How To Heal And Build Stronger Relationships

We all have meaningful relationships. We have children, or partners, or friends, or parents, or family members that we have relationships worth. And these relationships are really what makes our lives meaningful. And like one of the things that I love is when I watch something like a sports game, like the Olympics, for instance. When I watch the Olympics and somebody wins gold, almost always the very first thing they look for is they look in the they love because it makes it so much more meaningful to be able to celebrate with someone that you love. That's what makes my life amazing. One of the most powerful tools that we have to maintain and strengthen bonds is this process that's called repair. So I got this process from clinical psychologist named Dr. Becky Kennedy. And I'm going to talk about the importance of repair, and I'll tell you what it is. And I'm going to give you an example specifically around parents to children. But you can listen to this and go, oh, I could use this in my relationship with my wife and with my brother. This should really be used in all relationships. So let me give you an example and we'll break it down. You know, let's say it's Monday night. You've had a long day at work. You're in your kitchen, you're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, and you're making dinner. You're trying your best. You're trying to keep it together, right? And your child walks in, they see the dinner that you've prepared, and they start complaining about the dinner. And that's like the end for you. You're already on edge. This was just basically the tipping point. This is the straw that broke the camel's back. And so you snap, you yell at your child, and then your child starts to cry and then runs to the room, slams the door, and now they're in the room by themselves. What do you feel after that? You usually feel guilty. You usually feel regret. You start blaming yourself for being a crappy parent. You wonder if you have screwed your children up more than you can actually help them. And it's like, oh, it's irreparable at this point. I've just screwed my child up. This scenario is all too common for parents. And this happens in every single close relationship that we have as well. We say something that we don't mean, we disconnect from the other person, and something happens. And in that moment of rage or anger or whatever it is, causes disconnection between two people. And so no matter how skilled you are or well-intentioned you are as a parent, mistakes and moments of disconnection are inevitable. It's just part of being a human. There is no perfect human. But the important part of what we're going to cover today is, it's not the mistakes that define your relationship, it's how you handle mistakes afterwards. Everybody makes mistakes. How you handle and change and speak about the mistake afterwards is the most important part of it. And this is where the concept of repair comes in. Now, I'm not talking about apologizing. We'll talk about that in a little while. I'm talking about this idea of repair. So what is repair? Repair is the process of revisiting the moment of disconnection, which is what most people don't want to do. They usually want to act like it didn't happen, leave it in the past, brush it under the rug. But it's the moment of going, we're going to revisit this moment of disconnection. I'm going to take responsibility for my behavior, and I'm going to acknowledge my behavior and the impact that it had on the other person. And we will be right back. Hey, I want to interrupt today's episode to tell you about my sponsor. It is me, myself. If you didn't know, I obviously have some coaching programs outside of the podcast to help you learn and grow and become a better version of yourself. Step-by-step programs and processes to help you become better in your life and create the life that you want. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to coachwithrob.com. Once again, coachwithrob.com. Check it out, and let's get back to the episode. And so a simple apology usually is just like, I want to shut down a conversation, just be done with this, right? And it's usually something like, hey, listen, honey, I'm sorry I yelled at you. Can we move on? I'll let you have ice cream for dessert. That's an apology. That doesn't fix anything. It just closes the door. A good repair opens the door to further connection and understanding between you and the other person that you're in this relationship with. Because a relationship is just two people learning how to relate to each other. And the stronger that we can create our bond and get our relating to be better, our relationship becomes better. And so this idea of repair has the acknowledgment that there has been a moment of disconnection. We're not going to run from it. We're going to talk about it. And I'm going to try to repair the situation for what I did. So instead of looking at the moment of disconnection as a failure, it's really starting to see that moment of disconnection as an opportunity. Because this repair allows us to transform the disconnection into a moment of deeper understanding and connection between the two of you. I mean, you've probably had this before, where you get into an argument with your significant other, and then you guys don't talk about it, and it doesn't feel like anything gets resolved. But then you get into an argument with your significant other, and both of you come back later on, and you're like, hey, let's talk about this. Here's what I was thinking. This is what you were thinking. And you start to actually go back and forth without being angry, and you actually repair the situation in some sort of way. And now after that, you feel like you have a deeper connection with that person. And so when you guess we'll say before diving into what repair is and how to do it in the step-by-step process, it's important to understand what happens when we don't repair. And let's talk about the scenario that we were just talking about a minute ago. So if we start with the scenario that we had, there's the moment of disconnection. Your child starts screaming, crying, runs to the room. Your child at this moment is now alone in their room, feeling overwhelmed, feeling distressed. And this is the important part. Without repairing the situation, your child is left to make sense of the situation on their own. And if they think to themselves, okay, this is what happened. I said this. Mom yelled at me. You know what? That was my fault. And so what happens in this case is oftentimes children resort to self-blame as a coping mechanism. So if you don't go in and repair, you're actually not stepping in and helping their child create a good identity. And usually what happens, they start creating a bad identity from this because children lack the emotional tools and the maturity to process these types of situations. And when they do, they might internalize these moments thinking, hey, there's something wrong with me. I screwed that up. I'm a bad person. Mom worked really hard. And then she was cooking. And then I came in and said something disrespectful. And now I'm a bad person. And they create this identity of, I'm a bad person. I did something wrong. I made my mom mad, whatever it might be. Because children don't really have the tools, the emotional tools to process these types of situations. And let's be real, most adults lack emotional tools to process stuff like this. So then the child thinks there's something wrong with me. I'm unlovable. I make bad things happen. Nobody loves me. I'm alone in this world. I can only trust myself. I don't know about you, but that's not the internalization that I want my child to have. That's not the identity that I want my child to build from a break in disconnection from me and the child. And the internalization most times carries into adulthood, leading to issues like anxiety and depression and a really deep sense of worthlessness. And being somebody who's been coaching people for over 20 years now, I see. I have had many conversations where I'm like, take me back to your childhood and tell me about something that holds a lot of energy, like something that was a big moment in your life that holds a lot of energy. It's almost always the child seeing something that they did wrong and blaming themselves from it and creating an entire identity around it. And then now I'm talking to the adult 30 years later and they haven't overcome it in the past 30 years because they're so deeply rooted in that identity. And so this is really important because these stories of self-blame that children create in these moments can shape their entire self-identity, how they relate to others as they grow, and who they become later on. So if we're smart, we want to step in and actually heal this situation because these narratives can become the core fears that many adults struggle with. The fear that I'm unlovable or the fear of being fundamentally flawed or the fear of not having connection or not being lovable or not being worthy. And so here's the key. Repair is not just about fixing the momentary fight or disconnection. It's about changing the story that that person tells themselves. It's about changing the story that your child tells themselves in that moment. Ensuring that the new story that we put in there is one of safety, it's of connection, it's of self-worth, and it's of love. Because every child builds their beliefs about themselves in that moment. And then it's going to keep happening throughout their life. And so when you look at repair, it changes the story for the child. It changes the narrative. And really what you're going to be doing is you're going to be taking the blame off of the child because then you blowing up at your child, it's not your child's fault. You were the one that were triggered. You might think it's their fault. Sorry, buddy, it was your fault. You need to actually be the parent and grow up and say, you know what, this was my fault. If you yell at your spouse, it's not your spouse's fault. It's your fault. You're the one who got triggered. And so when you engage in repair, you do more than just patch up like this momentary issue. What you do is you help rewrite the child's narrative in this situation or the other person's narrative in that event as well. This is the reason why therapy can be so effective for people is because when people go to therapy, it's about revisiting these painful memories within a safe therapeutic relationship. And in these moments, we can change the stories in the meaning that we give the stories. And we can also just change our identity of who we think we are because we change that story of what happened. So you're kind of doing therapy after the event with your kid, so later on, they don't have to go to therapy as an adult because of you. So that's what you're doing. So let's actually go through a step-by-step process. It's actually quite easy for effective repair. Step number one, before you go and you repair with the other person, your spouse, or in this case, your child, in this example, before you go repair with your child, before you can offer any other person compassion and understanding, you need to extend those exact same qualities to yourself. Self-repair requires you separating your identity, which is who you are, from your behavior, which is what you did. Because it's about acknowledging that while you may not have been proud of your behavior, that behavior does not define you. Because most people will go, oh my God, here's the behavior. Oh my God, this happened. I yelled at my kid. I'm a terrible parent. I just screwed them up forever. I'm a terrible parent. Well, now you took a behavior and put it on top of an identity, which is I'm a terrible parent. No, no, no. You're still a good person. You're a good parent. You're just simply a parent who had a hard time. And so it's not about letting yourself off the hook. It's really about holding yourself accountable in a way that's constructive and not destructive. So when you repair with yourself first, you're in a position to be calm and to be clear-headed and to be capable of engaging in a meaningful repair with your child in this situation. So that's step number one, repair with yourself. Step number two, once you've grounded yourself, it's time to reach out to your child. There's no one-size-fits-all for repair, but there's some key elements that you can use that will really kind of guide you. First thing, name what happened. Acknowledge the event or the behavior that caused this disconnection, this rupture between you and the other person. When you do that, it shows your child that you're aware of the event and you're aware of what went wrong. Then what you want to do is you want to take responsibility. Own up to your actions without placing blame on your child. This is really crucial for modeling accountability. There's so many adults in this world that don't model accountability. They don't take any accountability. And the reason why is because they never saw accountability in their childhood. And so what you do is you take accountability for it. And then what you do last is state what you'll do differently next time. So it's like, number one, the first thing you want to do, name what happened. Number two, you take responsibility for what happened. Number three, you state what you will do differently next time. This shows your child that you're committed to change and to growth. And so an example might be something like this. Say it's the next day. Hey, honey, can I come talk to you about what happened last night? Listen, I keep thinking about what happened last night, and I just want to tell you I'm really sorry that I yelled at you. I'm really sorry. And that must have been really scary for you. And I want to tell you that what happened last night, my yelling was not your fault. For me, I'm working on staying calm even when I'm frustrated. Basically, what I'm saying it wasn't your fault. It was my fault. And it's not saying that the children can just step all over you if that's what you're thinking. Really what it's doing is it's showing how to take accountability. And guess what usually happens when you take accountability? Children will also start taking accountability as well. Children learn through you and what you do. And so the next time they screw up, they're going to start to learn how to take accountability for their actions versus blaming somebody else, which is what children are usually modeling their parents when they start blaming somebody else. And so this like 15-second simple intervention can have a profound impact on your child and who they become because it's not only helps clear things up and clear up any feelings of self-blame that your child might have created in that moment, but it also strengthens their sense of safety and trust in this relationship with you. I just want to tell you because I see over and over and over again these little tiny events that have happened in somebody's life. These events where a child was just not standing up straight and their parent yelled at them. And then they said, sit up straight or do something different or stop being so loud. And that one moment changes their entire life and their entire perception of themselves from childhood into adulthood. And now they're 40 years old and I'm trying to talk them through something that happened when they were nine years old. You don't want that to be a relationship with your child. You don't want it to be a relationship with anybody. And so really what it comes down to is if we're the adult in this relationship with the child, we need to be the adult. It doesn't say, hey, what you did was fine and you can step all over me. It's saying, I'm taking accountability for how I acted. And so when you look at the long-term impact of repair, repairing with your child or any relationship sets the stage for a healthy relationship patterns into adulthood. And so an adult who's experienced, if you were to see an adult that has experienced consistent repair as a child, they are less likely to spiral into self-blame when things go wrong. And they're more likely to develop secure attachment styles with their partners instead of being anxious attachment or avoidant attachment. And they'll also be better equipped to take responsibility for their own behavior because they've seen you take responsibility for your behavior. They learned that skill from you. And so the power of repair lies in its ability to change the narrative behind the event that happened, both yours, because you repair it yourself first, and then the other person that you love. It's about moving beyond guilt and shame or trying to brush it under the rug. And it's trying to move towards a place of understanding and growth and connection between you. This is the core of deep connection right here. So next time a fight occurs in your relationship, remember, it's not the end of the story. It's really an opportunity for growth because with repair, you have the power to rewrite a new story and move into a loving chapter with more love and more connection with that other person. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. Based off of what you have been watching recently, YouTube algorithm thinks this is the video that you need to watch next. And if you want to make sure that you don't miss any more episodes and videos, click this button right here, subscribe, and I'll see you on the next one.