[LISA LEWIS]: The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. I am Lisa Lewis. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast and welcome to a brand new year, 2022. What better way to start off this year than to focus on your relationship with your partner who helped that brings up some excitement for you? Because the last two years, 2020 and 2021 have been the most challenging for relationships. Many relationships have ended over these last two years. So let’s start off this year with a clear focus and intention that will carry you and your partner all the way through the year with a healthy and vibrant relationship. If you missed my episodes in December on highly sensitive couples, I’m repurposing them this month through the month of January, because I thought the episodes were so helpful, formative and powerful for highly sensitive couples. So even if you’ve heard them once before, hearing them again will help solidify what you’ve already heard and deepen a better understanding of the material. I know for me when I hear the same things over and over again, I usually hear it in a different way and I take more of it into my psyche. So I usually kind of digest it, assimilate it, and then I’m able to implement it into my life. In each of these episodes, I interview a couple’s therapists about how they would use their method, a couple’s looking through the lens of a highly sensitive couple. I ask the couple’s therapists specific questions about relationships between a highly sensitive person and a non-highly sensitive person. We talk about what issues may show up in the relationship and some of the best self-care practices for couples. I would love to hear your feedback about these episodes. Please email me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. Have a listen. Today’s guest is JJ Brake. JJ is a licensed marriage and family therapist in a private practice in Pasadena, California. JJ is certified in nonviolent communication and parent education. She has a background in birth education and Early Childhood Development. Her modality also includes internal family systems and attachment theory. She specializes in working with couples, using the practicum trained level three Gottman method. Welcome to the podcast, JJ. [JJ BRAKE] Hi Lisa, how you doing? [LISA] Good. I’m doing really well. Thank you. I just want to put out there that I know JJ, we were classmates when we were going through graduate school at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California. So there’s a shout out to PO. That’s how I know JJ and really got to know her and loved her energy and her vibration that she brought to classes. [JJ BRAKE] Thanks. I really enjoyed, you have a very calming energy. I remember very clearly just being in class and I think maybe we complimented each other really well. [LISA] Uh-huh. Yes. So I wanted like that higher energy, I’m like, okay, where’s JJ. Okay that’s what I need to do. [JJ BRAKE] Totally. And how I’d just like take deep breaths? OK, thank you, Lisa. I needed that. [LISA] It’s so good to have you here and I appreciate you giving your time and your expertise. [JJ BRAKE] You bet. [LISA] So I just want to start out, just ask you, do you consider yourself-a highly sensitive person or not? And if so, if you would to share a little story about that. [JJ BRAKE] Sure. I actually do not consider myself-a highly sensitive person. However, I live in a house with four other highly sensitive people. So it’s sort of an experience, I guess, on the other side of it, where I am a student of how each of all of their systems work, my husband, my son, my daughter in the middle and my youngest child who all are really highly sensitive and living inside of that atmosphere where I think they’ve really taught me what it means to be mindful of the noises and the clothing and what soap I use when I wash the clothes and what soap I buy to wash their bodies. I feel like every day is just a little less and oh, I have a different way of looking at the world and so do they, and that’s ok. We move forward and honor where we’re each at. That’s kind of my experience with highly sensitive people. [LISA] Oh, wow. Well, you got firsthand experience and wow, that’s four people all highly sensitive and you’re the non-highly sensitive person. Wow. [JJ BRAKE] Girl, it’s like, I’m like the dog in the family and they’re all the cat. So I’ll go in and I’ll be like play and they’re like, don’t be so loud. Let’s just sit here for a little bit. So yes, it’s definitely a firsthand experience. [LISA] Oh, wow. Well, I’m glad to have you share your perspective about this and hear a non-HSP. I don’t get too many of those type of people on my podcast. So this is a really interesting perspective. [JJ BRAKE] Awesome. [LISA] So let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about couple’s therapy. If you can share with us what’s your approach to couple’s therapy? [JJ BRAKE] So I am level three Gottman trained therapist. So for me personally, and I think really any clinician might practice Gottman with, and I think very much John and Julie Gottman are in all the trainings, they really honor that. Everybody comes from a different modality and their background, and this is another layer that can be so incredibly useful in working with couples. And part of the sort of the entry point with this modality is really looking at a couple, understanding their background, where they come from. The first session is sent solely on historical information. I go through point by point what, brought them together, what their dating was like, what their union was like when they lived together when they had children together and just watching how they interact. Ideally if I can get them to fight in that first session, that’s like bonus, because then I can really see what conflict looks like. But the second ses sion I’m seeing each of them individually for about, my sessions are 90 minutes. I feel like traditional 50 minutes sessions just are not conducive to getting to the meat of the subject. But then I meet with them individually. I’m getting more historical information of their family. They fill out a huge questionnaire. It’s like 170 questions that they fill out on their own time. By the third session, I’m sort of reflecting back really all of this information that tells me where each of them are at inside of this relationship. I will say more often than not, conflict management is perhaps one of the biggest components inside of couples, which I know sounds like duh, when you say it out loud, it’s really, when you see it on paper and you see it in real time. So much of the Gottman method is there are tools in how to put communication inside of a structure that some people have never learned how to communicate. In fact, I believe nobody’s actually learned how to have conflict. It was not usually modeled for us in a healthy way. So there’s a lot of attention spent on how to have a conversation. There’s something called a Gottman Rappaport, which is a tool, so speaker, listener, exercise. And it’s deceptively complex. There’s a speaker and there’s a listener, but we go down into details and details about what it means to listen, what it means to receive information, what it means to reflect information and what it means to empathetically listen. So it’s really this beautiful framework that a clinician, for me personally, I can work inside of. You can like put a little of, for me, I would put a little non-communication in, or if somebody has a background in different modalities, you’re welcome to spice it, which is why I love it so much; is that it’s not necessarily a standalone that’s all you do. It’s a really wonderful framework that you then put your own juices inside of and get very personal in working with a couple. [LISA] Wow. That sounds really inviting just as you explained it and kind of laid out your framework and it’s like, oh yes, I could do that. That sounds good. It’s not going to be all about working out, fighting issues in a unsafe way. [JJ BRAKE] And so much of the safety, too, this just may segue a little into highly sensitive people. There is so much, in fact, I have pulse oximeter in my office that I ask couples to wear, because it is so essential to understand somebody’s nervous system, for me to understand it, for the couple to understand their partners nervous system, for the individual to understand their own nervous system. Because that is crucial and how we are in relationship with another human being. If we lack that layer of understanding of ourself and others, we really miss a huge component of being in relationship in a way that is respectful and empathetic and compassionate to where each of you are at. And the Gottman method really emphasizes that a lot. [LISA] Can you repeat again? What do you have each person and a couple wear, put on? [JJ BRAKE] Oh, a pulse oximeter. [LISA] Oh, what is that? [JJ BRAKE] Oh yes. Well, I don’t know if you can get one because after COVID everybody bought one. It measures your oxygen level and your blood and it measures your heart rate. So while I don’t use it for the oxygen level I do use it for the heart rate. And I have a little alarm on it. It’s a little device that just, it clips onto your finger. So couples can wear it. It’s battery operated, so there’s not a cord or anything. Couples wear it on their finger and I have an alarm set for, if they reach over a hundred beat per minute, the alarm will go off. When the alarm goes off, we stop and then we all do, we regulate. We’ll just take whatever, I have to get to know the couple to know what helps their system regulate. I’ve had people say I need 10 minutes and they’ll go outside and hug a tree and literally had people do that and then come back in the office and then we start again. That’s a crucial piece to know first off to again, when you hear that alarm, you may not even realize some people have idea that they’re so dysregulated until they see concretely, they see the number, they see their heart rates over a hundred per minute, the alarms going off. It’s educational tool so that people understand when they’re in that state, we literally are incapable of taking new information we’re flight. We can’t be in relationship at that point. [LISA] Wow. I love that idea. That is, oh my, that is wonderful. What a great idea. Well, I think I would probably wear it all day long just to see where my levels were. [JJ BRAKE] I mean, I’m not going to lie when I learn about it, I was like, got my Apple watch and I’m staring at it and I’m like, oh, this makes my heart rate go up. Then when you exhale, para nervous, nervous, you start to learn. It’s really cool. I wish everybody could understand their system. Wouldn’t the world be a different place if we all knew our nervous systems intimately well? [LISA] Yes, it would be. I agree. Well, that’s, our goal as therapists, one of our goals. I’m thinking of, as highly sensitive persons can be really easily overstimulating. I think this would be such a great way for them if they don’t understand their own nervous system and also for their partner just like, as you mentioned before. [JJ BRAKE] Yes. I also, in my experience too, and why these speaker-listener exercises are so, the Gottman tools are so helpful is its goal is to slow down the communication. We tend to, the first thing we always do is assume what the other person is saying. They did a study in this MRI machine and the person was listening to somebody telling a story. At first the brain is on par with the storytellers and eventually the person listening starts to jump ahead and tries to guess what the storyteller’s going to say. We all do it. You watch movies with people and they’re like, oh no, she’s going to get in the shower. This is the scary shit, no doubt. We all do it. Couples are just notoriously assuming what the other person is going to say or think. So when you slow it down and when you just take a moment to just reflect, and the key, I think when we’re talking about a highly sensitive person is also teaching the partner. Because if there’s a partner in the room who isn’t highly sensitive or a partner in the room who’s highly sensitive, but was never allowed to acknowledge that, so maybe their family origin, they were just told get over it. You’re too sensitive, which is the usual thing that they heard. They have trained their system to ignore the alarm bells and in turn, they can be very judgmental of their partner being sensitive or having sensitivity. So being able to slow it down enough, where you can begin to educate in those quiet moments that your partner is very sensitive, has high sensitivities, what would it be like to really respect that and just take a moment to really be silent with them ad let’s see if we can start again? That ability to teach how to respect somebody’s sensitivities, to me feels like that’s a huge key to being able to learn how to manage conflict and build fondness and admiration and turning towards each other. These are all catch phrases inside of the sound relationship, the Gottman’s. It’s the layers of the sound relationship house, which is of love maps and turning towards each other instead of away, and found this elaboration positive perspective and making life dreams come true. These are all pieces of the sound relationship house when you can slow it down and really respect and honor where the other person is coming from. It’s a game changer, I think in my humble opinion. [LISA] Wow. That’s beautiful. What do you notice, what do you see maybe even when you’re doing therapy with a couple, if they’re highly sensitive or not, and that maybe that light bulb goes on when they’re asked to slow it down and reflect maybe what they heard and it clicks? What do you notice? What usually happens? [JJ BRAKE] Usually somebody starts crying. That’s when I know we’ve touched it. Usually, just to acknowledge, every couple totally creates their own individual unique dynamic. I often find that when that becomes a teachable moment and is received where everything slows down and a person is acknowledged often the person who hasn’t been acknowledged for so long will begin to cry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard them say, I feel understood. It’s this magical moment where suddenly each person clicks and goes, that’s what that feels like. Been defending myself-and trying to make my point if I stop and listen. The whole, everybody suddenly, their whole nervous system, I’m just saying this because I literally see the numbers start to decline in their heart rate when they just sit back and listen, instead of becoming defensive or they’re four horsemen. Probably have heard that the big thing, the four horsemen of the Gottman is defensiveness, contempt, criticism, and stonewalling and any of those four horsemen absolutely lead to the inability to be able to actually feel understood or to understand. [LISA] Then there’s evidence when wearing the device like, oh, wow, see, when I get validated and then I feel understood, there it is right there, evidence that my heart rate, my nervous system is regulating. [JJ BRAKE] Totally. Absolutely. It’s a beautiful biofeedback, really concrete way to even just say, here it is. This is what it feels like. This is literally what it looks like to feel understood. [LISA] What are some of the ways to strengthen a relationship between a highly sensitive person and a non-highly sensitive person? I know you’ve touched on some of them and maybe perhaps there’s some more. [JJ BRAKE] Well, hard question to answer, just because I think that what is helpful is a deeper understanding of what maybe some of those sensitivities are. If a highly sensitive person is let’s say sensitive to touch, and because of that, maybe a partner who’s not sensitive feels like their partner doesn’t want to be intimate. I mean, intimacy simply as a touch, as moments where you’re connecting. And if we take time, we, meaning the triad, the three of us to really acknowledge here’s somebody that has a different interpretation of touch, that’s not a sign of rejection. That actually is how they experience the world. How can we together figure out a way that you can be intimate, that respects where the other person is at? And even that conversation alone starts to bring connection that could or could not lead to a level of intimacy. Ideally, hopefully, fingers always crossed, it might lead to intimacy where we can start to talk about what does that look like for you? With a key component in here being how to build respect instead of judgment or contempt or criticism around somebody’s highly sensitive experience. If we can find a way to really quiet that and have that sort of bend into respect, I feel like it seems to me anyway, that would be to much deeper communication and acceptance. Again, just fold back into the sound relationship house. It’s turning towards each other instead of away and on this admiration, sort of all come back to that house. [LISA] Yes. As I’m listening to you talk about just the touch, because I am sensitive to touch and even with my partner and yes have gone through this, like he feels rejected and then it can lead to an argument and then not talking. And it’s really just like you said, understanding each other and what works, what doesn’t work and then it comes to a place of like, oh, okay, now I get it and it really doesn’t have anything to do about me. It’s really about that person and as a partner wanting to be mindful of what your partner needs or wants and respect, like you said, respecting that. [JJ BRAKE] Absolutely. I often say to my clients that we’re going to learn a new language because when you are learning the language that you share, the shared language and shared experience with your partner, you really are learning a new way to be in relationship. And it’s like a new language. You have to have conversations. You’re like, so does this work? When I say this, does that feel okay? And it’s like, you’re learning about each other and how to do this from a place of curiosity, which I often say, I personally believe curiosity will change the world. If everybody was curious how different everything would be. You can just inject that curiosity about what touch was for you, what touch means, what does that feel like? And for you what does that mean? Okay, I hear you. So now we bridge. How do we bridge this together and learn a new language together. [LISA] Yes, building that, the connector between the two. [JJ BRAKE] Yes, absolutely. [LISA] What are some of the best self-care practices for couples? [JJ BRAKE] It depends. Again, not trying to evade the question, I swear. It’s so personal. Just taking a big breath just doesn’t work for every system. So some of the regulatory, I mean, the structure with Gottman method is that you absolutely have to stop if somebody’s dysregulated. The key is you have to, the rule is really, you have to say when you’re coming back. You have to say, “I’m coming back in 10 minutes. I’m coming back in 20 minutes.” You cannot go longer than 20 hours or else you’re going to start triggering other feelings, abandonment, resentment. So the key is if you can know your system well enough to be able to say, give me 30 minutes and in that 30 minutes, then begin to learn what’s going to help you regulate. I’m a big fan of bilateral therapy, which is just walking, just means the two hemispheres of the brain communicate. You can go for a walk around the block, hugely regulatory. It’s called a sensory motor loop. It means that you actually have to like motor it out of your body. We’re designed to reabsorb cortisol, the stress hormone by moving. So I’ve asked clients to do some pushups do some pushups then come back to the conversation. That’s a great sensory motor loop. Or for some people it’s like, let me drink something. Drinking is a lovely way. It’s just anything where you step away from the source of the conflict and you get yourself to a place where your heart rate can come back down and you feel like you can just focus in a little bit so that you can get yourself to a place of feeling grounded and then you can reenter the conversation. So there is a lot of choices. You just have to play with it a little bit and figure out what’s best for yourself to regulate. And what are some ways that people dis-regulate? What do they look like? [JJ BRAKE] It’s interesting. Some people, you can tell the dysregulated. For me, I usually look at the jaw. If the jaw starts to tense or the eyebrow starts to furrow, that’s a pretty good indication somebody’s getting elevated. Some people start to fidget. You can really, like you see this sort of, it’s like the tension building in their body. And the reason, this is an interesting fact, I think it’s all interesting, the reason I love the pulse oximeter is that studies have shown that people are physiologically aroused, they’re really angry and get really upset, but they don’t show it. That it’s actually, their nervous system is actually going into overdrive. You can’t tell though. This is what stonewalling is and why stonewalling is so detrimental to your relationship. Stonewalling means that you just like have blank face, completely disconnect from connecting with anybody by going completely blank faced. But studies have proven and I’ve seen that when you have the pulse oximeter on when you’re stonewalling, your pulse, your heart rate is actually through the roof. So it’s actually more detrimental to try to hide what your dysregulation than to outwardly show it, which is why I’m a huge proponent of, if I start to see like the brow or the tension, I’ll usually stop it and say, “Let’ just take a break. Let’s walk around the room for a little bit. We’ll come back to this.” Then we reregulate. [LISA] Is that the same, or is there a difference between stonewalling and then associating, like going out of the body? [JJ BRAKE] Yes, the short answer is yes. The longer answer is stonewalling often you can, it’s a disengagement. Usually the person will look away. They’ll look away but their jaw is tense. They’re listening, but they’re so upset they just don’t want to say anything. And disassociation is like they’re not there. Like, they’re really of body that their heart rate might not be going up. They don’t have that same tense feeling. It’s a very different feel in the room. I think at least that would be my experience of it. [LISA] Do you feel that these, I guess they were coping mechanisms or defense mechanisms whatever you want to call them. Like those were habits that were learned in childhood and we just carry them on into our adulthood. [JJ BRAKE] I mean, yes, more than likely that’s a deep programming from early on that when a situation is stressful, that it’s easier to disengage because to engage might be more dangerous if that had been your experience growing up. So absolutely, any of these reactions, I mean, I think as a broad sweeping statement, I feel as though I could say pretty much all of our reactions are a reaction to something we experienced somewhere along the way, often in early childhood experience. Not always, just often. [LISA] So then to just bring it back around again, to connect with your partner what would you want to tell listeners if they’re dysregulated and then they want to reconnect? I know you said take time off and then give a certain time to come back. Is there anything else say that you would recommend doing? [JJ BRAKE] Yes. Always when you come back after you feel regulated, and if you have a smart watch, it’s super helpful so you can see that your heart rate is under a hundred beats per minute. And if you’re super athletic, by the way, your heart rate, you can set off the alarm really, like if your heart rate is even lower, because you’re in shape. So once you just know that you’re a little more regulated, your heart rate’s back to like 80 beat per minute or 70. When you reenter the room with your partner, take a moment to say, I want to hear you. This is so important. If you could just it down and say, I want to hear you, tell me again, I’d like to reflect what I heard you say, that moment, where you can just listen and reflect, listen, and reflect slows it down. That is so key. Let’s just slow it down. And if that means we take a break every five minutes, sure, whatever it takes But that ability to stop assuming what you think, your partner is trying to say and interpreting what they’re saying, listen and repeat. And if you really have time also say, did I get that right? Because we might say, I heard you say that you hate the way I do dishes. Did I get that right? Your partner goes, no, I just said, I wish that you could load the dishwasher this way. I didn’t say I hate it. Would love it if you load it differently. That’s a different message. That’s not saying you’re bad. You’re, “Hey, I have preference. Would you be willing to do it this way?” So slow it, listen and repeat and see if that really helps pave that path for connection and communication. [LISA] Oh, wow. That was wonderful. I was slowing down as you were slowing down the words and I was just listening, like yes, I can do that. Definitely. [JJ BRAKE] Awesome. [LISA] So I know that you’ve said so many important things and I just want to just wrap it up with, I have a couple more questions. What is the most important thing you want listeners to take away from our conversation, JJ? [JJ BRAKE] Oh just one Lisa, just one? [LISA] Doesn’t have to be one. [JJ BRAKE] All right. I’ll see how many I have here. Genuine curiosity. Honestly, I cannot tell you, as a parent educator our ability to be genuinely curious about our children, if we could carry that enthusiasm and like what feels like unconditional positive regard, if we could carry that into relationships and be genuinely curious about even when somebody’s angry, just to go, oh, wow, that’s really big right now. What’s going on for you? It really changes the game. So I think if there’s one thing, I know, I keep saying just because I feel like it’s small, but it’s really quite big. If you could embrace genuine curiosity for your partner at all times, that would be a gem. What a gift to have a partner who’s curious about you all the time and wants to know more? So I think that’s the biggest one. Y’all be curious. That’s important. [LISA] Yes. I love being curious and my kids will ask me, why are you so curious? You’re curious all the time. Because that’s how I learn. I enjoy it. I love it. [JJ BRAKE] Yes, totally. Absolutely. [LISA] Then where can listeners get in touch with you? [JJ BRAKE] So the best way to find me is through my website, which is just jjbrake.com. All my information is there, like my phone number. I’m in the Pasadena area, probably the best way to find me. And some day when I write that, you’re welcome to read that book, but haven’t written it yet. It’s just in my mind. So we’ll see maybe one day. [LISA] Well, I hope you do. [JJ BRAKE] Thanks. I appreciate that. [LISA] Thank you for being on the show today. [JJ BRAKE] Sure. You bet. Thank you. I really appreciate being here. What a lovely delight. Thank you. [LISA] Thank you my listeners for tuning in today. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. To find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not to take on everyone else’s issues. Feel free to email me about what topics you like to have on the show. Email me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time, take care. Thank you my listeners for tuning in today. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. If you’re not sure how to subscribe, rate, review, I’m going to give you the directions right now, how to do that. So first you’re going to want to find the podcast icon on either your computer or your phone on the Apple computer and on the phone. It’s a purple icon with a white microphone. Once you find the podcast icon, click on it, then do a search for the Am I Ok? Podcast logo. My logo is green with white letters that read Am I Ok. Ok Is spelled O-K and a question mark. So to subscribe and follow my podcast, click on the check mark to the right of the logo. There will be a small check mark. Just click on that. You’ll be following my podcast, which will update you every week with each new episode that’s coming out. To write a review click on the three small black dots to the right of the Am I Ok logo and then click on, go to show, then cursor down to the bottom of the page where you will see, in small purple letters on the left side of the screen “ review.” Click on that to write a review. To rate the show, look to the right side of the screen, look for five purple stars, then click on the stars. Five stars means the best. That’s it. That’s how you subscribe, rate and review my podcast or really anyone’s podcast. So thank you again for listening today. This is Lisa Lewis signing off for now and reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.