Most of us never got the “emotional potty training” we needed as kids. Instead, we learned to hide, suppress, or ignore our feelings, which often wreaks havoc in our adult love lives. In this Practicing Love episode, I talk with therapist Rachel Kaplan, author of Feel, Heal, and Let That Sh*t Go, about why learning to feel our emotions is the missing key to deeper intimacy, resilience, healing, and keeping a relationship alive.
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Feel, Heal, and Let That Sh*t Go: Emotional Potty Training for Lasting Love and Better Relationships: Show Notes
As a kid, were you taught that feeling your emotions was an ok thing to do?
Were you comforted, loved, and guided to move through them, or encouraged to stuff them?
As today’s podcast guest frames it, most of us never got the “emotional potty training” we actually needed as kids, which wreaks havoc on our adult relationships.
On the latest Practicing Love podcast, I spoke with therapist and author Rachel Kaplan, author of Feel, Heal, and Let That Sh*t Go: Your Guide to Emotional Resilience and Lasting Self-Love. Rachel is also the creator of the Healing Feeling Sh*t Show podcast. She says many adults struggle with emotions, not because we’re broken, but because we were never taught how to process them in the first place.
We also discussed…
- How childhood conditioning often teaches us to avoid emotions rather than feel them
- That emotional avoidance doesn’t actually make feelings go away — it makes them LOUDER LATER
- How feeling our emotions creates resilience, healing, and deeper intimacy, and we don’t have to do it alone
- The way adult relationships often mirror our emotional wounds from our childhoods
- That for relationships to thrive we need to be able to share all parts of ourselves
While the phrase “emotional potty training for adults” makes me laugh, it’s honestly an essential part of healthy love, sex, and connection. You have to practice being emotionally aware and willing to discover yourself.
I loved this conversation because of how hopeful it is. It’s never too late to learn to feel, heal, and connect more deeply, with yourself and your partner.
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Bio:
Rachel Kaplan is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and the creator of the Healing Feeling Sh*t Show podcast. With nearly two decades of experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, she specializes in helping adults process and release suppressed emotions through her unique approach, “Emotional Potty Training.” Her book, Feel, Heal, and Let That Sh*t Go: Your Guide to Emotional Resilience and Lasting Self-Love, offers a humorous and practical guide to emotional healing.
Transcript:
Shana James (00:02.346)
Hello and welcome to this episode of Practicing Love: Have the Best Love and Sex of Your Life After 40. I’m your host, Shana James, excited to be here today to talk about something that most of us would rather avoid — which is feelings.
And we have an amazing guest and expert, Rachel Kaplan, who is the author of Feel, Heal, and Let That Shit Go: Your Guide to Emotional Resilience and Lasting Self-Love.
I’m so excited to have you here as a psycho-educator focusing on what you call “emotional potty training for grownups.”
And we’re going to do this the same way as I have with other episodes: Rachel is willing to get honest and vulnerable about her own love life so that you know you’re not alone — and that even those of us who are teaching and supporting are continuing to practice. It’s never that we’re just “done.”
So thank you so much, Rachel, for being here, and for your brilliance and humor in making this all happen in the world.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (01:07.214)
Yeah, thanks for having me. Let’s get messy. I’m into it.
Shana James (01:11.786)
Yeah. Let’s get it on.
Okay, so I like to give a little bit of background by asking: What is your current form of relationship? Or is there anything from your history that feels important for us to know?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (01:30.574)
Yeah, so I’m in a juicy relational moment. I just moved in with a partner after living alone for 10 years. So it’s a big, big deal. We’re in the first month of it, and we’re about 15 months into our relationship.
It’s a vulnerable moment — the container is deepening. The material that’s coming up between us is deepening, and there are just new experiences that we’ve never had when we weren’t navigating the same home.
Shana James (02:04.584)
Yes, this living space. And I just want to honor that and say — the language that you’re using is so powerful. Because someone else might be like, “I just moved in and I don’t know what to do with this shit.”
And you’re holding it in a conscious way: as we take these new leaps and step into more closeness, things arise. Which is why we’re never just “done.”
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (02:30.606)
Right, yeah. And I’m reminding myself of that. I was married, and I’ve been living alone since I left my husband in 2017, which was the perfect thing to do.
And I do want to put a pin in something you asked about history. But first — I had a lot of fears around cohabitating. Part of me wonders: is it even a good idea to make togetherness the backdrop, as opposed to the intention?
Shana James (02:59.028)
I have that same question.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (02:59.948)
And, you know — we’ll see.
Shana James (03:06.740)
Right. The intention of partnership and intimacy. In a way it’s like: we breathe — we inhale, we exhale. Living together feels a little bit like, is there actually an exhale?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (03:20.854)
Yeah, versus choosing to come together and be really present. I have a big fear of everything just feeling like background — that we’ll take each other for granted, and won’t have intentional, deep, meaningful connections.
So I had all my fears. And it just feels worth it to go for it. I think we have qualities and experiences that, if there’s going to be a long-lasting connection, might be fun for a while.
Shana James (03:51.540)
You have what it takes. Yeah. You have a sense. Can you give a little snippet of what those things are — the things you think it takes?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (04:01.410)
Yeah. Let me just backtrack for one second. I always share this, but we don’t have to get into the full story — it can get boring.
My first love killed himself. I should have warned your listeners. But from age 14, I’ve been on a deep initiation path around metabolizing intolerable pain.
Shana James (04:24.000)
Yes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (04:26.902)
And so it makes me a really good therapist — especially since I actually feel like I healed it, which I’d say I did in that marriage that didn’t work.
Now, at 45, I’m sitting in the sovereignty and wisdom of that initiation. But it really scarred me and my attachment system. So both healing and also relationships feeling scary have been my themes in this life.
Shana James (04:55.882)
Yeah. That makes so much sense.
Anytime anyone takes their life — it’s like a knife in the heart. I feel it so deeply. Part of my mission working with men has been to decrease the rate of suicide. It’s so high — for men of all ages.
So just to take a moment to honor his soul.
I get it. With the pressure cooker of life, I’m starting to have glimpses into why people make that choice. And yet — God, it’s just heartbreaking too.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (05:43.852)
Yeah, the aftermath is maybe one of the most grueling pains people can feel. Which is why all spiritual paths treat it as its own entity — the suffering in its wake.
But I love the work you’re doing with men. And it ties into this idea… and I’ll pause here, and then answer your question. Because it’s such a beautiful question: What do we need to make a relationship work?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (06:13.174)
…the way we’re all trained out of our emotions. How we, in such a basic way, never really learned to metabolize or have feelings. And then the extra burden men face — the conditioning that tells them they’re not allowed to be human, not allowed to have feelings. It’s crippling. So, yeah, we really need compassionate people who are loving and supporting men to be allowed in. I think men are at a disadvantage in a very deep way around healing and relating because of that training and conditioning. So, good job.
Shana James (06:30.016)
Yeah, it is.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (06:43.288)
So good job. Yeah.
Shana James (06:46.794)
Yeah. I agree. I was shocked, actually, when I was leading workshops for women after starting with workshops for men. I thought, “Oh, the women will come in totally willing to be vulnerable and emotional. Piece of cake.” And it was not that way. I was shocked. So I’m still holding that reminder — for all of us — that what you’re doing is incredibly important.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (07:09.090)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. Exactly. That’s why it’s emotional potty training for grownups, not just for men. We all need it.
So what I’ll say is, in my journey of relating, being a therapist, learning about relationships, working with couples — I started to have this deep fantasy that if I could repair well with someone, then we’d be set.
Shana James (07:19.338)
Yes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (07:38.134)
But in my marriage, we were unable to repair anything. The moment I was upset or had any feelings, he would shut down, I would escalate — it was a disaster. I hadn’t really had an experience of feeling that repair was possible with someone. It was so strong for me that I even put it on my Hinge profile, as an audio note: “What I think we really need is someone who’s capable of empathy versus defensiveness.”
Shana James (08:00.822)
I love that.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (08:07.944)
And now, with my partner — what are we doing? He’s the most undefended, responsive, thoughtful, humble, and still self-possessed person I’ve ever been with. What’s interesting is, he’s done almost none of the “work” that people do here in the Bay Area.
Shana James (08:23.123)
I love that.
Shana James (08:30.870)
Yeah, it has its pluses and minuses.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (08:32.877)
It does. Because there’s not an ego about how evolved he is. He’s mostly genuinely interested in my feelings. Sometimes he’ll flare into a little bit of protection, if he thinks I’m… But he’s also shared he’s never had a partner who shares her feelings without it being an attack or blame. Not that I never do, but most of the time I can just state my feelings, feel them, own them. And for me, that’s the thing that makes me feel like we could journey far and long together
Shana James (08:54.666)
Yes, yes, most of the time.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (09:02.946)
Saying my feelings, feeling my feelings, owning my feelings. For me, that’s what makes me feel like we could journey far and long. For him, what he’s really smitten with — and I love it too — is our minds, our humor, our banter. I think it was a journey for him to realize he needed more depth and more substance. He’d had a lot of fun, a lot of…
Shana James (09:05.001)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (09:32.792)
…hotness in his life. I don’t think he would’ve ever looked for someone like me. And it’s pretty amazing. When I ask, “How are you?” he’s always like, “Fine.” I’m like, of course you’re fine. You’re always fine.
Shana James (09:43.254)
I feel like we’re in the same relationship. It’s really amazing, because I could say all the same things about my partner that you’re saying about yours. You’re a step ahead in the moving-in-together stage. Thank you.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (09:54.722)
I’ll let you know if I think it’s a good idea. Let’s circle back in a couple months.
Shana James (10:00.608)
But yeah, that humility and lack of ego around, “Am I evolved or not evolved?”— instead, it’s this deep, genuine care. Coming from a background of, “How are you?” “I’m fine, I’m good, it’s a great day, everything’s great.” And at the same time, a deep willingness to grow, learn together, open together, not defend, stay curious — all of those things.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (10:28.578)
That’s so awesome. I didn’t know you were in a relationship at all. That sounds so good.
Shana James (10:30.806)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was living alone for — I don’t know — maybe 12 years after my West Bend. I like that term. Amazing. Okay, cool. I think that even for people already in relationship and listening, right? Some of those pieces you’re talking about are what we need to make a long-term relationship last.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (10:40.248)
Mm-hmm.
Shana James (10:55.904)
People can integrate those into their relationships. I think that’s a lot of what I do with couples — I imagine you too. It’s like, how can we reintegrate some of the basics most of us never learned?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:10.112)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, the basics. And learning to repair. For me, it really proves my hypothesis that repair is the most important thing.
Shana James (11:14.260)
Yeah. Because we’re never going to not have conflict, or not disagree. For some couples who avoid conflict, it’s actually a positive move to be able to disagree or have those conversations. To know, okay, sometimes feelings are going to get hurt, things won’t always go well — but we can care about each other and repair. Beautiful.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:24.939)
Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:33.880)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:42.978)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
Shana James (11:47.272)
Okay, so one more thing before we get into your struggle — and maybe this ties in together. I love the term emotional potty training for grownups. Can you give a sense of what you mean by that, or how you work with it?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:55.928)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (12:01.516)
Yeah. So Shana, let me ask you a quick question. When you got the urge — probably already, it’s late morning today, maybe yesterday — when your body started cramping in that special way where you thought, “I have to poop,” did you check your work, buy something, eat something, smoke something, check your followers? Or did you go to the bathroom and poop?
Shana James (12:24.288)
That’s amazing. I was like, “Where’s this going?” And then I really got the connection. No, I didn’t do all those things. I just listened to the urge.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (12:27.022)
Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (12:35.670)
And you went and pooped and washed up, and it wasn’t a big deal. You’re now less full of poop. So we were potty trained — and what a miracle that we learned the only way to not have that feeling inside us, which might be uncomfortable depending on the poop, is to go to the bathroom and let it out. We were taught that. We weren’t trying to distract or avoid…
Shana James (12:37.342)
Yeah, exactly. It wasn’t a big deal. It’s just part of life.
Shana James (13:00.510)
I love this. Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (13:04.961)
…that experience. It wasn’t a big deal, even though there’s some shame about it, even though people are generally private.
Shana James (13:11.274)
Right. Even you asking me that question — I’m like, “Ooh, am I really going to talk about this?” But yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (13:15.598)
Exactly. I chose it for that reason.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (00:00)
Okay, so miraculously we were potty trained and so we know what to do with those feelings. Unfortunately, for people in our forties, right, one generation up, our parents didn’t know as much as we know about feelings. They probably had no awareness. I mean, my parents know a little something, but basically —
As a parent, you know how hard it is to raise and keep another human alive and how many feelings humans have before they get conditioned out of their feelings. So even the most benevolent, loving parent is likely going to condition the child out of their feelings. Whether it’s “you’re okay,” or “there’s nothing to be afraid of,” to more extreme cases — and sometimes abusive cases — of “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
…the child feeling shamed around their needs and their expressions. And so because as little babies, we’re these tiny little vulnerable organisms that depend on love and closeness from the parent to survive, before we can even think, we try to be however the parent needs us to be in order to maintain closeness.
And if a little baby is crying and the mom glazes over —
Shana James (01:14)
Yes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (01:18)
— and becomes distant, or if every time a child is upset, they’re given a lollipop or a screen. Basically, we suddenly and grotesquely learn that our emotions aren’t allowed, or some of our emotions aren’t allowed. We’re taught to avoid and distract, whether it’s a treat, or praise and admiration, or closeness.
So most people are walking around in their adult lives having spent decades trying to medicate and avoid their hard emotions.
Shana James (01:51)
My God, it comes crashing down often at a certain point. And I’m just thinking of how my family often has said, “You let your kid cry too much,” and all these things. It’s such a curious thing for me — maybe I do? Or what is too much? Or is there not too much?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (02:10)
Yeah, I’m curious to see also what this next generation — especially where the parents are really centering the feelings — we’ll see. I don’t know if we know yet.
Shana James (02:18)
Yep. We’ll see. And it’s more complex, right? Because there’s centering the feelings, as well as: how do we help them digest the feelings? Not just have the feelings, but digest them. Okay, keep going.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (02:29)
Right. Yeah. So basically the idea of emotional potty training is that, you know, if you’ve been trying to avoid your feelings — even just through success, validation, being a good mom, whatever the thing was — it doesn’t have to be drugs and alcohol. It’s your “drug of choice.”
Like mine’s clothes. I just did a huge purge. It’s so humbling how many clothes I’ve acquired — none of them hit the spot. That’s just the thing I do compulsively and out of balance.
Shana James (02:49)
To try to avoid the emotions. Yes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (02:56)
Exactly. We probably all have many things we do, ranging from healthy to not healthy. But whatever it is, it doesn’t actually move the feelings or get rid of them.
What it looks like is we’re really distracted and sped up and addicted and full of emotional shit. And I do think — just to loop back to suicide — so often when we’re seeing amazingly successful people at the pinnacle of their career take their lives, whether through suicide or overdose…
You can believe, if you’re on a ladder or some trajectory, that if you get further down that path, you won’t feel pain. Or you won’t feel like you’re not enough. Which is the most adaptive way kids survive the misattunement in childhood — by believing it’s your fault. Because otherwise you’re realizing you’re helpless in a world that causes you harm. But if it’s your fault, maybe you can do something about it.
Shana James (03:32)
Totally. Yes. Right. And then also, as you were saying, the ladder — it’s like, someday I’ll get there. Someday I won’t feel so bad if I just…
And then to realize: it’s actually two separate tracks. Your emotional, mental well-being, and everything else you do in life.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (03:58)
Yeah. Success, right? And no amount of all of those things we’ve tried will work. And that’s okay. Like, if you’re listening and thinking, “My God, I’ve so done that” — we all have.
What’s helpful is to ask: well, is it working? What I’ve found — and what I’m teaching, and what’s connected to the deep healing I did in my marriage, so we can loop it back into that messy relational dance — is this:
The only thing, and I truly believe this, I will die on this hill: the only thing that helps people actually feel better is learning how to skillfully feel as bad as they feel.
And that’s really good news. It actually works. If you learn how to feel as bad as you feel, you’ll pretty promptly — kind of gradually but promptly — feel better. If you do all the things to try to avoid your feelings, you’ll always just have this…
Shana James (04:48)
Interesting.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (04:54)
…this bigger and bigger gap between the part of you that feels shiny and functional, and the part that’s full of emotional pain, holding a secret that you’re not enough.
Shana James (05:02)
Right. With the giant shame bubble in between.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (05:06)
Yeah, absolutely. Shame, I think, is the name of the wound that sits inside all of us. It’s the deepest piece of that onion.
When we don’t feel allowed or welcome exactly as we are. When we interpret it was our fault that our parents missed our needs. That feeling of “I’m not okay. I’m not enough.”
And that’s also a feeling. A really burny, painful one to metabolize.
Shana James (05:28)
Totally. Right.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (05:35)
But it’s also totally feelable and releasable. So yeah, emotional potty training is:
First, how do you find the part of you that you’ve cast out, that’s in all that pain? And how do you cord it back into your own experience? Because most of us don’t have access when we start. That’s the whole point — we didn’t want to feel that pain, so we shoved it in the emotional toilet.
Shana James (05:47)
Right, so we pushed it out.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (06:03)
Yeah. So it’s parts work, not necessarily IFS, though that’s having its heyday. It’s its own thing. But it’s about integrating the parts of you that are hurting.
And then, once they come back online — once you earn their trust again (because we do have to earn their trust) — how do we help those parts clear out decades of emotional backlog?
Really specific, actionable techniques: working with anger, grief, fear, shame. Clearing out all the pain you’ve been carrying.
And then at the end of that, there’s a kind of initiation: who are you now? Does your life fit? Because now you’ve got all your parts online, and you’re not carrying painful patterns that create dynamics in your relationships. And that often means loss.
Shana James (06:43)
Mm. Right. And whose life were you living in the meantime? That’s often what people wake up to: “My God, I was creating my life from that wound, or that belief, or that part. Who am I actually now?”
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (06:55)
Exactly.
And with relationship, if you’re not shaped by the contortions you had to do to get love, then different things — hopefully healthier things — become compelling.
One of my mentors, who was the biggest influence on my work and my book, though I don’t usually name him, he lives in a mud hut. When I first said I was going to start a podcast, he told me, “If you knew what the internet was, you wouldn’t.”
And I was like, “I’m one of them. I’m addicted to my phone too.”
But one thing he shared that I think is really helpful, and in line with your “practicing” approach, is this: you can’t change your type. You might still be drawn to a similar archetype or pattern in another person, with roots in your early wounding.
But — you can look for the healthiest version of your type.
And I will say, my current partner is my type. The type my husband was a little bit. My dead boyfriend was. My dad was. But it’s a different version.
Shana James (07:58)
That is fascinating.
I’ve never quite been able to grok my type — except that my dad never matured emotionally past 13. And I definitely chose those themes along my relational life.
But this partner has grown way beyond that. He’s so generous. It’s amazing.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (08:31)
Woo!
Shana James (08:34)
It’s so interesting. I’ll have to look back and see what it is about type or what I’ve been choosing. I’ve definitely been trying to choose for deep emotional connection, I think because I did not get that and do not get that with my dad. So I think I was a little bit of the rebellious type. You know, we can move toward or away from what we did or didn’t get.
OK, so can you tell us a little bit about what you either still struggle with in these emotional ways, or just something you’ve struggled with in relationship and how it shows up — before we get into more of the practices?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (09:13)
Sure. Well, I think it would be helpful to go back to my marriage for this. I’d say that my “type,” to weave it together, is… I mean, the reality actually is I’m quite queer, like quite queer. And I think part of my resistance — I’ve tried over the years to be with women—but it’s been tricky. I’ve never really figured out how to manifest that part of myself.
And I do think that’s connected to how my mom felt to me as a child. My dad was safe. He was much less emotionally available, but more stable and safe. My mom was more encroaching—she wanted more closeness with me — but felt volatile. So that’s kind of interesting, right? Relationally I’ve been drawn to men. And what I’ll say about the men I’ve been drawn to is: tall, dark, handsome, smart, charming — and a little bit emotionally offline.
The boyfriend who took his life was obviously in terrible pain. That’s the extreme version of it. My husband and I kind of looked perfect on paper. In some way I think what was evoked for me was this archetype of the Jewish prince, with all that conditioning of being chosen and having a traditional marriage. I think that was sparked for me.
We were friends and had a sweet connection. But if I was honest, I never really felt met emotionally. And as we deepened in our commitments—as we got married—our whole dynamic got crazy. We had violence on our honeymoon. Not like punching violence, but our core pattern was…
Shana James (10:44)
Wow.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (11:00)
He wasn’t very good at empathy or tuning. He’d be selfish in a clumsy way and hurt me, do something thoughtless. And I entered that marriage with a deep misunderstanding about whose job my feelings were.
My parents are still married. They became a couple when they were 12 and 13 and they’re still together at 72. On one hand, it’s beautiful. On the other, it’s codependent. My mom has struggled with health and mental health, and my dad has been her rock and savior. He’s a beautiful example of a steady, loving, loyal husband. But there’s also a deep enmeshment.
I think our whole family was catering around my mom’s sensitivity. So deep in my programming was this idea that in marriage, my feelings were my partner’s job. And I chose someone who was incapable of that job.
The good news is what I uncovered—and worked my butt off to achieve—was taking ownership of my feelings. The truth is, it was never his job.
Shana James (12:15)
Right. That it’s not actually his responsibility. There are subtleties, ways to attune to each other, but ultimately it’s not his job to take care of your feelings.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (12:23)
Yeah. Exactly.
Whenever we have a feeling, it’s like eating a burger. Veggie or meat doesn’t matter—once we eat, our body has to digest. We can’t move each other’s burgers through our system, and we can’t move each other’s feelings either.
That can get extreme. Like, someone hits me—that’s the most extreme. People ask, “Isn’t it the other person?” But even then, there’s a process where I have to deal with my feelings about being hit, and figure out what, given my internal world, I need to do for myself.
So we’re always going to hurt each other’s feelings. Like you said, there’ll be those moments. But in our escalation pattern—something would happen, I’d fire up, say to a level one or two. His system shut down under pressure, mine fired up. That’s an important dynamic.
Shana James (12:57)
Yes. Yes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (13:17)
You can also understand your type and what you’re drawn to is: what does your system do under pressure? Do you get louder, faster, more emotional, more dramatic? Do you get numb? Do you shut down?
And there’s a lot of parallel if you look at the attachment systems — like anxious attachment or preoccupied, firing up — versus a more avoidant, shutting down, losing access. The anxious-avoidant relationship dynamics often trigger intense emotional reactions between partners.
Shana James (13:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (13:42)
He’d hurt my feelings, I’d fire up to a two, he’d shut down, I’d fire up more. By the end — just so people can enjoy the drama — I would be ripping off $60 t-shirts, ripping them off my body. I was so inflamed. And he would be hiding in a laundry basket in the closet. It got gnarly. Not every time, but we had a version of that almost weekly.
Shana James (14:01)
It got bad.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (14:08)
What I was doing when I was so out of my gourd is I was coming to this person who was completely offline, passing them my most vulnerable bits, and demanding that they respond to me. And give me something — when he was not even with himself in any way.
And if he did muster up some effort to try to say the thing I’d been demanding he say on repeat, I was in no place to receive it.
Shana James (14:24)
Right. Right. God, thank you for painting that picture.
It’s, you know, I had some of that in my ex-husband also — where he would shut down, or he would say something that I felt like was blaming me. And then I would get inflamed, more emotional. I would threaten, “Maybe this is the end. Maybe we shouldn’t even be together.”
That was my version of totally breaking trust in the foundation of our relationship.
Yeah, it feels important to talk about these things, because otherwise people feel like they’re alone. Couples look like they’ve got it all together, but behind closed doors… realizing, shit, there are so many versions of this.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (15:14)
Yeah. And, you know, this was like… I left about a decade ago. This started 15 years ago. But I was a great therapist during that.
Shana James (15:19)
Yeah. Right. I was a relationship coach during that too. You can still see and navigate people’s beliefs and patterns, but where the rubber meets the road — that’s the most challenging moment.
Though I do feel like now, you and I both having the skill to repair and to be in our relationships in conscious ways, it’s so helpful to then witness a couple going through these dynamics.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (15:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shana James (15:46)
I can see the light and I can hold the light, right? Where it’s in shadow over there.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (15:49)
Right. Yeah.
I mean, I would sometimes talk to couples and they’d be like, “Are you like a witch?” Which… maybe. But it was like, no, I just knew that dance so well.
And if you look at what is EFT therapy, emotionally focused therapy, that’s what they’re studying. They’re looking at the psychobiology of attachment and what happens.
Shana James (15:59)
Because you understood them.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (16:19)
Yeah. And often people — and I think it’s often gendered — men have been taught to not have feelings, and women have been called hysterical and dismissed so much about their feelings.
So it often plays out as someone escalating, becoming more emotional, and someone going offline.
Shana James (16:38)
Right. And neither one being able to handle their own feelings.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (16:41)
No, right. And so for me, the practice… I was working with this “desert ninja” guy who didn’t let me complain about my husband for years. He was like, “Look at your shit.”
It was humbling what he would show me. But I was working with this person — interestingly, they had the same name as my husband. The mentor’s last name was Gran. So it was this life-changing sandwich, you know.
Shana James (16:52)
“Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Look at yourself.”
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (17:11)
Exactly. I was learning how, in the moment of dysregulation, to pull myself away. Really hard for me, because my version of that pattern wants to chase and pursue.
But I had to separate, take responsibility, become an ally for that part of me. It looked like: we had a fight, he asked for 10 minutes, I slammed a door, he said “make it 30.” I went to my hill, chopped wood with an axe for 45 minutes, did some other business.
By the time we had to come back together before a trip — which was always a trigger — I was balanced. I’d moved the energy and could actually deal with him in a functional way.
Shana James (17:50)
Yeah.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (18:05)
It took a lot of work to do that. And once I was able to, I’d wonder: would he be able to do that too? Especially as the avoidant. And the answer was no.
After three hours of time alone, he came back like an angry lying teenager. A few episodes later, after much processing, I left.
But I left with the skills to self-support, and the absolute awareness that my feelings are always my job. Period.
Shana James (18:50)
Right. Rather than the fantasy: “I’ll leave, go to some other relationship, and this will solve the problem.”
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (18:57)
Yeah. Exactly.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (19:11)
So as far as your question of practicing… Like, I went to a birthday party last night. My partner now is more of an introvert. I’m kind of an ambivert. I invited him to this party of a friend. From my point of view, it was almost like he ignored me the entire time. We were sitting next to each other for a long time. I even facilitated a birthday ritual.
Shana James (19:30)
Me too. Hmm.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (19:25)
But when I came back, there was no contact. To the extent my mind was like, is he triggered? Is he flirting with this hot woman? What’s going on? It was deeply dysregulating for me.
Shana James (19:30)
Yeah, what is happening?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (19:51)
Right. It wasn’t an attack, but he felt the intensity. He even said, “I feel like you’re judging me.” Which he almost never says.
I was worked up, so I knew: you’re not safe right now. Disengage. Don’t make this worse.
Shana James (20:16)
Yes,
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (20:18)
You know, like right now, I treasure his ability to be upright with me and handle my feelings so much that I don’t want to — I’m a powerhouse, I could come at him in a way. And if I keep doing that, because we are having more hard stuff right now, more things to navigate, it’s like… I want to protect his experience and his strength to be able to meet me. And I just realized, that’s not really workable. So I just came down here and…
Shana James (20:40)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s so good.
It’s so good. I’ve done that before too. I mean, in my book, I talk about this one moment where I was dating a guy who basically told me he wasn’t going to be available in the morning when I was taking care of my kid. And while I was a hundred percent honoring, like, that’s his time, that’s his space — there was something in me that was just seeing red. That was the hardest time, you know? And I just was like…
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (20:48)
Yeah! Mmm.
Shana James (21:08)
I’m going to close my eyes and go inside. And I said this: “I’m not going to say anything until I can speak in a way that will forward our connection rather than break it.”
Right? It’s like learning that those inflamed responses don’t actually get us what we want. And it’s not that we have to make ourselves wrong for having them, but we do have to figure out: what do I do with this before I lash out at somebody I actually love?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (21:16)
Yeah, absolutely. And so I think that’s where the emotional potty training skills are helpful. And, you know, sometimes it’s hard in the moment if you’re having a conversation. It’s not always so luxurious that you can just be like, “Okay, I’m dipping out to take a poop,” right?
But I think knowing that you can — you can go out and have an emotional movement, have a feelings party, have a cry, hit your bed session… and your body starts to trust that you’ll attend to those feelings and move them. That’s helpful, even if you don’t do it in the moment.
But knowing when you need to be like, “I need a time out.” Whether it’s just cooling out or actually letting the fire flame. Especially with anger. And it’s different, right? Men were often given more permission to have anger than women. But it’s about: how do you honor the anger, how do you move the anger, but not on someone.
Shana James (22:14)
Right. And there are men I know — many men I’ve worked with in that nice guy pattern — who shut down their anger hardcore. Because it was like, “That’s not nice, that’s not kind.”
So yeah, all over the map. Exactly. Thank you.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (22:28)
Or even their boundaries — like knowing what they need. I see that a lot with men.
Yeah, but I will say: the work I’m teaching now, the work that helped me heal and helped me leave this non-viable marriage, ultimately what it did — the emotional potty training — it helped me feel lovable.
Shana James (23:00)
Yeah. It sounds like it helped you love yourself, and actually be in a relationship where you can honor those parts of you instead of trying to run away from them. Instead of lobbing them like a hot potato to someone else — like “Here, you take it, you fix it.” Which I imagine allows you to actually feel more love for yourself.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (23:16)
Yeah. It was about a year after leaving that marriage. Which, by the way, without effort, I organically left on the 22-year anniversary of the first love’s death.
We had a terrible fight on a Thursday, said we’d talk Saturday when we had time. I sat with it and was like, “I’m clear.” I told him on Saturday — it was the 22-year anniversary. And then I moved into this apartment, which I lived in until a month ago for eight years. I found this apartment I was obsessed with, got movers three weeks later.
Shana James (23:29)
Whoa.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (23:47)
They were like, “It’s too rainy, let’s push back a day.” And it was the dead boyfriend’s birthday.
So yeah. I honor that marriage as the medicine I needed to do deep healing work — to heal the karma of my life and become really helpful. It was helpful relationally, but also created this stable, emotional resilience. Knowing I can handle my feelings. Because we’re all going to have feelings. Even the best relationships have feelings.
Shana James (23:51)
Wow. Aww.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (24:14)
Let alone our world. Let alone the fact that we and everyone we know are going to die. There’s no way out of this human experience of pain.
And the good news is — or the poop — we don’t have to make it a big deal.
Shana James (24:20)
There’s no way out of that. No.
And we don’t have to, right? We don’t have to avoid it. We can actually learn to do it in a way, like you said, like we were potty trained: release, move on, release, move on.
Ideally, as long as our system is working regularly. And if it’s not, we take fiber, we do things to shift our digestion so we can move it on. Same with our emotions.
Thank you so much. Yeah, what were you going to say?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (24:38)
Yeah, thank you. Just that the initial phase of this healing work really is acute and intensive. There’s this intentional phase of bringing parts back online, not just feeling the feelings when they come up, but creating space to pull up old feelings—like you’d go to the gym or yoga.
But the goal is what you just said: at the end of the day, you feel like yourself, because your parts are integrated. You feel resilient as hell. I’m pretty happy most of the time, but I know I can move my feelings when I need to.
The point isn’t to be obsessed with your feelings and your pain forever. It’s to bring your system current, become who you are, and know how to deal with the human experience of feelings.
Shana James (25:27)
Amazing. Right. It’s the choice, the capacity—yes.
Love it. Thank you. I feel like people could listen to this episode ten times and each time take something deeper. Thank you so much for this and for your work.
And where can people find your book and you?
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (25:42)
Yeah. So I have a podcast called The Healing Feeling Shit Show. It’s the less refined version of the book, my first body of work. There’s a chapter on that anxious-avoidant dance in relationships, and an interview with a skilled therapist—episode 11. There’s also a chapter in my book on emotionally potty-trained couples.
But the best place to find everything I’m doing is my website: The Feelings Movement. Feelings is plural. Movement is the revolution of us having our feelings as well as our poops—our feeling poops.
So: The Feelings Movement. And then my podcast, and my Instagram, which is probably the best place to find me: The Healing Feeling Shit Show.
Shana James (26:36)
Oh, I love it. Yeah. And I’ll put some links in the show notes.
Rachel Kaplan, MFT (26:52)
Yeah, and I do individual and couples work as a therapist. I’ve been doing that for 20 years. You can find out about that and about teaching bundles—all on the website.
Yeah. Thank you so much, this was so fun.
Shana James (27:04)
Thank you so much. So great to be with you.
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