at the height of that anger. You’ve got to build that muscle.
You got to build the pathway to be able to access it when you’re there. Because if you don’t have a muscle built, it’s going to be really hard to engage, even in what you cognitively know you could or should do. And sometimes it’s hard, even when you have practiced, to stay calm in the heat of the moment.
Shana James, M.A. (23:23)
Yes. Because suddenly it’s the thing that’s now triggering your core wound, or a bigger wound than you even realized you had. And then we can lose our center.
Joree & John (24:02)
Can I name one other dynamic that I think was big too?
This anxious avoidant dynamic – there’s so many layers underneath. And it seemed that when we would get stuck, John’s needs took more precedent.
His emotions were primary in my mind, in that if he needed the space, that’s what we had to do, regardless of if that worked for me. And I got frustrated: what about what I need when we’re in this dynamic? When does my need get to take the precedent or center stage here?
There was one particular disconnect and I honestly kind of went into a panic attack. It was almost embarrassing that I couldn’t regulate at the thought of him leaving me. And something clicked in him that made him realize – this is more than just Joree being anxious. And more than an anxious attachment style. This was a trauma response.
And seeing that it was a different level of activated wound, click something in him to say, “shit, I gotta step towards her right now. I gotta put my need to self-regulate aside, and I actually need to help her co-regulate right now.” And that was a big deal.
Now, I also didn’t “take advantage” of that and say it’s a trauma response, just to try to get him to come towards me at any cost. That would not be healthy, and that would not be a good pattern. That was real at that moment.
Shana James, M.A. (25:34)
And what was real in the moment snapped him out of his pattern.
Joree (25:41)
Yes, and that was enough to show me, okay, my needs matter here too. We don’t always have to do that dance.
Shana James, M.A. (25:48)
It sounds like one of those moments of grace where we don’t know why or how you snapped out of the moment there, or what made it so traumatic for you, but something in your WE, in the couple, realigned or re-regulated.
John (25:51)
Yeah, something calibrated.
The other dynamic tool we use that I think was incredibly important we are now call something like the upward spiral of revisiting disagreements – we would have a disagreement and then two or three days later we’d be going for a walk and she’d be like, “hey, can I bring up that disagreement we had a few days ago?”
And I was like, “man, seriously?” You know, the eye roll, the, “do we have to?”
I was afraid that it was going to trigger me again. I thought we were over this.
But over time, I realized that this is a really good way of dealing with it, and we could come back to a disagreement three, four, five, six times in some cases. But the further away we got from it, the more objective we could be – the more curious, the less judgmental. And the more we could look at: when you said this and I got triggered, why did that trigger me? What was really going on? Was this really about you and me? Was this about my marriage? Was this about my childhood?
And we found some things that really made a lot of sense, that were somewhat surprising. I can give you an example, which is embarrassing for me:
Joree took her daughter to Ecuador for a volunteer trip. So, for a week she was gone in the heart of the rainforest, completely off the grid, at a small village, which really dysregulated me.
I didn’t like it. I felt I couldn’t protect her. I was worried. I was scared. And I got angry when she got back, which doesn’t make any rational sense.
Joree:
I had to convince him to see me when I got home.
Shana James, M.A. (27:37)
Okay, it doesn’t make rational sense, but it makes emotional sense, right? I actually just went away for a week and my kid is angry with me now. So it makes sense from that young part.
John (28:01)
It hurts, yeah.
So, we talked about this. We had several conversations about it, and one of the things I realized is, when I was really young, my parents used to go away for two, three, four weeks at a time, and leave us with a babysitter.
And a couple of times when that happened, some weird stuff, not good things, happened. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great.
Joree:
And it was a little bit traumatic. You felt unsafe.
John:
And so I realized when people I love go away, I feel a little bit out of control about it. It dysregulates me. And that’s not really about the present moment. That’s about my distant past.
Shana James, M.A. (28:38)
But how beautiful, that as you debrief or revisit these parts of these disagreements or arguments, that then you get to discover this. So that shift from an argument of what you’re doing that I don’t like to: what can I actually understand about myself that we can heal so that we can have more love together? That’s amazing.
Joree & John (29:03)
It’s been two years that we’ve been back together, and we kind of dove head first into healing on a variety of levels thinking, okay, shit, we don’t want to have what just happened ever happen again. So we had double the level of things to heal from that. And we were committed to doing that deep, dark shadow work.
And that was really a commitment. On a tactical level, part of that was really checking in each week. I think we still do it, but not with the same regularity. Part of it is this check in of two questions that I just love.
- How did I make you feel loved this week?
- What could I have done to make you feel more loved this week?
That second one’s a tricky one because if you’re unsafe in expressing your needs, or unmet needs, it might trigger an argument or a fight. But it’s not an opportunity to really dump on each other. It’s really an opportunity of doing a status check.
Where are we? And where are you? And what do you need from me? And how can I adjust to meet your needs that I think I’m meeting, but maybe I’m not?
Shana James, M.A. (30:03)
I love that. Acknowledging: Maybe I don’t see the whole picture.
Joree & John (30:30)
Yeah, I like to think of it as fine tuning. But the other thing that we did, if you want to get really honest, is we did some psychedelic work to get through some of those shadows. Because part of it was some really ingrained beliefs, and thoughts, and behavior patterns that we didn’t think we could change.
And John had been doing some work with a client with refractory depression psilocybin, and was doing the research to truly understand what it does to open up the neural network, and see things through a new lens. And that was a big component of our healing. And it was amazing to go on that journey together, for the intention of deeper insight and rewiring some of those old patterns that like John said, we didn’t think was possible.
Shana James, M.A. (31:06)
That’s amazing.
Joree & John (31:19)
I like the metaphor that the mind is like a snow globe, and we have tracks that we’ve run through the snow, right? Those are the new pathways that we’ve burned in over and over those automatic negative thoughts, all the old shit that we don’t want in there. And when you take mushrooms, it’s like shaking the snow globe and you get a fresh layer of snow that’s laid, so you can lay new pathways.
Shana James, M.A. (31:26)
New grooves.
I’m a fan of. For some people it will be psychedelics, and for some people it’s going to be meditation or tantra, or breath work. It can be any of those, but to realize that actually we can change those grooves, that they are not permanent. I have a part in my book, a section called: You’re not who you think you are neither is your partner.
Because we create these stories: You’re this way and I’m this way, and this is who I am.
I just don’t believe that. I don’t have to hold onto a story about you that limits who you are, or puts you or myself in a negative light.
Joree & John (32:02)
I think that’s a real relationship killer, that belief of “love me as I am and I’m not changing.”
Shana James, M.A. (32:33)
Right, “take it or leave it.” That doesn’t work very well.
Joree (32:35)
That was a big wound for me in my divorce, and going through couples therapy with my ex, who was like “this is just who I am.”
And I am a big fan of being open minded towards growth and change. John would say he was open minded towards growth and change as well, until he realized there were certain areas he didn’t think he could grow in. Well, until it’s that whole growth versus fixed mindset.
John:
Right. I realized that that growth mindset, maybe I had it in 97 % of the areas. But there were these little pockets where I was like, “oh shit, I don’t think I can change that.” And then I was like, “oh my God, that’s a fixed mindset.” I gotta go after that first.
Shana James, M.A. (33:10)
Yeah. I just want to acknowledge the vulnerability of that, too. When you find one of those and think: Wow, shit, what if that just is me? What if I can’t change that?…
And you’re a great example of you hit that wall and then actually got curious and actually went looking for growth, instead of just accepting, I guess this is who I am.
Joree & John (33:38)
Right. And I think it’s really important to note, even though we’ve done all this work, and all this healing, that yes, we’re still human and yes, we still get stuck. And what I’m really proud of in that is that when we do get stuck, it’s a lot shorter. The wounds don’t seem to go as deep. We repair much quicker. It’s pretty infrequent.
Joree & John (34:07)
I think we really try to hear each other in a different way. And I don’t care if we get stuck, I just want to learn from it. I want to grow from it. And I want to see what happened. So next time a similar dynamic happens, which it will, what can I do differently? Let me understand. I just want to understand. And I always say with my clients, and even with us, I don’t really care about the details as much as the patterns.
Shana James, M.A. (34:18)
Right. And when you seek to understand, then you can actually change.
Joree & John (34:38)
And couples get too focused on the details, right? They get too focused on “you said,” “she said,” and this is what happened. “ Therapist, tell me I’m right. So we can leave here. Just tell her she’s wrong.” That’s what they want. But let’s go deeper.
Shana James, M.A. (34:49)
Let’s go deeper. We get so entrenched, right?
If I have compassion for that, I see that if you tell me I’m right, then I’m good enough, then I’m worthy, then I’m lovable. All of those things under the surface, that are so vulnerable, that we sort of hide behind, without even realizing it.
Joree & John (35:05)
Right, and John said something briefly I want to come back to, because it was something that we got really skilled at asking.
When we felt sensitive, or our feelings hurt, we got curious and asked, “Is this about your past?” “Is this about your childhood, verses about us?”
And we had a marriage for each of us, and the greater awareness we had of what the root was.
Very rarely was it actually about the other person.
We still have to take accountability for that, but the wound that was being activated preceded us.
I think one of the things I’ve learned in this relationship is how much of what we get triggered by in the present moment is really an activation of an old wound. And I think those conversations that Joree kept bringing up, were annoying as hell but allowed us to recognize what those things were.
Shana James, M.A. (36:13)
And it’s not that we wouldn’t be irritated, or frustrated, or even hurt or disappointed, or any of that. But the extent of the reaction, or the lack of having the capacity to actually consciously talk about it – like “hey, that hurt my feelings,” or “I’m kind of struggling with this,” versus some kind of all out reaction or withdrawal. That’s part of the past.
Joree & John (36:34)
And here’s one more layer of something that happened with us recently. Sometimes when the hurt feeling or the reaction feels disproportionate, we have to get curious: what else is going on with you that might have led to less resiliency or a quicker reactivity? What other stressors or sleepiness, or not feeling well, might contribute to the inability to access some of the deeper tools, right?
Because if you’re really stressed and overwhelmed, it’s gonna be harder to access. So we try to do a good job of letting each other know when we’re feeling low on resources, so that way we don’t personalize it.
One of the things I love that we do is we’ll try and let each other know if we’re in a lousy mood, depressed mood, tired, grouchy. I can wake up sometimes on the wrong side of the bed and just be like, “hey honey, I’m in kind of a grouchy mood today and it has nothing to do with you.”
Shana James, M.A. (37:10)
That’s a huge gift. So you don’t have to take it personally.
Joree & John (37:33)
To me, it is a huge gift because you’re letting them know where you are. And you’re also letting them know it’s not about you. So your partner is then free to either try and support you, or just give you space.
In the absence of information, we’re going to fill in the details. So the story I’m telling myself, if he’s not available, is it’s about me. We over personalize.
Shana James, M.A. (37:51)
Exactly. When you give your partner that context, that’s really helpful.
Joree & John (37:56)
That was a huge game changer. And I think the other thing, coming back to the blended families…now that our kids have flown the nest and we’re able to be number one for each other, we also have shown the kids why that’s really important. Our kids don’t really remember growing up in a married household. And interestingly enough, just recently over winter break, my oldest daughter, who’s 21, was home, and this was her first time being at home since John moved in.
She was aware of the shift and it wasn’t negative. It was just different. And my availability for her was less. And she’s never been used to my availability at home being less for her. I was really proud to be a role model to her, of the importance of why it’s less for her, and equal as much as I can for him, because she’s never seen that dynamic. She was 11 when I got divorced, but she doesn’t remember being in a two-parent household.
And his daughter was home for the weekend and we had dinner with her, and she was commenting on how much she loves watching us engage and what she values in seeing in our relationship. .
Shana James, M.A. (38:54)
Amazing to see that in a healthy way.
Joree & John (39:18)
She was three when he got divorced. She said, “You guys are like the old couple in Up.” And I was like, “hey, hey, we are not old.”
But she was highlighting the depth and the value of our connection. And that’s really important to know, when is this magic time to shift the energy from the kids being number one, now that they’re old enough, to “hey, look, this is my priority now and I’m always there for you and I love you and I support you and this is also what a healthy relationship looks like. You give it time, energy and attention.”
Yeah, my daughter once told us, we made her believe in love again. I was like, wow! So now all your listeners are cured.
Shana James, M.A. (39:52)
How incredible that you both had the value of putting the kids first. And when it’s our time, now we’re actually choosing each other and now we’re helping them see how to make this transition, and how to do it in a healthy, loving way that is an amazing example for them. Well done.
Joree & John (40:18)
Thank you. With three daughters, we want them to have the opportunity for the healthiest relationship possible, and not deem themselves the children of divorce, which both can be true.
Shana James, M.A. (40:26)
Amazing. This is chock full of very, you know, powerful examples that I think so many couples can relate to, or people who are dating and had been in a relationship where these things happened.
So again, thank you so much for being vulnerable and being honest and not needing to hold up the sign of “I’m a therapist,” or “I’m a psychologist.” and say this is easy.
I don’t think it’s easy for any of us.
Joree & John (40:56)
Can I end with a really fun, kind of silly story to kind of bring this all together?
Over the summer, we decided at the very last minute to go to Vegas to see a show that was ending. And we wanted to take our kids. It’s a long story, but I’m trying to condense it as much as possible.
The show was the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, Love. And when I had this idea, we were in Vegas three days later. And my daughter had to come from Wisconsin. His daughter was still in Europe. It was not easy to get to.
The point of it, we kept saying “it’s all for love.” Well, long story short, they were trying to convince us to get married in Vegas.
And we decided, we were not getting married in Vegas, but let’s kind of screw with them because that’s just fun.
So we actually planned a fake Vegas wedding with Elvis. We pulled up to the little Vegas wedding chapel and they’re in disbelief, like you’re not actually getting married. But what we did was we had a non-legally binding family commitment ceremony. And when it came time for the vows, all five of us gave a vow to each other. And that’s why we say we’re kind of married.
Shana James, M.A. (41:53)
With Elvis. Awesome. I love this.
Joree (42:14)
Elvis did kind of marry us, but it was a culmination and the healing of not just John and I post-breakup, but the kids, right? And when my daughter was trying to convince us to get married, she’s like, “it’s the least you could do for us after all you’ve put us through.” And it was no guilt. It was important for them to feel this great connection. And I think it’s important too because relationships don’t just happen between the couple.
Shana James, M.A. (42:15)
No, they happen with the family.
Joree & John (42:43)
And they wanted to feel safe and secure. And through this hilarious and fun and silly and meaningful and joyful Elvis ceremony, we as a family committed to our core values. It was an incredible two days, in Vegas of all places.
Shana James, M.A. (42:46)
Oh, incredible. In Vegas, of all places.
Thank you so much. Is there anything you want to add, John, as we are wrapping up?
Joree & John (43:06)
I want to share about our master class. We are doing a master class that’s monthly. A Year long master class on relationships. And you can find out more at love isnt enough.net.
You can also check out or find out more about the podcast for couples that we just started called Love Isn’t Enough. And we’re also doing couples coaching in a really unique model in which
John works with the man individually, and I work with the woman individually, and then we all four come together in the couple’s work, so we can do simultaneous individual and relational work.
Shana James, M.A. (43:49)
You two are amazing guides and mentors, and it’s really powerful to hear about how to succeed in a relationship as a sensitive person in love. The more vulnerable you are, I trust you more. I got divorced as a relationship coach 12 years ago, and I also had that similar embarrassment of, God, what’s gonna happen now? And then realizing: wow, it just expanded what I could see, and what I was aware of. and how I could really support other people to grow.
Joree & John (44:10)
Yeah. and thank you. I value the friendship. Thank you for giving us more space to share our stories. I do think it can help others in feeling not so alone, and just how hard being in a relationship is.
Shana James, M.A. (44:23)
We are part of the same club.
I agree. Thank you so much for being here and definitely check out Joree and John’s offerings.
I’ll see you next time. Thank you.
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