Are you conflict avoidant? Do you find it tough to face difficult conversations? Are you filled with anxiety when it’s time to talk to certain people about your thoughts or feelings? As a clinical psychologist, I’ve learned that many people struggle with communication, especially when it comes to discussing challenging topics with romantic partners, friends, or family members. Yet when you learn to face conflict and other relational issues with emotional intelligence, you and your relationships can actually get stronger. Today’s expert, Dr. David Zierk, will walk us through the intricate journey of how to deepen your relationships by turning conflict into connection.

Topics discussed include emotional intelligence, conflict, fighting, conflict resolution skills, vulnerability, shutting down, stonewalling, insecurity, trauma, childhood trauma, habituation, conditioning, beliefs, mindset, marriage, divorce, validation, self-reflection, relational intelligence, romantic partner, friend, family, family dynamics, family patterns.

Please note that this episode contains sensitive material; listener discretion is advised.

Emergency Assistance Details: If you or someone you know needs immediate support, please call your emergency services. In the US, 24/7 help is available by calling “911,” “988” (Suicide and Crisis Hotline), or SAMSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). As applicable, additional resources may be provided in the show notes.

Non-Emergency Online Mental Health Information: https://www.nami.org/support-education/nami-helpline/

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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: No expert is offering medical or psychological direction or advice; the content is purely informational in nature. Please consult your physician or healthcare provider before undertaking any new regimen or procedure.

Connect with Dr. Carla Manly:

Website: https://www.drcarlamanly.com

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Books by Dr. Carla Manly:

Joy From Fear: Create the Life of Your Dreams by Making Fear Your Friend

Date Smart: Transform Your Relationships and Love Fearlessly

Aging Joyfully: A Woman’s Guide to Optimal Health, Relationships, and Fulfillment for Her 50s and Beyond

The Joy of Imperfect Love: The Art of Creating Healthy, Securely Attached Relationships

Imperfect Love Relationship & Oracle Card Deck by Dr. Carla Manly:

Etsy

Amazon

Connect with Dr. David Zierk:

Website: http://davidzierk.com/

Podcast: https://www.davidzierk.com/podcast/

Book: http://davidzierk.com/book

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdavidzierk/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-zierk-psyd-ab99302/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.DavidZierk

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Coming Together: Tips for Turning Conflict into Connection

Top Tips for Turning Conflict into Connection

Introduction: From Conflict Avoidance to Connection

Are you conflict-avoidant? Do you find it tough to face difficult conversations? Are you filled with anxiety when it is time to talk to certain people about your thoughts or feelings? As a clinical psychologist, I have learned that many people struggle with communication, especially when it comes to discussing challenging topics with romantic partners, friends, or family members. When you learn to face conflict and other relational issues with emotional intelligence, you and your relationships can actually get stronger.

Our expert will walk us through the intricate journey of how to turn conflict into connection. We will focus on this audience’s real-life questions. “Please help me figure out how to stop walking on eggshells with my partner. Every time I try to talk with him, he shuts down or blows up. We get along great as long as I keep our conversations superficial. I am good at working through things with my friends and people at work. I do not want to give up on my relationship with my partner, but I am tired of staying quiet to avoid fights.” With that issue as the focus of this episode.

I am excited to have a wonderful communication expert with us. Let me introduce you to Dr. David  Zierk. Dr. Zierk is a clinical psychologist, consultant, and author of Mind Rules: Who’s in Control – You or Your Mind? Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Zierk. It is such a joy to have you with us.

Thank you for those wonderful words. I appreciate it.

Before we hop into the meat of this episode, would you tell our audiences just a little bit, something light or deep, about what makes you, you?

I wake up every morning, and what I do to get my engine running is I do something creative every single start of the day. Usually, I sit down and write. Sometimes I create visual diagrams to try to understand what is going on in clients and families around me. I always like to do something very innovative.

I love that. If you are watching on YouTube, you might see behind Dr. Zierk, there is something that says “Re.think.” I noticed it, but I did not have a chance to ask you about it. What do you mean, re.think?

The “Rethink” Framework: Relationship Enhanced Thinking

I do my own podcast, and I labeled it re.think. I will back up just a little bit. As a clinical psychologist, I have the privilege of helping so many different people, from adolescents to couples to families. They all had one thing in common. They come into my office with some degree of conflict and not really fully understanding that the conflict might be inside of themselves or maybe between them and other people that are really important to them. Over time, I tried to say, “How do I approach all of these different kinds of problems? Thematically, what do they all have in common?”

I began to realize that in order to deal effectively with conflict, I needed an overarching construct. That is where I created relationship intelligence. Relationship intelligence has to do with turning conflict into connection. One of the things about conflict that is so vital is understanding that, underneath conflict, always, is an unmet need.

If you understand that underneath conflict is an unmet need, we begin a paradigm shift. Instead of being afraid of or nervous about conflict, we begin leaning into that conflict with an opportunity to learn more about the other individual and ourselves. That is how we turn conflict into connection. That is relationship intelligence. I also needed an organizing process to do this. That is where re.think comes into mind. Re.think stands for Relationship Enhanced Thinking.

To be irreverent for just a quick moment, I am a very visual psychologist. If you come into my office, you will always see glass boards and whiteboards. I tell people we have to, as quickly as possible, get beyond words. If I can begin to show you on the board visually what is going on dynamically within yourself and in others, you will have a better understanding of gaining perspective. We open the mind. With that, people become really inspired to begin interacting with the conflict differently.

That is the reason why re.think was created. Here is the irreverent piece. I believe that humans have the capacity to think, and that is a problem. When we think the same thing three times in a row, it turns into a belief. Now that we have this incredible belief system, something very unique happens. We stop thinking. This is where habituation comes into play. In times of distress or despair, we begin doing the same things over and over again because we are operating on a belief system.

My belief might be that I am not as smart as you. My belief system could be, “Here we go again.” All of our conversations end with a fight. I do not know why I stay or try to get out of that habituated loop. We have to begin rethinking, thinking with connection in mind. When I facilitate people’s understanding of re.think, it works this way. Let us say there is some conflict in the room.

I might say to one person. “Just pick something up, and all of a sudden, there is a little bit of tension. What is going on here? Help me understand what is going on by rethinking it.” They understand doing relationship-enhanced thinking. Think in a way that either connects you at a deeper level with your internalized truth or thinking a little bit more curiously about what just happened. We are trying to suspend judgment. We cannot eradicate it. We are made to judge. We do that at the wrap of a hat. Suspending judgment is really key to begin intersecting differently with conflict. That is what re.think is all about.

I love that. It is a great foundation for us to work through this listener’s question. Just backing up, for listeners who may be a bit new or confused about some of the definitions, because often in common parlance, what a psychologist might understand as emotional intelligence or relational intelligence, somebody else might have read about it differently. If you could give us your definition of emotional intelligence, how and if that differs from relational intelligence.

Also, even though it is such a common word, I would love it if you would just dive into a bit about habituation. The reason I am asking for that is that often we are habituated to something, and we blame ourselves or somebody else without looking at it and saying simply, “This is a really hardwired process.” I do not want to answer the question that I am asking you. If you would please talk about those two things.

Emotional vs. Relationship Intelligence: Breaking Habituated Loops

Emotional intelligence is understanding the invisible of what is going on within and between people. When something happens, my nervous system responds. Our internalized nervous system includes how we operate from our fingers to our toes, and of course, what is going on in our beautiful brains. As something happens, my body responds, my central nervous system responds. Part of that response is emotion. It is a felt sense. “I am feeling a certain way.” Being in touch with your internalized emotions is one thing.

Your emotions are nothing more than a signal to you that you are responding to something that happened around you or that you imagined. What is really interesting about that is whether or not you can build a bridge from what you think is going on inside of you to what may be going on inside of the other individual. That bridge is called empathy.

The ability to read, at least getting fairly good at reading what is going on in another person, is really vital to understand when a disconnection occurs. Knowing a disconnection occurs, we can pause and then try to formulate a reconnection. If we do not pause, unfortunately, conflict worsens the gap between people. We get to this inevitable stage where we have irreconcilable differences, as the saying goes. That is emotional intelligence.

Thank you for breaking it down so beautifully. I absolutely agree with you, and I love your very elegant definition because it is not blaming. It is not shaming. It is simply looking at something that somebody might not have a skill in. They may not have learned if they did not have empathic caregivers. They did not really learn about empathy. It sounds like in the question of the day, I am just guessing, but I would love your take once we get the other definitions done.

Again, I do not blame caregivers or parents. It is just about being able to look at where the pattern may have come from, how it got passed on, and then how it is affecting that person who may not have the empathy to slow down and say, “You are telling me your feelings are hurt.” Instead of icing the person out or closing down on them, or yelling at them, it is more of an opportunity to say, “Oh,” and, as you said, getting curious, “Tell me more about what is going on.” Thank you. A very beautiful explanation. What about the other piece?

Why the Past is Always the Problem: Triggers and Insecurities

Relationship intelligence. The reason I evolved this concept is the idea that it is one thing to be aware of what is going on within and between people. Now we have to be able to do something about it. The ability to repair disconnections is what relationship intelligence is all about. What happens is when you experience something, and an emotion erupts, it arises within you, and you gain some awareness around that.

When you are aware of your emotion, typically, you are not acting or reacting at the same time. That is why awareness has that really wonderful opportunity to pause for just a second. It is really the ability to make things not go from bad to worse. There we are. We are aware. We are spending some time on emotional intelligence. We pick up on other people’s emotions. Instead of just looking at it in your peripheral vision, I am aware of it.

What we have to do is bring it into our central vision and say, “Now, beyond awareness, I need to acknowledge it. Something just shifted. What is going on?” We moved toward an approach to the conflict instead of avoiding or ignoring it. We moved in with some level of curiosity. When I work with people, I always say. “If you want to know what the problem is, I can tell you in 1.5 seconds every single time, and I am never wrong because the answer is always the same. The past is always the problem.”

If I do something to you, Dr. Manley, and it bothers you, I do not have the problem. You do. I just activated or triggered something from your past that I probably am not aware of. I did something, you did not like it, you responded. What I just did is activate unwanted pieces and parts of your past. As a result of that dynamic, I might have also activated one of your insecurities.

Now you are in a defensive protective mode, and I have activated your insecurity. I am probably not going to get the most confident version of you. I could either take advantage of your vulnerability or slow down, be aware of it, and acknowledge it. I am going to try to analyze it, not Sarah, and here in terms of my best guess. I am going to be asking just a couple of questions, and they are oftentimes really softball questions like, “Did I just say something? Something just shifted inside of you. I totally see that. I feel bad about what just happened.”

That whole idea of doing something like that demonstrates a level of empathy. If that is genuine and authentic empathy and not manufactured empathy, then all of a sudden, you feel somewhat connected to me, which begins to resolve some of your defensiveness and protectiveness. You move back into a state of genuineness or authenticity. Now we have a great opportunity to begin repairing that rupture or that little disconnection that we experienced, but it all starts with stopping.

I love that. What a really good point, and I love the piece that you actually ended with right there, and it all starts with stopping. Many times when there is an issue between two partners, friends, or family members, it gets upped, upped, or one person shoots down. I agree with you that the process of slowing down, stopping, and doing as you’ve said, an internal check, and then coming from a place of empathy.

I love how you explained how often when there is a big reaction, it is that person’s pieces of their past. We are all so imperfect and human. We do not have a book where we can look up a dictionary and say, “This triggered this part of my past.” No, we have all these little pieces in our past, messages from caregivers, parents, friends, siblings, teachers, that get triggered. Usually, until we have done a lot of self-work, it is way beneath the radar. Even when we do a lot of self-work, that does not mean we do not get triggered.

It means that we become more eloquent in being able to describe what got triggered. A lot of people think that being triggered means you are weak, or I hear men say, “It makes me a sissy to talk about it,” but we are human. We always have. By learning as much as we can about what they are, and as you say, slowing it down and talking about what is going on, not avoiding it. Anything to say about what I just said?

We could talk for hours, couldn’t we?

Yes.

We talked about the habituation piece very briefly. Let me jump into that. Habituation is doing what we have always done. The brain works extremely automatically and reflexively. This happens, and then we respond. Stimulus-response. What we are trying to do is separate the stimulus and response, just having that little pause to insert that in between.

One of the best ways to do that is to learn how to suspend judgment, which I talked about earlier. Judgment is something that we do extremely naturally. You have dark hair, and an automatic judgment follows that. Women who have that hairstyle, my mind goes to a certain place, good, bad, or weird. I cannot control my ability to judge, but I can begin to gain control over it. I can begin managing my judgment by replacing it. What is really interesting about judgment is that, by definition, it is a closed mind. If I render an opinion about you in my mind, it shuts down.

It is typically either this or this. That is what a judgment does. What I am trying to do is open the person’s mind. You do that with one tool, and that tool is curiosity. “I wonder what else is going on here. I wonder what else she is like above and beyond the initial judgment that I just made.” I step into this new yet-to-be-formulated experience with you, and I learn more because I have provided myself an opportunity to interact with you with an open mind rather than a closed mind.

The First “Mind Rule”: Why Your Brain is Not Naturally Relational

Thank you again for another very elegant definition. It is so important to realize that when we make a judgment, we are not being good or bad. It is a natural process. We need to be able to discern what is in our environment on a really basic level to decide which animal is safe, which berry is poisonous, and which berry is nourishing.

We bring that into the current world, and we always get these messages, “Do not be judgmental,” but it is that process of learning. When is your judgment keeping you stuck? We are all going to judge. It is an innate response to the environment. It is about learning to pause it so you can get curious and explore. I personally like to get curious about the judgment itself.

It is so fun to go down that rabbit hole of, “Where did that come from when I see that person with dark hair?” Automatically, “Where did that come from?” No blame to my dad, many of those judgments, I can often track to way too early in childhood. It is very cool when we learn how to make friends with it rather than being controlled by it.

That was really well said because I think we are nothing more than a composite of life experiences and life lessons. Many times we learned the lesson during times we were not aware that we were being taught. It is usually very deep at an unknown level. For instance, in your family of origin, you learned a lot about trust and truth. Who should I trust? Do I give my trust easily, or should I just hold it to myself, and you have to earn it?

With truth, how vulnerable should I be with my truth right now? Should I just be very superficial and stay at that level? Am I the kind of person who becomes really deeply revealing very quickly in a relationship? Those things were learned during times we were not aware that we were being taught. The subtitle of my book, Who’s in Control – You or Your Mind?, because your mind is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing.

Thank you very much. It is protecting you, and it is setting you up to get your needs met. That is exactly what your mind is supposed to do. What is really interesting about Mind Rules is helping people understand the operating system of the mind. The first mind rule is that the mind is not relational. When people do me the privilege of reading my book, they challenge me on that.

They say, “No way. Of course, the mind is relational.” I can prove it is not relational. If you go to the refrigerator in the morning and your habit is to open it and look for a blueberry yogurt because that is your go-to food, you are going to get a good start. I am going to eat my blueberry yogurt. There is one blueberry yogurt there. Your mind goes, “We are going to have a good breakfast.” What happens if there are two blueberry yogurts there? The mind does this, “My yogurt is there.”

I turn to my wife, and I say, “Would you like yogurt?” She was an afterthought. What happens is if there are no yogurts in your refrigerator, you open it expecting your yogurt, and it is not there. It is a void. Your mind then goes to judgment. “Who took my blueberry yogurt?” We go to blame and shame so fast. That is what the mind is doing because you have an appetite and you are trying to sustain and energize your body to improve the odds of you living yet another day. That is the self-preservation reflex of the mind.

The question is not whether or not your mind is doing what it is supposed to be doing. The answer is always yes. It is protecting you and preserving you. What we need to learn how to do is get out of that perseverative stance and begin saying, “Maybe there is more to what is going on.” That is where rethinking comes into play. A rethinking individual would say, “There is one yogurt there. I might ask my wife if she would like it.” That is a rethinking moment because I put connection ahead of self-preservation. I did that in a very manual and intentional way. That is the process.

A beautiful example and one that I think is so critical in relationships to have that balance. I love the blueberry piece because you are right. Self-preservation tells us, “There is one left. I need it for me.” That is the mind. In walks loving kindness and says, “Maybe I will offer it to my partner or share it with my partner.” If there is a kid in the house, we will give it three ways. I do not want to get too much into trauma, but I have a question for you.

I have noticed that the more someone has been subjected to trauma, the more likely they are either to give that yogurt completely away to somebody else without thought for their own self-care, or keep that yogurt for themselves, hide it in a pocket, and take it away so they can take care of themselves, because that is what they learned. Using your example, I think that the middle road of being able to re.think, analyze, and look at what is appropriate for the situation is key. What are your thoughts there? Feel free to disagree with me.

Healing Trauma Through Reciprocity and New Conditioning

I do not disagree at all, but I am going to push back a little bit, too. To some extent, we have all been traumatized. Ongoing recurrent trauma turns into trauma. There are different levels, and we can put trauma on its own spectrum and discuss mild, moderate, and severe. When we talk about intensity, we talk about intentionality. What we need to do is revisit trauma with all those different dimensions that are competing. Let me just think of their face value.

Our ability to grow beyond our past requires the ability and the willingness to do self-awareness and self-reflection. That is insight. Some people who have been deeply traumatized and experienced complex trauma when they were most vulnerable as children, never could have reflective experiences with others. Without that reflection, the self is underdeveloped. Their reference point is really diminished.

Some people say, “I do not deserve that yogurt,” and they do not even think about it. The first thought is not, “I am going to take it for me.” The other person is in such a self-protective mode that they have never learned the power of sharing or reciprocity. Whenever they reached out and did something for others, they were vulnerable, and that is when they got hurt the most.

Trauma has the tendency to teach people reflexively to go into a protective or defensive mode or quickly into survival and crisis mode. That is often their homeostasis. I remember talking to an older woman once while doing family therapy. I said, “Young lady, tell me something about you that most people either do not know or forget.” She looked at me with daggers. I had said something that triggered one of the worst days of her life.

She said, “Dr. Zierk, nobody calls me young lady and gets away with it anymore.” She told me later that there was a person who traumatized her and would beckon her over by saying, “Young lady.” There is that conditioning of a young lady with trauma, and they get joined. I am trying to be playful and respectful, and I use that same phrase. Remember, I said the past is always the problem?

Yes.

She was astutely aware of what her trigger was. We had a really great learning conversation about that. Under any conflict, there is always an unmet need. She gave me that opportunity to attend to her unmet need to be respectful and to help hold her pain without trying to fix or repair. Understanding that this is a great example. Trauma is a great example of an unsolvable problem. Trauma never goes away. Our best experiences, our peaks, and our valleys are always there to be recalled, triggered, and brought back to be re-experienced.

That makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint because if we do not remember the worst days of our lives, we have a greater chance of repeating them. If you do something and you trigger a valley of mine, I go into fight-or-flight mode to protect myself from what I anticipate your next action is going to be, and that you too are going to hurt me. That is why all of this begins to move together under the umbrella of relationship intelligence.

The idea of trauma is so important in terms of being trauma-informed, trauma-sensitive, and trauma-focused. I believe in relationships where we really get into trouble. Going back to your viewer’s question, it is helping other people treat us with love, respect, and validation during times when we are beginning to move toward vulnerability.

Vulnerability is what allows us to get beyond the worst days of our lives. Only if, when we are vulnerable, we get treated differently. We get treated with love or respect. We get treated with the kindness you were referring to earlier. Now, all of a sudden, I have a new conditioning experience. I am vulnerable, and someone loves or respects me. I get vulnerable when someone becomes curious rather than judgmental, “What happened to you?” vs “What happened to you?” Those are different suggestions in my tone in terms of moving forward with that particular individual.

Trauma is tricky to heal. It is about exposure. That is what’s really famous out there in terms of a manualized treatment approach. To take it to the next level, I believe trauma gets ultimately healed when we have in-person healing experiences or good connections. When my trauma gets triggered, and you help me hold that redundantly and with authenticity, then underneath that conflict, the trauma is an unmet need, and that is what I attend to. Your unmet need begins to surface because it is being attended to, and the trauma goes here. That’s my thought process.

Safety and Validation: Why Intimacy is Harder Than Work

I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is one of the biggest messages in my fourth book, The Joy of Imperfect Love. The idea that we are so used to being afraid of conflict and ruptures. It is in that repair process when the person across from you is not teasing you, shutting down, or telling you it is just your problem, or getting explosive.

It is that opportunity for in that moment, whether it’s 30 seconds or 3 minutes, to not act the way other people acted in the past and not create more injury, but be there as a soothing balm that allows the person to have a new experience. They get to experience what it feels like to not walk on eggshells. That feeling of eggshells often comes from the past. When they experience that this person is here to listen and love them, not to judge them, it is a game-changer.

It has to do with being given an opportunity when you are vulnerable to feel safe. The other individual supports you. You know you are not being supported when you are left alone. We feel safe and supported, and then we get validated for who we are, rather than invalidated or abused for who we are. What is interesting about the natural healing process that happens in therapy and in everyday life?

Between you and me, if we are developing this relationship and I help you feel safe, supported, and validated, then you permit me to challenge you. I can challenge you to handle your reactive tendencies, but I can only challenge you after I have passed the test of helping you feel safe, supported, and validated. If you do not feel safe, supported, or validated, and a person challenges you, that will do nothing more than trigger your insecurities and your self-doubt.

Thank you for slowing that down. That is where so many relationships struggle. The audience pointed out that she is good with these skills at work or with friends, but often those skills we can pull out of a hat elsewhere fail in our most intimate relationships because that is where we are vulnerable. At work, we are often competent or the boss or the supervisor in a position of power in some way until we walk through the door of home, that is where things can get really churned up.

It is harder to be objective at home. It’s harder when you’re in a place where often, this goes back to the piece you were saying, it’s always the past. Walking through the door of home, whether it’s your childhood home or your adult home, walking through that door, and if there’s a pattern there with a former spouse or former partner or current partner that were in conflict. You are walking through that door and, underneath your radar, you are already getting triggered.

I love the way you differentiated work from love because the stakes are different. At work, I hope I get recognized for my competency and a sense of belonging. I’m part of the group, and that’s really good. In love, in our more intimate connections, the stakes are higher, but our needs are also different. I do believe fundamentally, it’s probably true for all relationships, but certainly the most important relationships we’re talking about over here under the love category.

I really need, desire, and deserve two things. Number one, do you get me? Do I matter? When those two things are attended to, I feel safe. I feel supported. I feel validated. I begin moving in the direction of making a better connection with you, and I reciprocate. I will make sure that you feel safe, supported, and validated. I challenge you as you challenge me. We begin having this really wonderful evolving relationship. That’s the way I think, that’s the way that I make sense out of what we’re just talking about.

That is absolutely gorgeous. I agree with you. I feel like I’m agreeing with everything you’re saying, because it really resonates with me. When you’re talking about the part in intimate relationships where people want to be seen, they want to matter. Do you get me? Do you see me? Do I matter? That is that really deep vulnerability that is inside, saying, “Can you look me in the eyes? Can you put your phone down? Can you listen to what I say? Can you walk through the conflict with me? Can you be there in a way that somebody at work knows, at work, people are paid to be there.”

At home, we’re not paid to be there. We are ideally there because we want the relationship. We want to foster that connection. As you say, at work, it’s about getting externally validated. At home, it’s about getting those really soft inner needs. This is why I think a lot, maybe this is, I do not know who the person who wrote in is, but it sounds like they are not demonizing the partner at all.

It sounds like they are trying to show that they’re trying to be a good partner. When they reach toward that partner to be seen, to get a connection, then that sounds like that partner’s getting spooked, likely from old issues. The individual who sent in the question is feeling like, “Wait a second, can I just only talk about food and sports with this person and not go any deeper because anything else makes the partner freak out or shut down?”

The Broken X Syndrome: Assessing Insight and Empathy

It could be like we could do a radio show on this one, but I created a concept called the broken X syndrome. I look at people when I do psychological evaluations, because I’m a forensic psychologist, I look at people through the lens of an X, Y, and then a Z axis. The X axis is does the person has a reasonable capacity for insight and empathy. Insight and empathy. That’s really critically important. The insight piece.

If a person has insufficient insight or an insufficient capacity to demonstrate empathy in real time when it’s really needed, that person acts deficient. That’s the reason why I call that a broken X syndrome. One of the things that’s interesting about the X and then the Y, the Y is skills, knowing what to do, when to do it, and pulling it off stylistically, if you will. The Z axis is a willingness, a motivation to do what needs to be done.

Lots of times that I find with relationships and certainly in certain types of therapy, we have a blind eye to the X axis and we move directly into teaching skills, trying to help people be aware of what it is that they need to do in real time, teaching speaker and speaker listener skills and all of that stuff, which is all well and good. I’m not putting anything down. If you have not attended to the person’s X axis, that being insight and empathy, and we can test this, then you’re like swimming upstream.

I just have a fun name for it. It’s called the broken X syndrome. It usually explains why marriages fail. At the end of the day, I fell in love with my husband. We had children, but then after a certain period of time, I realized he didn’t really know me. He didn’t have insight into the other self. Insight into self and the ability to look inside another individual. He wasn’t able to attend to my needs in real time when it was really needed. We talked earlier about whether you get me and whether I matter.

What’s really interesting about the second one, do I matter? People only need to be reminded that they matter when they don’t feel like they matter. This is the reason why a man doesn’t bring flowers home to a woman every single day and say, “You matter.” You’re just a broken record. You’re overspending on flowers. That’s not attending to what the person really needs, desires, and deserves.

When your significant other is struggling and does not feel like they matter, then stepping into that moment with them, joining them during that critical moment, and reminding them that they do matter, oftentimes with very few words and more actions. “I’ll tell you what. You look spent. You look tired. Let me make dinner tonight.” That’s the healing process. That other person is going to respond by going, “How did you know I had a terrible day? How did you know?” Either way, unspoken, I feel like I matter now, and the connection gets stronger.

That’s so beautifully said, and I agree with you because love often and showing someone they matter is an action. Love is not just saying you matter, saying I love you. It is showing that that person matters. I see that also in my practice, so much so that somebody doesn’t feel they matter because the partner is not helping in ways that they ask to be helped or showing tenderness in the ways that are important to them.

I agree with you, really bringing the action. The once in a blue moon flowers mean nothing if the person isn’t showing up to show interest, to really work through conflict, to create balance and household dynamics, and chores, all of those things that let the other person feel. “I’m important to you. I matter.”

I’m just going to say that underneath every conflict is an unmet need. Oftentimes, people are not aware of what it is that they need. It’s so interesting. I know I need something. I know I’m not feeling the love from you, but I can’t put it into words. Even if I did, I would not want to have to go through the energy of training you again on how to love me. You’re supposed to know how to love me by now. This is the reason why I created five primary needs. I respect love languages. I really do.

It’s a fun way to dabble into the quality of connections. The human spirit is much more complex and interesting than love languages. I’m not putting the author down at all. Here are the five things that I think we need, desire, and deserve more than anything else that we cannot give ourselves. When we get them, I get reminded that I matter. You get me, and those are attention, affection, acknowledgement, approval, and applause.

What’s really interesting about those five needs is that oftentimes in a relationship that’s becoming untethered is we get the opposite of those things. Instead of getting attention, I get ignored. Instead of getting affection, I get hurt. Instead of acknowledgement, I get dismissed. Instead of the idea of approval, I get rejected. Here’s the greatest one.

The opposite of applause in a relationship is indifference. Instead of this is applause and this is indifference. That was a great performance, sure, whatever. When people get treated indifferently, there is no positive energy that’s being transferred from the other person to the self. I know how you really feel about me. You’re indifferent. You could live without me, with or without me. It doesn’t matter. We’ve just gone full circle with the whole idea of do you get me, and I don’t matter.

When I get treated with indifference, I know now, proof positive that I do not matter. Therefore, not only does the disconnection become even further apart, but it also becomes anchored. I know that I do not matter to you. Now I have formulated a belief system around how I think you feel about me. Now I begin asking myself, it’s not if, but when I begin packing my bags.

Choosing Intentionality to Break the Cycle of Indifference

I really appreciate and love your paradigm. It’s so interesting that some of these, not all of them, are so common at work. We give people applause at work. We tell them what a great job they’re doing. “Great job.” We mean it. We’re noticing. We come home to our partner. It’s like, “They made dinner, whatever. They always make dinner. The floor is clean, whatever.” We do not notice, and we do not lean into. Instead, we notice maybe we train our brains to notice what they did not do. That’s a good way to do it.

It’s really easy for us to go to a state of complacency in our most important relationships.

Going back to the audience’s question, because I know we have to wrap up soon. I could talk to you for ages. I’m just thrilled to have you on. If we take some of this back to the audience’s question, and realize how she clearly wants to be in the relationship. She thinks a lot of it, but she wants to go deeper. Your five principles on top of everything else, but really starting to see if that capacity for reflection is there.

That capacity for empathy is there to begin to work on that in small and simple ways. Look at your five principles. You’ll have to help me with them. I wrote them down with attention, affection, acknowledgement, approval, and applause. They’re all and not faking it. I guess at first, if you’re really unfamiliar with them, maybe you do need to, like, not necessarily fake it, but really try. Who would not thrive in a relationship? Unless, of course, somebody’s being abusive, or as a narcissist, those things, it’s really hard to get that energy going anyway.

If you really try to bring that part of yourself, because those are all. As you said, it’s not that we’re standing around clapping for somebody, or being sarcastic, like, “You are an amazing person. Look at this thing that you did. Look at this about you. I love your creativity, and whatever it might be.” If we’re paying attention to our partner, there are always things that we can find to applaud, to appreciate, to fall in love with, to affirm. If you’re paying attention, if it’s a good person across from you, there are loads to notice and to just get excited about.

Probably the best way to begin helping a person to start moving in that direction is helping them understand these different mindsets that get established. I will go into all of them, but the first mindset that’s the reason why. For me, the first mindset is intentionality. What am I doing, and to what extent am I doing things with intentionality as opposed to automaticity, doing things automatically without thinking?

If I come home and I expect that you have the house clean and the kids are fed, and I’m not moving into this relationship with intentionality. That just helping people understand the power of intentionality and being more deliberate will, I think, activate people. All the good stuff that’s in people. People have the capacity for gratitude and appreciation. People have the gratitude to be able to go, “You’re amazing.” You have to begin shifting from taking things for granted to moving forward and doing things with intentionality. That’s the reason why I label it the first mindset.

That’s really beautiful because we hear intentionality is a buzzword, as of late, and really slowing it down and really looking at how important it is for us to understand our intentions. If our intentions do not really resonate with how we want the outcome to be, then pause and shift the intention mindfully, because often, in our relationships, work, home, wherever, all these paths are right there before us.

It’s like, which one are we going to pick? Are we going to pick the mean person? Are we going to pick to embody grace? Are we going to uh choose to embody friendship or love? Are we going to choose to embody indifference? By being intentional about the path and choosing, “I’m going to choose loving kindness.”

We might not always be able to do that because we are imperfect. At least if we’re aware, I’m trying to choose loving kindness, but I’m so mad right now. It’s then, at least we know if I want loving kindness, but I’m really mad, then there’s discord there. Maybe I need to go for a walk first, and then I can come back and take the loving kindness path, something like that.

When a person improves their ability to be aware of what’s going on in the moment without necessarily knowing what’s going on in the moment, even to use your phrase, it’s a really great opportunity, saying, “I’m just going to slow things down right now because I cannot find that loving kindness in me right now. Give me a few minutes.” Just that is a declaration of vulnerability. Almost certainly, if a person has a reasonable level of willingness to really have a thoughtful connection, they’re going to really respect that.

Again, just to close it out, but this piece of intentionality, I think it is so important because if our listener is saying, and I heard or read the intention, which was, “I want a less superficial relationship with my partner. I want one where I can go more deeply without fear of having it shut down or blown up.” It sounds like their intention is to have a closer, safer relationship.

Now I would say to the reader two things. One, be curious about your significant other’s capacity that we talked about utilizing the broken X syndrome. Number two, if this relationship can go to the next level, really become more curious about what it is that you need from that person. What is it you need? The attention, the affection, the acknowledgement, and so on. What is it that you need? Now that you know what you need, because you’ve done your little inventory, make it really clear.

With assertiveness and compassionate concertiveness, really inform the individual what it is that you need. Too many times, we wait for the other person to love us in the way that we want, as opposed to reminding the person about how we need to be loved because we do evolve. How you used to love me ten years ago would be very different from the love that I need from you now. One of the things that we should do we should consider doing is another episode on the topic of Can Love Last? It’s just really useful.

I will absolutely have you back, and that will be our topic. Can Love Last? We’ll schedule it for sure. I realized, too, that you have so many areas of expertise that you’re obviously grounded in. Having you back to move through some of those areas as well, and your capacity as a forensic psychologist is phenomenal. You’re obviously very skilled, and I’m impressed. Dr. Zerk, any other final pieces before you let our audiences know where they can find you?

I have a really dynamic website that I would encourage people to go to. It’s simple. You can just go to DavidZierk.com. There are blogs, and there’s a podcast. I put out a newsletter. I have a thing I do called whiteboard psychology. What I do is I take psychological constructs, and then I take three minutes and go to my whiteboard through a YouTube station, and I teach people what they need to know about that particular construct.

For instance, I just did one on what I call my deep little secret, and I put it out there schematically in three minutes, talked about it, and just tried to enhance people’s interest in learning. That’s what I always find. People are deeply interested and invested in the learning process, and we’re looking for really rich and reliable sources for that learning. That’s why I really feel privileged to be on your show.

Thank you so much. Audience, if you do not have a pen handy or if you’re driving, do not worry. All of Dr. Zerk’s links will be in the show notes. Again, it’s Dr. David Zierk links to his book, his podcast, his website, and his about page. It’ll all be there for you to find. Dr. Zerk, thank you for joining us. It has been such a delight.

Dr. Manly, this has been just a joy.

Thank you. To our audiences, as always, I am ever so grateful for your joining us, for your time, and for your interest. It’s always a pleasure. This is Imperfect Love.

Important Links

• Dr. David Zierk
• Dr. David Zierk Podcast
• Dr. David Zierk Blog
• Dr. David Zierk Free Ideas
• Dr. David Zierk on YouTube
• Mind Rules: Who’s in Control – You or Your Mind? – David Zierk’s Website
• Mind Rules: Who’s in Control – You or Your Mind? – Amazon
• Traumatic Events and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• PTSD Hotline
• The Joy of Imperfect Love
• Dr. Carla Manly’s Website
• Dr. Carla Manly on Instagram
• Dr. Carla Manly on X
• Dr. Carla Manly on Facebook
• Dr. Carla Manly on LinkedIn
• Dr. Carla Manly on YouTube
• Dr. Carla Manly on TikTok
• NAMI Helpline
• Mental Health and Relationships

 About Dr. David Zierk

David W. Zierk is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in forensic psychological, trauma assessments, neuropsychological, and vocational assessment of individuals dealing with difficult circumstances. For example, these include high-conflict divorce, medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, personal injury, ADHD, LD, neurological disorders, and head trauma. Dr. Zierk also provides focused, time-limited, empirically-supported therapy with individuals dealing with “unsolvable” problems. He addresses issues involving connection, communication, conflict resolution, intimacy, problem-solving, anger management, mood management, and chronic pain recovery. Dr. Zierk is the author of “Mind Rules: Who’s in control – You or Your Mind?”