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there's one piece of relationship advice I've stumbled on that has strengthened every single relationship for me whether that's with friends family colleagues or my partner and I only wish that someone had shared this with me [Music] sooner let's take the Romantic relationship as our example when we first fall in love Everything feels so perfect and effortless we give and receive so much attention and love and we bask in that feeling of being deeply seen valued and cherished but then as the novelty wears off and reality starts to set in we realize that keeping a relationship strong takes a lot of effort the philosopher Alanda baton once said we know so much about how to fall in love and dangerously little about how to stay in it so today we're going to chat about one piece of relationship advice that I just feel like I don't hear anyone talking about but I think it has the potential to strengthen in every single relationship so grab your cup of tea and let's dive into it at the heart of every human interaction is a deep-seated desire to connect we yearn to be seen heard and understood and so dozens of times throughout the day we make what are called bids for connection so a bid for connection is any conscious or subconscious way that one person is reaching out to another it could be verbal like like saying wow look at that sunset or non-verbal like letting out a sigh for example whether these bids are met with warmth or indifference by the other person is going to significantly influence the sense of safety and belonging that we feel in that relationship and that's going to shape the strength of that relationship over time and so this brings us to the work of Dr John and Julie gotman these are two researchers and psychologists that have dedicated their careers to studying relationships and they suggest that there are three ways that we can respond to a bid for connection we can turn towards turn away or turn against let's explore each turning towards is engaging with and acknowledging the bid for connection so if I were to say something like oh robin look at how beautiful those flowers are turning towards would be Robin saying oh wow they're beautiful I really like the purple ones if I were to sigh and I might not even be conscious that I'm doing it turning towards would be Robin saying is everything okay so turning towards is the ideal way to respond but now turning away is missing the bid either not commenting or saying something like that's nice honey or if I were to sigh maybe he doesn't hear it or maybe he does hear it but he feels busy and he chooses not to engage either way the bid is being ignored and that's Turning Away Now turning against is rejecting the bid it usually means responding angrily or in a condemning way so saying something like I've seen better or saying something like what's wrong with you in one of his studies Dr cman observed a large group of newlywed couples and he recorded the ways in which the couples interacted with each other then everyone went home and 6 years later he followed up with them and what he found was that the couples that were still married had back then averaged turning towards each other's bids 86% of the time whereas the couples that were now divorced had average turn towards each other's bids only 33% of the time and so it became very clear then that relationships thrive on responsiveness and die with dismissiveness and so it makes sense right that when we turn towards in these moments we build trust and connection and I think we can all agree that when we turn against when we reject someone's bid when we say something angrily it's not very nice but what's so interesting and what I think so many people don't realize I didn't before I learned this is that turning away can actually be more harmful than turning against because it feeds into this idea of social isolation and it can kind of be the silent killer of relationships because it sends a subtle but very harmful message of indifference and it can make the other person feel unseen and undervalued and I think more often the reason we miss these opportunities to connect isn't because we don't care but just because we're pre preoccupied or distracted we just don't realize a bid is happening and now that you've learned this I think you're going to start to see that bids for connection are everywhere and so now what Robin and I try to do is just label it labeling goes a long way so if either Robin or I feels that the other person is turning away or against will just say hey I'm making a bid and sometimes that can bring you out of whatever it is you're doing and realize hey this is this is my opportunity to connect with this person that I care about what I'll also is if Robin says for example I've had a really tough day instead of saying something like oh that really sucks I'm sorry which can look like a turning towards but it's quite superficial I'll just try to engage a little bit more I'm sorry you had a bad day tell me why what happened and trying to go a little bit deeper feel the difference right I think the other thing to recognize as well is that you might not always be able to just drop whatever you're doing and turn towards the other person but it's also considered turning towards if you say hey I'm busy right now could I follow up with you on this in 2 minutes in 20 minutes tomorrow you're still acknowledging that that person is making a bid for connection and look no one's going to be perfect at catching every bid that's thrown their way but what I'm hoping to highlight is that the strongest relationships are those where the effort is at least consistently made so try to master the art of those tiny moments because I do think the secret to strong healthy relationships isn't in grand gestures but it's in these small often overlooked ways ways that we can turn towards the people that we most care about but now I'm curious to know if there's any relationship advice that you've learned that has really helped to strengthen your relationships I will see in the comments I would love to learn more thanks so much for enjoying this cup of tea with me I really appreciate it have an awesome week pick up lies signing off we'll see you in the next video oh wow those are beautiful just like you that's cute mean those sad excuse for flowers that you got there W drama queen much [Music] ...