Epic Relationship_Module_2_FINAL

Welcome to our first key ingredient of great communication trust. First off, why start with trust?
Well, outside of the fact that trust is the cornerstone of safety and the bedrock of romantic
partnership. It is also true that most of us have had our trust violated at one point, maybe by

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your current partner, maybe a former one, but also by your parents, your caregivers, your
friends, other important people in your life. Many of us have even broken our own trust, like

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when we tell ourselves that we're gonna go to the gym tomorrow, but then we spend the whole

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day eating cupcakes on the couch. The cold hard truth is that the experience of having our
trust broken, causes some deep pain. And if we don't take the steps to heal that pain
appropriately, that can become scars that prevent us from getting close to others and sharing
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real intimacy. Without trust our systems are in survival mode. In other words, they're on high
alert in fight, flight, freeze or fun, and we have no chance of showing up fully for our partner,
because we're just trying to survive. And without showing up fully, we cannot have the
authentic, deep connected intimacy that we crave. So then, how is it that trust creates a
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passionate spark in relationships? Well, to put it bluntly, trust is sexy. When you can trust
someone you are able to reveal more of yourself to them, your desires, your insecurities, your
secrets, your kinks, your fantasies, the ability to trust strengthens your bond, it ends, fights and
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arguments, and it increases intimacy and romance. Let's begin by defining trust. Trust is the
act of placing confidence in someone or something else. Trust is someone being reliable you
knowing that you can count on them. Trust, like safety gives our human brains and bodies a
sense that we can relax. There's no threat, we do not have to be on guard or vigilant. And
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therefore trust helps us to open up and bond and connect. However, trust is not a silver bullet
here that is going to cure all relationship bills. I mean, after all, building trust is relative. What
makes one person trust won't work for another. All right, if this is your first time going through
this course, go ahead and take out your journal or workbook and answer these questions.
pause and write about them right now taking three to five minutes, at least per question.
Question number one, how do you define trust? Number two, what important things did you
learn about trust in your childhood? Number three, what makes you feel trust in yourself?
Number four, what makes you feel trust in a partner? Number five, what makes you feel
trusting to open up and be vulnerable with your partner? If this is your second time going
through the course, answer the following in a mirror. Remember to look at yourself in the
mirror established loving presence and answer these questions for a minimum of seven
minutes. What? Tell me something about you and trust to tell me something about trust in this
relationship. Now if you're single, you can make it about your relationship with yourself. Or you
can answer about your ideal relationship. And if this is your third time going through the course
and you feel ready to work together with a partner, get with them establish loving presence
and answer these questions for a minimum of 14 minutes total switching and going back and
forth. Tell me something about you and trust. Tell me something about trust in this relationship.
Once you're complete, whether you've journaled, done mirror work, or done a dyad with your
partner, it's important that you take a moment to reflect and integrate what came up for you.
No matter which tool you've just finished using pause to ask yourself the following questions.
What are you more conscious of than you were before? How was doing this exercise valuable to
you? What new story will you tell yourself after this? Now, in our previous module, I did tell you
no more storytelling, but I also mentioned that storytelling is how the human brain works. So
we're all telling ourselves stories all the time, and I invite you to come up with one that
empowers you based on what you've just uncovered through the prompts. Perhaps you were
telling yourself before I'm not safe to trust my partner or because In my past, I'll never be able
to trust a romantic partner. What's a new story that you could put in its place? I am safe to
trust. No matter what happened in my past, my future is full of trust and loving relationships.
So what new story will you tell yourself after this? Now let's explore the three key ingredients
that inspire trust in a person. Those are congruence, honesty, and integrity. First, let's talk
congruence. This is when the actions energy state of being vocal tone, body language and
demeanor of a human all match up. Take, for example, somebody who smiles while they're
telling you bad news, or grits their teeth or telling you that everything is fine. Those people are
out of congruence. You see in communication congruence is paramount to building trust. When
someone's word say one thing, but their body language, tone of voice or energy says
something completely different. You feel icky. In fact, you might not even be able to name it,
you just know that person cannot be trusted in relating honesty is also paramount to building
trust. For example, if your partner says yes to something, and then you later find out that they
forced themselves to do it, and they're now resentful because they didn't actually want to do it.
How does it feel for you? Or if you say no, but you actually really wanted to say yes, how do
you feel after, to be really honest, requires us to know ourselves and our truth, so we can speak
it to another person. And finally, integrity, which is simply saying what you mean, and meaning
what you say, this was a huge one for me, in my own personal development journey, I would
say, Hey, I don't want to do this. But then I would do it anyway, to make my partner happy.

I realized later that this demonstrates a total lack of integrity. And now when I get my word, I
stick to it. If I say, I'm going to be there, I'll be there. If I say I don't want to do something, I'm
not going to do that. I will tell you plainly that I don't want to even if I'm afraid that it could hurt
your feelings. That way, my loved ones know that they can trust me fully. Take this example for
yourself. When someone says they will do something but then they don't. Or they do something
else. How do you feel? What about when you say one thing and then you do something else
entirely. deep connection and quality communication require all the ingredients of trust,
congruence, honesty, and integrity. All right. There are so many ways for us as humans to
violate each other's trust, lack of communication, crossing boundaries, violating consent, lying,
snooping, cheating, or just having a lack of integrity. This next exercise is a big one. If done
according to the instructions, it can restore your integrity and help you clean up breaks and
trust in a powerful way. if done incorrectly, it can cause a lot of pain and disruption to your
relationship. So please follow my instructions and check out my accompanying video on the
clear your conscience practice for an example of how to do it right. Okay. Together we are
going to do a clear your conscience practice. If this is your first time going through the course
you know to grab your journal or workbook. In it, you're going to answer the following questions
seven times. If you run out of things to write, sit quietly, I promise you, you will come up with
seven. If you go slowly. Remember to establish a loving presence before you begin. All right,
here are the questions answer all three of them as a set before starting over with question
number one and repeating seven times. Question number one, when it comes to trust in your
relationship, what is something you should not have done? Question two, how has this
impacted yourself and others? Question three, knowing what you know now, what will you do
differently? Now go back up to number one. And repeat. After you've answered that question at
least seven times move on to this next question number one, when it comes to trust in your
relationship, what is something you failed to do? Question two, how has this impacted you and
others? And question three, knowing what you know now, what will you do differently? Sit
quietly and reflect on what you have uncovered here. Ask yourself, What are you more
conscious of than you were before? What will you do differently? Then go back and repeat this
set of three seven tags. Sit quietly once you've completed all the questions and ask yourself
what are you more conscious of than you were before? How was doing this exercise valuable to
you? What new story will you tell yourself after this? If this is your second or third time working
through this course, go over to the clear your conscience practice video for more instructions.
Okay, now that your conscience is clear, it is time to repair the damage that's been done. This
brings me to one of the most important tools that I can share with you and the secret to how
trust is repaired in those excellent hashtag couples goals relationships, and it is called rupture
and repair. First, some definitions, a rupture is a happening that creates conflict, a lack of
safety, a loss of trust, and disrupted emotional engagement. A repair is reconciliation for a
rupture through admittance, apology and forgiveness. ruptures lead to mistrust, and a
successful repair is when trust is re established. When repaired well ruptures are an
opportunity for deep and beautiful connection and building an even stronger trust. Now, I don't
suggest that you go and make a bunch of ruptures, but rather take them seriously when they
do happen. Because there's an opportunity to deepen your relationship with a meaningful
repair practice. There's a beautiful example of the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi, where Broken
Pots and vases are mended using gold lacquer, and displayed as precious works of art to
emphasize the dignity and basic human importance of the art of repair

in Kintsugi, the gorgeous golden means throughout the pottery, highlight the repairs, and
strengthen the bonds that foster more beauty between the parts, in this case between you and
a partner. All right, here are the three steps to repairing after a rupture. The first step is a
meaningful after a rupture. The first step is a meaningful apology. The second is a thoughtful
and intentional repair. And the third is a genuine and lasting forgiveness. Let's start by
breaking down each step into its component parts. First, how to really apologize, begin by
taking full ownership of your part, including acknowledging specifically what it is you are
apologizing for. This could include a clear I'm sorry, statement, like I'm sorry, I broke our
agreement and didn't call you. Or I'm sorry that I did that without consulting you first. Or I'm
sorry that I got angry and act it out. It's important to note that some people will feel the phrase
I'm sorry, is disingenuous. So if that includes you don't use it, you might need to do some trial
and error to find the phrasing that means something to you and to your partner. Try something
like I apologize that I arrived late to our dinner, or I take responsibility for forgetting to pick up
the kids. Or I acknowledge that I should not have called you those names. Think back to
mindset number three and personal responsibility when you take ownership of whatever has
happened. And remember, no matter how you apologize, the simpler, the better. state the
facts, what could have been witnessed in the surveillance footage. In other words, what
objectively happened, do that without explanation without justification. And most importantly,
without blame, simply own up to what happened. Make it short and sweet. It's also important to
do this without emotion, which on first blush might seem counterintuitive, but doing your
apology is not the place to be processing or displaying emotions, they actually should have
been felt and fully processed before you get to this part. Here's some examples of how not to
apologize. I'm sorry that I went off on you. But you need to understand that I wouldn't have
done it if you weren't such an asshole. I'm sorry, you feel that way. I get that you're mad. But I
had a good reason for why I did that. The next step in your apology is expressing empathy and
understanding the impact on your partner. This includes clearly stating to them that you
understand why they feel and the impact of your action. That doesn't mean that you
necessarily agree that's how they should feel or that you understand fully why they do feel that
way it simply means that you get that you comprehend that they are feeling emotions, and that
you know which emotions they are feeling. It's important during this part to use their own
words to describe the impact they felt. If someone tells you that they felt hurt by what you did,
and you deny them that feeling saying instead that they feel sad or angry or worse that they
have no right to be heard. You are invalidating their experience. You cannot and will not Ever
get inside of your partner's head to make sense of their experience. So don't even try. Don't
mind reach, don't assume don't interpret, just use the words that they use to describe their
experience. And if you don't know how they would describe it, just ask them. The reason this is
so important is because it validates. In other words, it makes valid your partner's experience. It
lets them know that you got them that you understood what's going on, that you got them that
you understand. And as you recall, feeling, seen and understood is a basic human need. The
basic formula then is I get why you feel use their words to describe the emotion. Because I
describe your part. And it impacted you use their words to describe the impact. Here's an
example. I get that you feel embarrassed because I forgot to pick up the kids, and you feel
judged by the other moms. Here's another one. I understand why you feel hurt that I told you
not to eat dessert yesterday, and that you felt insecure about your looks. And another one, I
hear that you feel unloved because I've been turning you down for sex, and you wonder if I'm
attracted to you anymore. Or you wonder if I'm having an affair. After acknowledging and
empathizing with their emotional state, you can express regret for your part and the impact on
your partner. I regret that I did.

And it affected you. For bonus points, you can add in some language about how it makes sense
for them to feel that way. from a logical perspective. I get why you would feel rejected by me
not wanting to have sex, it makes sense that you would feel angry that you had to leave work
early to deal with that. I totally understand why you'd be frustrated with me for talking to the
kids like that. So to recap, the components of a stellar apology are taking full ownership of your
part and naming the rupture specifically including the words I'm sorry, or I apologize if it's
genuine. Number two, express empathy by naming the emotional consequence and the impact
on your partner. And number three, express genuine regret for your actions and the impact
they had. Okay, now that you've made a amazing apology, it is time to attempt the repair, you
can begin by saying something as simple as I'd like to repair this with you. From there, there
are two options. Option number one, ask how can I make this up to you, this option puts the
onus on them to come up with the repair. This will be okay with some folks. But it might be
annoying to others, because it is asking them to do some additional thought work. So it might
not be the kindest way to repair. Here's option number two. And this is for you to suggest a way
of repairing, it looks like this. I could blink would that feels good to you. In this case, the onus is
on you to come up with the idea you're offering how you will repair this rupture. Okay, so no
matter how you get there, the first step is to come to an agreement on the reparation. Once
you've agreed on the repair, hold yourself accountable to making sure it gets done. Typically
the one offering the repair tracks accountability. In other words, the person who is in the
position of apologizing is uncountable for the repair that they are making. Watch out because if
you don't, you can actually cause another rupture and it's out of integrity. So follow through, do
whatever you need to keep it set reminders if you have to, but make that repair as you said
you would. Now this next piece is really important. So listen closely. Just because you followed
up and did the repair does not mean the other person will automatically forgive you.
Forgiveness may come right away, it might come in time. Be patient. Remember, you're not in
a transactional relationship where they have to forgive you just because you completed the
repair. I mean, just because y'all agreed on something doesn't mean that it is going to work.
And here's a pro tip for both of you. Don't be afraid to speak up if there is a need to adjust the
course of the repair. simply acknowledge what you agreed on and state the need to change.
For example, I know we agreed on this reparation. I'm noticing it isn't working for me and I'd
like to talk about adjusting our agreement. Are you open? For example, I know we agreed that
you'd make that up to me by taking the kids to school everyday next week, but I'm noticing
that that's not going to work for me. Can we come up with something else? Maybe you should
pay? But I'm noticing this is gonna work for me can you pick them up instead? repairing broken
trust is as easy as that. Well, maybe it's not super easy, but it does not have to be any harder.
Okay, now some pro tip For a pair number one, avoid giving justification in any form such as
reasons or excuses or your emotions. Number two, this is about them. This is about what can

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be done to regain their trust. It's not about your experience, but about what you will do
because of there's, this is not easy, but it is worth it. Okay, now let's complete the third piece of

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this puzzle, which is how to forgive. I once heard Oprah say something to the effect of

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forgiveness is letting go of the desire for the past to be any different than it was. In other
words, forgiveness is acceptance and letting go of what is what was and what happened.
Another famous quote that feels pertinent here is that holding a grudge is like drinking poison
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and expecting the other person to die. Think about it, who do we really hold hostage when we
don't forgive? We think it is the other person, but really, it is eating us up on the inside. It is
trapping us in the role of holding them accountable of making them feel bad or making sure
they know the harm that they did. Well guess what? That ends up being exhausting. To forgive
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is to set ourselves free. If forgiveness is genuine, I invite you to offer it.

And if it's truly not genuine, ask yourself, can you really get there? Can you get to a place
where you forgive this person and move on and restore a healthy and balanced relationship
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and if you cannot, then I invite you to take actions that reflect that instead of staying there in
that relationship and just holding on to it ever it's hurting you and the unwillingness to forgive.
Alright, remember that clear your conscious exercise that we did earlier? Well, here's part two,
and it is called Meet your partner or your part. Pick one of the things you discovered earlier that
you should not have done or that you failed to do in the clear conscious exercise in use the
repair practice to clean it up. If this is your first time in the course, write out your repair in your
journal. Once you're done, look back over it for signs of justification. Look for complaining or
blame or offloading responsibility to the other person. Often those things will sneak up and rear
their ugly heads the first time that we go to do the repair process. If this is your second time in
the course, practice your apology, your impact your empathy, your validation, practice all of
that in the mirror. And if this is your third time in the course work together with your partner
going through the whole rupture repair process together. To recap, in this module, we defined
trust, we talked about the key ingredients of a trustworthy person congruence, honesty and
integrity. We talked about some of the most common ways that trust is broken. We cleared our
conscience through a journaling exercise. We learned all about rupture and the three key
pieces of repair, apologizing, repairing and forgiving, and then we practice them. There's a lot
well now we have the tools to restore trust. Let's dive into our next module on sexy safety, the
inevitable result of trust. I'll see you over there.

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