Episode #7: Is It Safe To Love Again?
In this episode I chat with Dr. Gary Salyer.
His journey of toxic relationships and his passion to work out why he found himself in them continuously. After two divorces and an extensive academic history Dr Gary shares with me his thoughts on how to feel safe to love again.
If you have ever felt unlucky in love and relationships this episode could change the way you look at love forever.
Tune in now to listen to Dr Gary and I talk love truths.
Dr. Gary Sayler’s new book Safe To Love Again: How to Release the Pain of Past Relationships and Create the Love You Deserve
Connect with Dr. Gary Sayler’s on Instagram here
Full transcript below:
Dr. Lurve:
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Between The Sheets with Dr. Lurve. I'm so excited because today I have one of my first guests on the show and he is a cracker. He's absolutely amazing. Dr. Gary is an author and also does very similar work to what I do. He's actually in the relationship space. And he calls himself a transformational relationship mentor. Now, it's a mouthful and I think on the episode we'll work out what that actually means. I think I find him really interesting and I'll tell you why. He's not only in the space of psychology and in relationships but he's also got a really good story.
Dr. Lurve:
He's also an author. He's got a book that's out it's called Safe to Love Again and when he comes on I'll be able to have a chat with him about that. His story fascinates me because quite often we hear about women in relationships that either have experienced a toxic relationship or a domestic violent relationship, they self medicate through the pain, and Dr. Gary is quite transparent around his experiences in that. And he very easily now, it took him a long time to actually be transparent around this, but very easily now talks about his own journey and how the domestic violence in his relationship and the toxicity broke him and he self medicated for years to, I guess, numb the pain.
Dr. Lurve:
And through that journey, he's actually come up with his own theory and way of dealing with issues in love and relationships, but more so he's come up with a way, a very simple way on how you can do that better. So how you can actually step into a different space in your relationships, a different space personally with you. He works with singles and couples just like me and I just find him fascinating especially being a male.
Dr. Lurve:
I don't think this only happens to females and not males and vice versa, but very often the woman's very, it's very easy for them to come forward and say, "Hey, I need some help. And this was my experience." And there's some shame around that even for the woman to admit that but more so for the man to admit that, "Hey, I was really messed up and I wasn't showing up and I was definitely not in my power as a man." And he so eloquently talks about his experience in that and it's amazing. So I want to introduce you to Dr. Gary on the show today and I want you to listen to all the little gold nuggets he will drop along the way and try and get a little bit of help in what his knowledge is and his experience and his story and see how that can actually help you.
Dr. Lurve:
So let's take it to our first guest, Dr. Gary. Hi, Dr. Gary, welcome to the podcast.
Gary:
Hi, Dr. Lurve. I am so glad we're here together. Thank you.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, me too. It's taken a little while with the whole time difference and you being in the states and us here down under Australia but we've finally got you want as a guest so I'm really excited. You have quite a story and I find it fascinating but let's start with, I got some information about you and I love the title of your occupation or your current work. You call yourself a transformational relationship mentor. That sounds so fancy. Tell me about it.
Gary:
Okay, it's taking me a while to figure out exactly what I do, but it's transformational. It's not about coping. It's not about managing pain. It's about really rewiring the rules of loving your brain so that you choose better, you create better, you can maintain a relationship better. And then the mentor is, it's about a whole arc of change. I really do really think that what I'm really doing with couples and singles is I'm mentoring them, especially couples. It takes more than one piece of advice and most of what I do isn't advice but it's about mentoring and getting them from where they're at to be able to really have what I call a secure love style where they're able to pick and create and maintain a lasting love.
Dr. Lurve:
I really love that. And it feels good, right? We have so much in common because this is obviously the type of work that I'm doing on a daily basis as well. But the one thing I love about what you're doing is that your story and where you've come from and not to mention that in this field, a lot of women coming forward saying, "Hey, this is my story. This is what happened to me. I was broken." And you openly talk about being broken and your past relationships being the catalyst to you actually doing this work. So I guess let's hear a little bit about your story and sort of what's happened for you to get where you are right now.
Gary:
Well, it's a big question. The funny thing is just real quick. I don't know that I was always so publicly transparent but while I was writing the book, I was being mentored by SARK, Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy, who's known for her transparency. And she comes to me after I've written the first two chapters, and on our call she goes, "So, hiding out behind clients stories, are we?" She says, "Gary, as a woman, I will never trust you if you don't tell me your story." I wanted to say, "Look. We just read Brenee Brown. We don't do Brenee Brown."
Gary:
When I thought about it, she's absolutely right. My story is the catalyst behind what I'm doing. It radically addressed and shaped and created all the questions I asked that went into this whole new theory of creating love that's in my book. And it started out when I was seven. Just a little kid in a family where alcoholism was rampant, divorce was rampant, and I just noticed one day, noticing how my drunken uncles were mean to their wives. And sometimes the wives were mean back. And I just remember thinking why can't we just love each other? Just a pure little seven-year-old saying, "Why can't we be nice?"
Gary:
So when I went to college, and I was the first person in that family in seven generations to graduate from high school, I was bound and determined that I was never going to get a divorce. That was my holy grail. So I had a double major, one in psychology and one in religion, thinking surely that would make sure I never have one. In my senior year, my favorite professor says, "Can you do this personality test for us?" So a couple days later I come in he gives me all the results, and as I'm walking out the door, he says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you. You have a 90% chance of having a divorce." And Dr. Lurve, it was like grenades going off of 22-year-old Gary's mind. And I thought, "What do you mean?"
Dr. Lurve:
It was the one thing you're avoiding, wasn't it? It was the one thing you were adamant that was not going to happen.
Gary:
Oh, freaked me out so much. Then I went to the Dean of Instruction and said, "I am delaying graduation so I can get a third degree." And I went and did another year doing marriage and family relations.
Dr. Lurve:
Wow. Wow.
Gary:
I was serious and I walked that thing and boy dodged that bullet. Imagine my surprise when 12 years later my college sweetheart who became my wife said, "I want a divorce." It didn't make any sense and I'd done everything.
Dr. Lurve:
It's a lot of investment to avoid that exact thing, wasn't it?
Gary:
So after that I doubled down and I did over seven years therapy. I did workshops. I did John Bradshaw, did everything on codependency you ever imagined and I pronounced myself fit to go and I married a second time and then four years later, I'm looking at a second divorce and this time I'm floored. It was somewhere after that when I began to realize that I was either picking Miss Wrong or showing up as Mr. Wrong. And it happened after one painful breakup when I looked into the mirror the morning afterwards while I was shaving and said, "Son, there's only one human being responsible for this one. You're blaming your ex wives but they ain't here and you are. This was on you. This was on you."
Dr. Lurve:
You're the common denominator here.
Gary:
It was. I'm the common denominator, I picked every last one. I looked at it and I said, "So therapy has done me a lot of good but it did not change my core style of picking and relating and maintaining a relationship. I was still doing many of the same things." And I said, "If they can't crack the code, then I will." And that's when I dedicated my life to finding out what will really enable me and anyone else to create and pick a lasting love that feels good? And that's how it all went down.
Dr. Lurve:
And I find this so interesting because for so many individuals they go through breakup and there's a lot of, I guess they go through a bit of a grief cycle and there's a lot of blame and anger for the other person. Just for you to recognize that hang on a minute I've done everything, I've done the groundwork so I understand what causes divorce, I have the knowledge, I've done the therapy, I've got everything that I need in my toolbox to not have that divorce but then if you are not looking at your DNA, you're not looking at your blueprint of love and you're showing up as Mr. Wrong will then you're going to find probably someone that is equivalent to that.
Gary:
Exactly. And the funny thing was the solution that I was seeking was part of the problem, Dr. Lurve. What I argue in the book is that it's not knowing better skills and knowing about attachment theory or all this stuff, these degrees, it's really the basic feelings that you've been given usually between zero and three that create and determine your style of loving. And it's feelings. For a guy, this was a shock. An academic guy was the shock of my life. What do you mean feelings are the core of this? You mean women were right? What do you mean?
Gary:
It's important, and I was like, "Really?" But it's true. Between zero and three, by the time a child is one years old we can tell what type of love style they have or attachment style if you're an academic. And that will continue for the rest of your life barring intervention. And now what tells a one-year to one-and-a-half-year-old that they can be securely loved, that they feel secure or they feel more anxious or avoidant? Well, the prefrontal cortex doesn't come on till three, so there's no identity. There's no story. There's no limiting belief. There's no study. Everything that's up here in your prefrontal cortex is just all interesting explanation.
Gary:
What's driving the bus are the feelings that we get early on whether we felt welcomed or unwelcomed, whether we felt worthy or unworthy, whether we felt cherished and protected or we felt uncherished, not important, unseen. Or whether we felt empowered with choice or whether we felt disempowered. And what I found out is in my family with my borderline mother, it was not safe to be a part of a we. I didn't have much welcome and I sure didn't have any cherished and protected. So I sought distance. Distance was the one thing that would keep me on the planet because my mother was abusive and if you're in the kitchen whether you're part of the we at four you can get knocked against a wall. So distance became what felt safe.
Dr. Lurve:
And you protect yourself.
Gary:
Yeah. Even though I learned all those degrees, some part of me in my first marriage was still seeking distance and I didn't understand why she kept saying, "I'm lonely."
Dr. Lurve:
Yep.
Gary:
Yeah.
Dr. Lurve:
Because you were physically there, you were physically available and you thought, "Hang on a minute. I'm home. What is she talking about?"
Gary:
Exactly. "I'm just in the next room honey."
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, what do you want from me? I don't understand. You're a little bit needy. I can't understand what you want from me. I get that.
Gary:
Oh, yeah. The safest place to be with an emotionally abusive family is you don't want to be in your feelings. You want to be in your head because less feelings the more you can survive on your wits.
Dr. Lurve:
100%. You're disassociating from any pain.
Gary:
Oh, absolutely. So all that is what's underneath. I got the degrees but I don't understand the feelings that I have is what I'm giving her. For instance one time, she complained and I read some books on love. All right? And then I said so - and I remember quoting her and this is almost funny looking back, well she'd say, "You didn't get this." Or, "You didn't get that." I said, "But the book said... The book said that women this and the book said this..." One day she just looks, she says, "Gary, read me not the books."
Dr. Lurve:
Wow.
Gary:
"And by the way, my name isn't women."
Dr. Lurve:
Your name isn't what?
Gary:
"My name isn't women." And looking up, now we know that because I really didn't have much of a feeling of worthy, I didn't make very good what is called love maps. And no wonder she didn't feel seen, she didn't feel worthy, she didn't feel loved because I didn't truly see her. I was so busy referencing my head that I wasn't in my heart.
Dr. Lurve:
And you were doing this obviously unconsciously. This was just habitual. This was a safety mechanism. This is what you did in relationships and you learnt that very early on.
Gary:
Absolutely.
Dr. Lurve:
So you didn't see it. You actually didn't see it, and you couldn't understand, "What was she talking about? I'm here. I can't understand that she thinks I can't see her when I'm looking straight at her."
Gary:
Exactly, but I actually didn't. Looking back, I get it. The funny thing is these old safety patterns that are usually put in in childhood, sometimes later as an adult they get like old shoe leather. You don't recognize the shoes on your feet, they just fit naturally. And what I couldn't see was, as a child being up in my room studying, looking at dinosaurs was the safest place to be. I just replicated that in my marriage. There I am getting my PhD and my studies and she's in the next room.
Gary:
I did not see that my safety patterning was traveling with me. That nobody gave it an expiration date. It was like having a security memo without an expiration date. And that's really the key. Because most couples when they get in a fight, they're actually fighting over old security patterns.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, it's never about the now. It's always about this is how I've always done it and this is what's worked for me in the past but it's not necessarily working for you right now. You just can't see it.
Gary:
Exactly. So yeah, exactly. And when I started to look back after I started doing the deep work, and really, in every relationship, distance was what was encoded as safe. So either I created or I picked someone who would do the honors for me.
Dr. Lurve:
Emotionally unavailable people. We find this a lot ,I get this a lot in my work is that women are saying, "I'm finding men but they're just so unavailable."
Gary:
I get that. It's just in the final stages. I'm writing a new PDF for people that's called Confessions of a Formerly Emotionally Unavailable Man. How do you spot them? The thing is if you are out there and you're emotionally available just know that at one point in time your brain took the best deal available. We're not making you wrong. Because at one time being distant, was absolutely I guarantee you the best deal available. No brain gets up in the morning as a child says, "I'm going to screw with my master and become avoidant."
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, exactly. And we don't want to make people wrong because this is a journey and this is about learning about who they are. Some of these behaviors actually served a purpose at a particular time in their life,and that was okay. That's what kept them safe and that's what kept them going. But at the same time, it's thinking about okay, are they serving me right now? But you need to be I guess, ready and have felt enough pain to have driven you to say I need to change that.
Gary:
Exactly. There is something that Michael Beckwith says, "Pain pushes until vision pulls." There's a lot of truth to that.
Dr. Lurve:
There is a lot of truth. And I do a lot of work working on pain and how is that going to feel for you if you keep doing life with those patterns for the next 10 years? What is that going to look like? And for you, it would have been what would it look like if you kept showing up unavailable? Would you be able to experience that love that you deserve or that love that you're craving?
Gary:
Oh, absolutely not. I have that track record and I already see where that lead. And it doesn't for any of the singles or couples either. At some point in time, the real trick is to allow people to restore those four feelings that tell us we're loved. That's what I put in the book was four feelings. Have you been welcomed with joy?
Gary:
Like, "Good morning." Or, "Good morning gorgeous." That's welcomed with joy. Are you worthy and nourished to reach out for your needs to know they're going to respond back in an attuned way? Do you feel cherished and protected? That means I get to be a me, I get to go out and explore and in a we. Not just a me or we not in bed or enmeshed. It's this beautiful Goldilocks zone where you get to explore the high wire act of your life but you got a safety net underneath you. That's where you can come home at night and then your beloved says, "It looks like you had a hard day baby come over here and have a hug."
Gary:
And then you get empowered to have voice and choice. If you feel those four things you feel loved. And if any of them were taken off the menu, so to speak as a child, we tend to repeat it. So people who felt unworthy will find people who are takers, not givers. They will find someone who makes them feel unworthy because worthy the people don't pick people someone that make them feel unworthy. And if someone felt disempowered, they'll find someone who's a dominator, or they'll lose themselves in a relationship. It's important to have these four feelings and it gets safe for them.
Gary:
Then we can give real love and we will only receive real love. That's the key.
Dr. Lurve:
And you talk about being worthy of real love, and that there's real hope available for people that think that love is not going to be their experience in this lifetime. That there is no hope for them. That they give up and you've done love wrong in the past and you're likely to keep doing love wrong in the future. And I have a lot of women and men come up and go, "It's doomed. I give up."
Gary:
Exactly. If you really think about it, Dr. Lurve, we have an epidemic, a global epidemic of unworthiness. Ghosting is rampant. When you get on these websites, these dating apps, everybody's picking a long list. You're 6'2, you're good looking, you wear Italian suits. Have you done pilates? And the list is just as long for women. Which one of us actually feels we can manage to fill out anybody else's bullet points and their lists? So we're all feeling more and more and more unworthy and social media doesn't cut it.
Gary:
Everybody says, "Oh, look at me. We're having the greatest day possible." I've worked with couples that put pictures on Facebook and how great they're doing and I know they're close to a divorce.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, I agree.
Gary:
All of it leads to us feeling unworthy. The brain, when we've got enough pain, one of the little tricks it uses is it begins to delete any of the possibilities that we can see. It just deletes in our field of perception any possibilities to protect us from getting in a relationship and then we feel hopeless. Hopeless. Every time someone tells me they're hopeless, I know there's a filter in their brain deleting any of the possibilities so they don't get in a relationship and get hurt. In other words, the cure is worse than the disease, so to speak.
Dr. Lurve:
So they're avoiding pain?
Gary:
Yes.
Dr. Lurve:
That's all they're doing. They're doing life of constantly in a place of fear and avoiding pain.
Gary:
Some part of their brain is trying to protect them by deleting them. I always know that the thing that comes out of unworthiness and past pain is hopelessness. And it's about allowing the brain to feel safe, that it can trust it's way of picking and choosing, then the brain will allow you to see that there are always really, really good possibilities out there. The trick is, are we getting ready because if somebody is going to, if you want somebody that's really loving and wonderful, you need to give that back to them. Those people want it back.
Gary:
Sometimes when I'm working with clients, they'll be looking into the future saying, "I want this and this and this." "And then what else will take?" "Well, it'll take this and this and this out." And I go, "And what else will it take?" And eventually I say, "So what are you going to have to give back to this person because they're going to want something back?" So we want to become the person as well. If we can do that, miracles can happen. I've had women in their 20s and 70s and 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s all give me the line, "There's no good ones left."
Dr. Lurve:
Oh God, isn't it common? The DMs that I get, forget it. They're either taken, or they're douche bags. I don't know if you understand that terminology. It could be an Aussie thing.
Gary:
I've used it a few times myself.
Dr. Lurve:
I get it I get it often and this state of learnt helplessness it's almost I feel helpless.Is that just because of their past experiences had reinforced that or is that the language that they've come to the dating game with from the emotions they felt before they're three?
Gary:
The feelings come before they're three and sometimes a later relationship that they accidentally picked wrong. 85% of the time secure love styles pick well but there's another 15% they kind of get messed with or they get fooled. But culture plays a role here too. We're always hearing, "Oh, there's no good ones out there." And there's a self reinforcing culture especially sometimes if you've got a circle of friends that have heard this and I've often had to tell men and women, "You can keep your jaded best friend, whoever they are, but they can't be the best supporting actress or supporting actor anymore. You can't be getting advice from someone who's been divorced for 20 years and jaded and think it's going to go well."
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, yeah. And that's what happens. The investment of where you're putting your time or where you're getting information to help you in this space makes a very big difference to your outcome.
Gary:
Exactly. I've told singles, "Hang out with some secure couples. Instead of the avoidant or the anxious single friend, if you want to attract something, invite a secure couple that are happily married for five or 10 years, bring them over for dinner and just watch how they react. Listen to how they talk about love. Notice how different it is. Whatever they're doing that's creating love is what you need to replicate."
Dr. Lurve:
And I'm going to just bud in there because I had a conversation with a woman last week and she was saying to me, "Dr. Lurve, I just feel like all singles hang out with singles, and all married couples hang out with married couples and all divorced women or men hang out with divorced people just like them." And I challenged that. I don't think that's true but what are you finding when people are coming to you? Do you feel like that they sort of flock to the same type of people? Because if that's the case then where are they learning these skills from?
Gary:
I think sometimes they do. And it's true, couples tend to want to get together with another couple. But if that's the case and you're single invite a couple over for dinner and then invite some of the opposite who's a friend so that if you're a woman and invite a male friend over so the guy has somebody to talk to or vice versa. And there's always a way of inviting these people together. I've done it many times. If you're really good friends with a couple, they're not going to mind coming over and being with you. And it helps, it just helps.
Dr. Lurve:
I like this strategy and I'll tell you why. Because a lot of the women and men that I speak to that are not in relationships and feel like secure relationships are just a fairy tale. This actually gives them an opportunity to see it in the real rather than just in their head. Because at the moment, they feel like it's a fairy tale, it's a dream. It's something you see in the movies. It's something that I can't have. So when they're seeing that in their home or they're sharing a dinner with a secure couple, it's actually they're seeing it with their own eyes to say, "Hang on a minute. This is real. They have that. They have what I have been wanting."
Gary:
Yeah, absolutely. And when you get to know them, like I have a couple friends that have been married over 40 years. I've known them for quite a long time. And we were hanging out together a couple summers ago and the one couple, man, they get into a little bit of a couple fight. I'm looking at them and I'm shaking my head and she just says, "Give us 10 minutes. We'll work it out."
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, right.
Gary:
That's what most people think if you've had a history of bad relationships. The first time there's a couple argument, which is going to happen, and the alarm bells go off inside and you're thinking, "Oh my god, it's going to all fall apart." And what the secure couple knows is yes, we sometimes disagree. Sometimes we ruffle each others feathers, sometimes we hurt each other, but they have learned life's golden lesson. That even if you get hurt or disappointed, where there's real love, it doesn't mean the end of the relationship. It is simply a catalyst for figuring out how to love each other better.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah and loving each other through it makes all the difference because that's, we talk about this relationship bubble in some of the work we do, it's about the we. When you're going through that conflict it's, how can we work together to get through this? It's not how can you work this out and I'll wait and watch until you fix it for me?
Gary:
Exactly. I write a lot about the rights of the we in the book. We argue that individuals have rights, well, what about the we in a relationship?
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, because there's three parts. There's two individuals and then there's a we in the relationship.
Gary:
Exactly. Actually when I'm working with couples, about half my practice is couples, half are singles. In the first couple of sessions, my goal is to figure out the pattern that's between them. How A triggers B and B's reaction triggers A. And then my job is to get the couple to understand that the pattern is the enemy, not the partner.
Gary:
The moment we can get them to be a team, not making each other wrong, but looking at what's wrong in the pattern suddenly, it's the beginning the first step of creating a we because making each other wrong isn't going to do it, but if they can just become teammates of helping each other change the pattern, rather than change each other so to speak, or making each other the enemy. Miracles happen with just that one turn of frame.
Dr. Lurve:
And this is so powerful. And maybe even for the listeners this is probably where they struggle the most is that when they're in a relationship it becomes a blame game. You did this, I did this. She did this. He did this. And you don't ever hear the conversation about how we did this together and how we are going to get out of this together. And I think removing the other person removes blame because it becomes a patterning and you talk about the pattern rather than the person.
Gary:
Exactly. One of the great things I got this from, the Gottman research, so I'll give credit where it is. They had recorded a couple. She had some very volatile reactions and she could get into lots of criticism with him. And he complained and said, "She's just so volatile. She's just so critical. And I really can't stand it. And it's always her getting really reactive. I'm out of control here and I don't like it." They did a tape of them interacting for several hours. I think it was about a whole day. And then the next session, they come in and they say, "You're absolutely right." Says to the husband. There is a pattern of her being very reactive, and very critical.
Gary:
However, 90% of the time that she is reacting like that it is preceded by an act of contempt on your part. And you actually have way more control over this than you think. Now, this is the story with every couple.
Dr. Lurve:
Let's just explain contempt. What does that look like in a couple before we continue? Because there's some people that might be listening saying, "Okay, well what does contempt mean? And what does that look like in a relationship?"
Gary:
Contempt is communication from an elevated position. Some might call it grandiosity. It is often, criticism is where you're complaining about what somebody did. Contempt is about the nature of who they are. So the difference would be, "I noticed you were late on the mortgage payment again." That's criticism. Now this is contempt. "So, Mr. Financial Wizard. I can see now that you're really being responsible now, aren't you? Just like your father, you can't get anything done and here we are about ready to lose our home just like..." And now that's contempt.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah. And that's a real attack on the person.
Gary:
Yes, it is. And sometimes it can be subtle. Physiology, you can do it without saying a word. You know how people roll their eyes, that's a universal physiology of contempt and it communicates it without a single word. I had one couple, she'd take a nonviolent communication right . She would never say anything that was contempt but boy was she a master of the eye roll.
Dr. Lurve:
The eye roll, the body language, the turning of the body, the crossing of the arms.
Gary:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Lurve:
All of those... Yeah. Okay. So keep going. Sorry, I interrupted you around the Gottman experiment. So there was contempt on his part.
Gary:
Yes. And as we know from the research, contempt predicts the demise of a relationship within 6.8 years. It is like the acid rain that just tears a couple apart. And if you think about it, just in culture, contempt has grown more and more socially acceptable. You see it on social media. People will make comments that 28 years ago, you would never have said to somebody. But the anonymity, the distancing, and we've gotten far, far more comfortable with contempt and it's no way to love.
Gary:
There's no way you feel cherished and protected which is one of those four core feelings if contempt is in the room. And the big thing for women out there that they should know is that contempt turns off the T-cells for up to five hours every time you experience it from a spouse. In over a poor four year period, we know the research that women subjected to contempt are at nine times the risk for breast cancer. It's hugely important not to give it nor to take it or as I say in the book, real love gives no BS and takes no BS.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, I love that. I love that. There's no bullshit when there's no filter, when there's a we, everything's transparent.
Gary:
Exactly. Because if you think about it if we take bullshit, we're going to give it some time. And we give it, human nature being what it is, we're going to get it back.
Dr. Lurve:
Yep. Yep. It's just like you avoiding the divorce and it's exactly what you got. You spent so much energy and time in that space of avoiding and it's exactly what you got back.
Gary:
Yeah. The real trick here is if we focus on just the BS, it's what's the good stuff? The real good stuff is since your brain, it's got a natural GPS for love. Do I feel welcome? If you're out there and you're listening, if you're a single and you're in a new relationship, or whether you're a couple that's in a five or 10 or 50-year relationship, just ask yourself four core questions.
Gary:
On a scale of one to 10, how welcomed with joy do I feel? On a scale of one to 10, how worthy and nourished do I feel to reach out for my needs? One to 10, how cherished and protected do I feel? And one to 10, how empowered with choice do I feel? If you're single and you're feeling that in a new relationship, chances are that's got some real possibilities. If one or two or three of them are missing, it's time to move on. I don't care what your list said. If he's 6'2 and he's a doctor and he makes over 100K or whatever. Or if you're a guy and she's beautiful and blonde and everything else.
Gary:
It's these feelings and if you're a couple now you know what's missing. Now you know what to work on. I had some friends over for dinner about six months ago and they've been married for about 10 years, got a good marriage, and we were just talking about the book and they looked at each other and said, we could do better on welcomed with joy. That's the one and they both looked and said, "Honey, we need to work on it, because we haven't talked about that." You can improve a good marriage too". Mark the feelings and give them. Every day ask yourself, "How well did I treat my beloved? Did I make her feel welcome with joy? Did I make him feel worthy? Did I make her feel cherished? Did I make him feel empowered?"
Gary:
If you're tracking them and checking in with each other once a week, so you can make the micro connections, your marriage can't help but last and be better.
Dr. Lurve:
because when we get in a relationship, and this is what I've noticed is that people forget to invest in the way, they forget to invest in the relationship bubble, and they become complacent in their relationship. People like the couple you were talking about, is they're being constantly aware that not only are they changing as individuals but so is the relationship. So what do we need to do better to keep this relationship going? So we are constantly invested. So we are getting the feelings that we're after. So we're being heard.
Gary:
Exactly. And this is a lifelong checking in. I have to say that years and years ago a 93-year-old man taught me some huge lessons. When I was getting that degree in marriage and family, and the professor brought in a couple that had been married 60 years. He was 93 and she was 88. And I can still remember, this guy's 71 years older than me, right? And a football player asked this very disrespectful question, "What's it like being married to the same woman for 60 years?" And this guy looked straight at this football player and said, "Young man, if you're lucky enough to be married to the same woman for 68 years, you're in for a real surprise because you will never be married to the same woman for 60 years."
Gary:
He goes, "My wife has been five different women. Every 10, 12 years, she changed and so did the marriage." Or how we would say, so did the we. And he rattled off the five different women he's been married to and I swear this woman was nodding her head and beaming, she was seen and the we was constantly evolving, it was constant attunement. And I said, "That is a wise man."
Gary:
So even if you work it out, the we is always evolving. Or as I say it, it has to have a right to create it's own experience because experience has to change. No couple is going to be the same what happens before children must change after and so forth. So it's really important to have a we that's adaptable, and that means that we're tuning, we're seeing each other, we're witnessing each other, we're staying in touch with each other. And we are able to be vulnerable, as we talked about at the top of the show.
Dr. Lurve:
And that's a very beautiful story because even as I listened to that, that gentleman talk about his wife changing, I often get people come to me and struggle with the fact that the other partner is changing. And they don't want the partner to change, "Why can't you go back to how you used to be?" And this creates a conflict in the we because someone, one of them in the relationship is not open to the change.
Gary:
Yes, and oftentimes when I've seen that pattern, what you've seen are two mes. Two mes that never truly created a we and they're growing apart. I can't say that every couple that has changed sometimes I would never say 100% but most of the times what I've noticed is as one couple I talked about in the book, they had done every transformational guru you could ever imagine. Tony Robbins, you name it, they've done it. And the thing that he said in the first session was, "We thought by working on our ourselves, we would have a better marriage. But it didn't happen." Because two mes do not make a we by themselves. Show me a couple without a we and I'll show you a war.
Gary:
And so what this normally happens when somebody really has way more right to separate than to belong, they haven't created a we, and some part isn't fully invested so they're not adapting, and they eventually go their own ways. I don't know if you've seen that. The couples I've seen when people get to that level it's usually because they've been doing parallel tracks that have been going further and further apart.
Dr. Lurve:
When I get a scenario like this, it sounds like they've ticked the list and they can say we've done everything that we can, we've worked on each other, we've dealt with our own fears, but they still haven't got what you've spoken about. It's still the two mes living this parallel life. They're like flatmates, and they never really truly became a we. And you're right, there's a war there because sometimes this is where we see the power struggle, or we see a conflict. They're constantly saying you don't respect me or you don't hear me or you're not listening to me.
Dr. Lurve:
And there's that me, that constant me, in the sentencing that they come with.
Gary:
Exactly. And in both instances, I guarantee you, because I talk in the book that underneath the ability to create a we is a right to separate and belong. It comes on board when you're a little toddler, you get to go out and separate and play but toddlers, you know how they always want mom in the room? Because they know they're vulnerable. They want that we. The couple I was talking about, when she was growing up, she got way more right to separate, go over there and play by yourself and all that other stuff. She developed what's called an anxious love style, and she wanted him desperately. All she wanted was a we because all she got was a right to separate, and she never felt she could truly belong. Meanwhile, so she had way more right to separate, and she just wanted in. So she's anxiously banging at the door.
Gary:
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he also had a split right to separate except in his family, he had a very intrusive mom who's literally always invading his face. He never got a chance to be a me. So some part of him was always pulling away and saying I got to go and do a retreat by myself. It was his way of trying to say that the we doesn't feel safe. What we got here is when she comes in, anxiously trying to get that belonging she wants he feels intruded pulls away, gives her her worst nightmare, which then she pursues in giving his worst nightmare, and even though they're working on each other's two mes, they are not seeing that they're doing it in exactly the old way that was safe, radical pursuit or withdraw and it's killing their relationship.
Gary:
And the beautiful thing was when he learned he could be safe and empowered in a we and she could calm down and still create a we then suddenly they created a we and the entire marriage changes but both of them feared the we for good reasons except the good reasons were 40 years old.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, yeah. I say this a lot because of the toxic and this is what creates the toxicity. This is that push-pull movement that happens in relationships.
Gary:
Yes. Exactly. Pursuit, withdraw. But telling somebody you've got pursuit, withdraw going against you like some therapists sometimes will say, that saying, "Hey, at one point in time it wasn't safe being in a we. We can give your brain back the exact flavor of safety so you can feel empowered in a we, then the brain will naturally create a we. If we can allow you to calm down and realize you can just naturally create a we, you have a full right to belong then you can calm down." The trick is allowing, giving each of those brains the exact flavor of safety they need in order to be a part of a we."
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And that definitely, all of these little tips is what we can see create miracles in singles, people trying to find love and who have done love a little bit differently or didn't serve them in the past or those that are in a relationship that they feel like the relationship could be better, these are the little things that can create miracles so that they can have that real love that they're after.
Gary:
Oh, and that's the thing is, this is doable change. The brain will automatically take a better deal if you can find the flavor of safety it was looking for. And when you give it that safety it says, "Oh, that's a better deal. I'll take it." But if you don't, it will fight you tooth and nail and then you keep picking and then the same patterns show up.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, that's been so helpful today and I think the listeners out there will definitely be able to take something from our conversation. And we didn't get too much into your own little story apart from the two divorces. Talk a little bit about your description of your relationships. And you describing them as a domestic violent relationship and you having the toxicity break you and self medicating for years. What was that like? And what did that look like for a man?
Gary:
For me, there was this man of lofty ideals. But a part of me was always finding a way to create distance. I couldn't understand it until I did the deep enough work that my brain would feel safe. I had no right to exist from a mother that when I was born refused to name me for three weeks. The state troopers had to come by after three weeks and when she refused to name me they said, "You either name him or we can give you a place where you can think about it for a very long time."
Dr. Lurve:
Wow. Wow.
Gary:
It wasn't safe feeling close and yet I loved especially my first wife dearly. So it was finding more and more ways that allowed my brain to release the past pain so I could create the love I deserve. That's what the title of the book is. That's been my journey. And then the other big thing here is realizing it's all adjustable. We had an experience but the big trick is to realize we are never truly identified with any experience.
Gary:
That was an experience I had. It wasn't me. And the more I was able to realize, oh, that was some part of my brain seeking, but it wasn't me. It doesn't have to be me and realizing more and more better ways of showing up by focusing. How well do I make people feel welcomed and worthy? I do that whether I'm at Starbucks or Whole Foods Dr. Lurve. I always say, I'll find the checkers first. Says thank you for banking neither or whoever name her is or Todd. It's all that. For me, it's been a calling. I signed up for all of that, there's no victim in any of that, so I could write these lessons, and I'm always thinking every day, how can I show up and love at least one person? And there's always more than one way of doing that.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, that's really beautiful. And I think enough of us do that in life. Show up every day to say, "How can I at least show one person today that I love them?"
Gary:
Yes. The thing is, is how we do little things is how we will do things in bigger relationships. So wherever you're at, always give people a secure experience. Make them feel welcomed. Make them feel worthy, as much as you can. And then in deeper relationships, that's where we'll get more cherished and empowered, but if we can focus on these four feelings that every brain on the planet uses to create loving relationships, we can't help but do the right thing.
Dr. Lurve:
So those four tips that you've given us is definitely going to make a difference to each of us listening today as we move forward either in the dating game or in our relationships. And you've mentioned that we are all worthy of love and real hope is really available to us. It's adjustable. And we can really create the experience with love that we want. It's just learning these things and noticing and we can start with these four things. Is that right?
Gary:
Exactly. And it really is true. If there's a message out there is, we are born worthy of love, we were born for love. All have these rights I talk about we're born with them. And if you think about it, is there ever going to be a headline tomorrow and we'll just say the Sydney Times, that says child is unworthy of love?
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, never.
Gary:
You're never going to see that. Or parents, keep wonderful care. You're never going to see it because it's accepted. If we think about it, every child, every person deserves love. And the only difference is whether some part of our brain took a bad deal because it was the only one available or the best deal available, that said it's best not to feel loved. Because in this relationship, this early relationship or a past relation, it didn't feel good. But we can put an expiration to that. It's all adjustable.
Dr. Lurve:
Yep. And as you said, it's an experience, it's not who they are. So they don't need to identify with the experience.
Gary:
Oh, yes. The biggest thing that happened to me was when I took the victim out.
Dr. Lurve:
Yep. And this is what gives us and obviously a lot of my work is driven by my experiences and some of the things that I've experienced through my lifetime and it becomes a story then. It really becomes a story and you learn a lot from stories.
Gary:
You do. We know from attachment that the story we tell whether it is anxious, avoidant or secure, actually predicts our children's love style with 85% accuracy. What I actually told a client the other day, we were talking about her story, and I said, "You do know that the stories we tell are just long winded limiting beliefs, right?" It's just the long winded version of them. And the function of a story, and memory in the brain, memory is not there to tell about the past. The function of memory is to predict the future. So the brain has a reference to predict. And so our brain listens in on the stories we tell about our past, if we tell them in a victim painful way it says, "Oh, create more of that in the future."
Gary:
So it's important to tell our stories, but to tell them in a secure way. Yeah, that was a tough patch there with a borderline mother. But you know, I learned how to love better through that. And yeah, there's a few growth curves I've got left, but there's always some ways I can learn to love better. That was then and this is now.
Dr. Lurve:
Yeah, I love that. So, Dr. Gary, we've had an amazing conversation today, and I think I could stay talking with you for the next couple of hours because we could definitely share all of this stuff. But for now, I want to let our listeners know that you have got a book, Safe To Love Again, and you talk about how to release the pain of past relationships. And that would be very much more of what we're talking about now. And Dr. Gary giving you some insight in how you can give yourself permission and learn the tools to get you to experience love that you've probably never experienced before.
Dr. Lurve:
So on that note, I would like to say thank you, Dr. Gary, for joining us today on the podcast.
Gary:
Well, thank you. This has been wonderful. I've been looking forward to it. It's been a wonderful back and forth dialogue and I love the soul that showed up here. You're doing great work in Australia. And isn't it wonderful to know that here we are nine, 10,000 miles away, and yet, we are two souls working on the same side of love?
Dr. Lurve:
I know. It's amazing. It's amazing. And this how I know for me it's my heart's mission and I can hear that it's also yours. And this is the ripple effect for us. We get to put our stamp in the world and if we can leave a couple of more people happy in love when we go, I know for me that my job's done here in this world.
Gary:
Exactly. Yeah, we can leave it a little better. We've done our job.
Dr. Lurve:
But before you go, I know that you've got the PDF coming out of the red flags.
Gary:
Yes.
Dr. Lurve:
So when that's ready, I will be able to share it with the listeners so they can also probably have a read of that. And I'll put some links where they can get your book from and if they're going to follow you on Instagram, what's your Instagram handle?
Gary:
I think it's Dr. Gary.
Dr. Lurve:
You're just as bad as me, but I will actually pop that on so that everyone can sort of follow you and see the work that you're doing. And apart from that, you go off and have a lovely evening over there. It's only morning here in Sydney, Australia. So I've got a whole day ahead of me.
Gary:
Yes. And you too. It's beautiful. Thank you. It's been wonderful being in the circle of your presence.
Dr. Lurve:
Thanks. Dr. Gary. Wow, isn't he just amazing? I do want to thank you Dr. Gary for coming on the show. I've been a therapist. I've been in the industry for quite some time and whenever I hear your story or get to read a little bit about what you're doing, I learn something every single time.
Dr. Lurve:
So for those people that are actually interested in some of Gary's work, his book like I mentioned is called Safe to Love Again, and it's how to release the pain of past relationships and create the love you deserve. So if that's a book that sort of stands out for you and says things that resonates with who you are and what you're going through at the moment I would suggest that you actually jump on and purchase that. You can purchase on Amazon like he said.
Dr. Lurve:
So if you're not following Dr. Gary on Instagram, I suggest you give him a follow it's @dr.gary.sayler. I do look forward to having a chat with him again. I really hope you got what you needed to get out of this episode. I love having guests on here with me on this podcast. So look forward to some more guests coming up. But for now, I'm going to leave it at that and I'll see you and actually you'll hear from me on the next episode. Take care. I'm Dr. Lurve.