Building Something Real At Home

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Daylessness, you know, like we spend so much time building our online presence, our professional networks, our feeds and follows and futures on the screen. But sometimes the most radical thing you can do in a world that never stops, or I'd say never stops swinging, is to turn toward the person right next to you and create something real. Something that doesn't need to be optimized or posted, something that just holds you when the rest of the world feels too much. So today we are talking about how your relationship at home can be the subtle point into you know turning bold. So welcome to Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and this is the show which is all about the spaces where technology meets the human heart, where the noise of the modern world meets the quite work of staying sane and connected. So thank you so much everyone for being here. And today we are joining my lovely guest. Please welcome Galen Wilson. So welcome to the channel. Thank you so much for letting me be here, Avic. I I really feel honored. Amazing. I'm really happy that you are here today with us and on this vodka show. And tell us like before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce with Galen. So he is a heart transparent survivor relationship coach and the co-author of 34 books with his wife, Kita, who's spent the last five years helping thousands of men and couples rebuild intimacy, interrupt the destructive patterns, and the turn their relationships into refugees from everything outside that demands too much. So I do not want to take much time. Let's get started.

Why Spark Alone Fails Couples

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So Galen, like a lot of people they think that if a relationship is not working, it is because they choose the wrong person or the spark is gone and all. So what do you think is the misconception there that you see people carry into their hardest moments?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I I I think a lot of that comes from the fact that we are building relationships on the wrong structure. Modern society ta teaches us that chemistry is what you need to build a relationship on. That excitement and the spark and the and the craziness that comes with a new relationship. And most of traditional relationship therapy calls the first six months to two years the romance phase, where you know the partner can do no wrong. You're so in love with each other that you don't see any faults. And and so I think that first of all that boils down to the fact that we tend to jump into bed too fast in new relationships. And once that happens, the body starts producing for women, it produces oxytocin. I call it the love hormone. And so when they have sex, her bru body tells her, I love him. And so the red flags just disappear. He could be a raging narcissist and she wouldn't see it because the hormones are are running the show. And likewise for for a man, he doesn't get that oxytocin that she gets early in the relationship. He gets he gets dopamine, which I call the field, feel good hormone. So when he makes love to her early in a relationship, he gets that dopamine, which is the gee, that felt nice. I'd like to do that again if she'll let me. And so that's what keeps him in the relationship and and becomes the the blinder for the red flags for him. And so if they don't build a structure under that relationship that allows them to keep in the romance phase for decades, their entire your entire life, then at six months to two years, they're breaking up because they didn't build that structure. And and so what Heather and I have developed is that is a way to build that structure, not only to stop any fighting that's going on, but then also to move into a relationship that is a refuge from all the crazy in the world.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

That's right. That's right, you understood. Yep. So, like when someone realizes that it's not about finding the right person, but about building something together. Like so what's usually the first pattern they have to unlearn? What

Attachment Threats And The Lizard Brain

SPEAKER_00 4:25

do you say?

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Well, the first thing they need to really understand is when they're letting the primal brain run the show. I got Heather and I into a course to become certified thriving relationship coaches. After the heart transplant, I felt this driving need to pay the blessings forward because not only did they give me 20 more 20 plus more years with my soulmate, they've I I have an amazing relationship with her that's only gotten better in the eight years since the transplant. And and so we we started the course in the very first book that we wrote or that we read, I can speak today, I promise. The very first first book that we read was Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson. And in it, she talks about attachment theory. And her attachment theory is that we were bred through thousands of years of prehistoric evolution to have an instinct for a strong attachment to our mates. That those that didn't have that instinct in prehistoric times didn't survive and their offspring didn't survive. So it got brought forth into modern man as an instinct that's just as strong as our need for food or need for water. Is that, you know, they call us a parabonded species for a reason. And so she went on to say that most of the fights that we get into are not about what we're fighting about, but about the fact that that attachment instinct has detected a threat to the attachment and has thrown the body into fight or flight mode. And so you get both partners in a relationship in fight or flight mode, the logical brain leaves the building and leaves what I call the lizard brains in control, those primal brains.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

And so these lizard brains say things that are mean, things that are nasty, things that are really hard to take back later because they're not really meant, but they see the e the partner as the enemy of the bond. And so that's why you know so many relationship models tell people that they need to learn to communicate better. Well, there's no communication that goes on when you're both in fight or flight. All it is is the lizard brains throwing things at each other. And so after Heather and I learned about the attachment theory, I went to her and I said, How do we stop triggering our attachment instinct? Because as amazing a relationship as what we have, we still got into fights. I I think we as humans seem we seem to be wired to fight. And so we've got to train our logical brains to overcome that. And so the first thing I thought of was, well, we need to watch what tone we talk to each other. Because, you know, sometimes you talk to your loved one like they're the worst person on the planet, and you think you're getting away with it because they love you, but you're really not getting away with it because you're triggering that instinct in them that there is a threat to the attachment. And so we gave each other permission, and and permission is so important in the monument method. You've got to give you a team against the lizard brains. And Heather and I believe we're building this big beautiful marble monument to our relationship. And each kind word or loving gesture, or especially when you make love with presence and eye gazing, you're bringing yourself, you're building onto that beautiful monument. And so it but each cruel word or cold shoulder or fight that you get into is like taking a hammer and chisel to your monument. And so we decided we wanted to fiercely protect our monument. In fact, that's the monument method institute motto is fiercely protect the monument. And to do that, you've got to make the monument more important than your ego and more important than winning a fight. Because if you win that fight and you damage the monument, you haven't won anything. And so we gave each other permission to start calling each other out when we were using tone that wasn't necessary. You know, honey, did you need to say that that way? And so that helped a lot. That helped us get grow closer, but we were still getting into the fights and getting in fight or flight mode. And so I I got together again with her and I said, okay, how do we stop getting into fight or flight altogether? And so what I came up with was something that doesn't exist in most relate in any relationship therapy model today. It's kind of the missing link. All the pieces have been out there, and this this just kind of ties it all together because what I did was I came up with the idea that we gave each other a sacred word when we were in a insane mode, when we were talking to each other and calm. We gave each other this sacred word. And so anytime either one of us sees the other one heading towards the monument with the hammer and chisel, in other words, we've said something that's gonna start a fight, the other one calls monument. And that does a couple of things. First of all, it reminds us that that our monument is more important than that fight we're getting ready to get into. And secondly, I I called it a sacred word because we made a sacred vow to each other that no matter how mad we were, the fight stopped there. But when you start stop a fight and you're mad, you don't separate and go away and calm down. Because when you come back together, you're gonna be right back where you were and right back into it again. Now, of course, if you've already allowed yourself to get into fight or flight and you're about to kill each other, yes, that that's the time you need to separate. But but the whole idea behind the monument method is we're cutting it off before we ever get to fight or flight. And so what we learn to do that is when monument gets called, we turn towards each other and come together and embrace each other's arms and gaze lovingly into each other's eyes and patch that little spot on the monument we just chipped out. And so the science behind that is that when you gaze into your lover's eyes, it goes into that primal brain and says, your attachment's safe. You can stand down. There's no threat. And so the primal brain says, Okay, okay, body, you can come out of fight or flight mode, or not even enter fight or flight mode. And and so as you practice this, and it it does take practice, like I say, we seem to be wired to fight, but as you practice it, all that emotional system damage that has been done over the years, and I say there there is no sexual desire without emotional system safety, especially for women. And and so as you do this often and start to repair, I I always say the best repair is one that you don't have to make. So as you cut the repairs off to where you're not doing damage. And even the big fights that we used to get into that were, you know, you we were mad at each other for a day and a half. With us, it's now five or ten minutes, and we're realize we're saying, wait a minute, what are we doing to our monument? And we're coming back together and and doing the repair necessary to to keep that that chip from becoming a gaping hole in our monument. And so as you do it, the nervous system starts feeling safer and safer and safer with your partner. And so, what did I say? There's no no sexual desire without nervous system safety. So as your nervous system feels your partner becomes your safest place in the world for your nervous system, then that desire can return to a marriage, even a decade-long marriage can return to the romance phase. And and so that's what we call the monument method. And it it's it's amazed, it amazes me how none of the big relationship experts have come up with this because it's kind of a silly, stupid little idea, but it works so well. And I I personally think that if a couple learns the monument method, it saves them weeks or months or years of therapy because they they become each other's therapy. True.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Very, very true. So lovely, I really loved it. And so also I I'd love to ask you about.

Stress Spirals And The Sanctuary Bond

SPEAKER_00 11:55

I mean, let's say someone tries this, they start changing their patterns, and then life gets hard again. Work explodes, the world feels heavy, they slip back into the old habits. So, how do you sustain this kind of walk when everything else is pulling you away from it?

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Yeah, the monument method protects your monument from each other. And so I was out actually, I had written the monument method book last fall, and I was out working on one of our cars. And I'm a pretty decent mechanic. I I overhauled tractor engines in my 20s when I was a farmer, and so I could turn a wrench, but these new cars are pain with all their computers and everything. And so I had I had worked on it two months and got it running. So I was so excited. I drove it around the block, pulled it into the driveway, shut it off, and Heather wanted to go visit friends. So we've made best friends with a man who got his heart 17 days after I got mine. And Heather and Chris, his wife, have trauma bonded over their heart transplant husbands, and they're closer than sisters now. And so uh they live a couple hundred miles away. So we we load up the car, we get in. Heather's so excited to go keep see Chris. I push the button and it's dead. Nothing, not even anything on the dash, it's just dead. So as you as you can imagine, the smoke starts coming out. My ears, I'm so upset. And so I grab my multimeter and I go pop the hood and check the battery, and it's an eight and a half volts. And you know, it's supposed to be 12 and a half or so. So I pull the other car up across the lawn to get it close enough to jump start it, and I I pop the trunk to get the jumper cables that I know are in the trunk. I can't find them. I can't find them because I'm so dysregulated that I can't move the blanket that they're out there to find them.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

And so so I remember another set that I had hanging in the garage that I'd bought like 40 years ago. And that's how you can tell you're getting old when you can talk about things you bought 40 years ago. And so I go in and I grab them and I'm carrying them out, and I'm looking at them, and I'm saying, I left these out in the weather weather too many times over their lifetime. And they were all rusty and nasty and crowded, and I put them on the car and click the other end together, and nothing. They won't conduct any electricity. And so I'm gone now. I grab them off and I hold them over my head and throw them on the concrete. Well, Heather's in the car with the hood up, so she doesn't see this, and the window's up, so she does, doesn't hear me scream. She has no clue that her husband's spiraling out of control, just feet in front of her. And so I went back in the garage, found another set of jumper cables, came back out, got it all hooked up, and walk around to the driver's door, and I'm gone at this point. I'm just so upset. And so I nearly I'm shaking as I open the door and I crawl in, a 69-year-old man crawling in on his on the driver's seat on his hands and knees, and I get like eight inches from Heather's face and say, I need a monument. And as she turned and looked at me, the second our eyes met, that anger just went gone. It it and it shocked me because I was not expecting I was expecting her to help me calm down some, but it was just gone. And so the first thing I did was tell her, You have my permission. Anytime you see me spiraling, you can come monument me and get me regulated back down. And so all of a sudden there was another book to be written, called I call it the Sanctuary Bond. Because as I wrote the book, I realized what had happened was is Heather and I had been practicing the monument method for a couple of years by that point, even though we didn't have a name for it for most of that time until the book got written. And but what we had done was we had trained our nervous systems that eye gazing means stand down. Eye gazing means you can take the body out of fight or flight mode. And and so as I wrote the second book, I realized how powerful that was. Because I'm gonna get it a little traditional here. Let's say the woman is is in the kitchen cooking supper for the family, and the man's been out in the world all day, and the world has just been mean to him that day. Like you say, the world has gotten heavy. He comes in the door and he's in fight or flight mode. And so traditionally, she would maybe just stay in the kitchen and hide until he calmed down, if he if he could calm down, or she would come out and engage with him, and then all of a sudden she's in fight or flight mode, and the outside outside world is brought its hammer and chiseling and is going at their monument. And so, but with the sanctuary bond, she he comes in the door dysregulated, she sees that, and with his permission, she goes to him and gives him a monument and gets him calmed down out of fight or flight mode, and that's gonna do a couple of things. First of all, it's that bond between them. It's gonna make the his nervous system feel safer and safer with her, as the more you practice this. And then the second thing it's gonna do is it's gonna make him live longer because she has got him out of that fight or flight mode that's creating all the all the stress hormones that are slowly killing us. And so if you practice this a lot, it gets to the point that where your relationship, your mate, is your safest place in the world and it becomes a refuge from all that craziness. And and so traditionally, they if if they didn't have the sanctuary bond, they would have bickered all night and gone to bed mad and turned it rolled over and went to sleep. Well, now instead they have a wonderful evening together, they go to bed happy, they likely share some wonderful love making, and he goes to sleep calm, and he so he wakes up the next morning refreshed and ready to go tackle that mean world again.

Cherish And Respect As Daily Practice

SPEAKER_00 17:32

That's really amazing. So if you have to give one advice to the listeners, what will you give?

SPEAKER_02 17:36

The greatest gift this life has to offer is a strong romantic, sexual friendship, and spiritual bond with one person who you become, who you purposefully become incredibly one with. That's the whole thing about the monument method and sanctuary bond. It's something you do on purpose. You're not just floating through your relationship, you're actually working on making it a refuge. And so if you make that that greatest gift idea, your North Star in life, where you always run any decision you make through the through the lens of does this protect my bond or does this move me towards having a relationship that's a refuge?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

And if you have to give one out by common like which they can practice or start from today, what that would be.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Number one thing a guy needs to keep in mind is that the number one thing a woman needs to be happy in a relationship is to feel cherished. Yeah, if she feels cherished, she will move mountains for you. And the other side of that coin is is the number one thing a man needs to be happy in a relationship is to be respected. If she respects him, he will move mountains for her. So that's that's the a big thing that your your listeners can do right off the bat is start learning how to cherish or or respect your mate.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Hmm.

Closing Reflections On Coming Home

SPEAKER_00 18:58

So that's amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes. Okay. Or your easy to have friends. And you know, dear listeners, like I mean, the most important infrastructure you will ever build is not digital. It is the one you create with the person who shares your life. Right. So thank you so much, Yalen, for sharing this. It is really helpful. And for all the uh information that you have shared and the advice that you have shared with the listeners, it's really helpful. And for everyone who is listening, here's what I hope that you carry is the world will always ask more of you than you can give. So your relationship doesn't have to. It can be at a place where you stop performing and start being so where you are not a kind of uh profile or a productivity score. Like so it's just a person who is just trying, uh who's loved, uh who's get to come home. Simple things, right? So thank you everyone for being here. This is your host, Avik, and this is Mind Meets Machine. We'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.