Dr. Kathryn Ford is a renowned couples therapist, psychiatrist, and author of the new book "The Aperture Effect: A Radically Simple Approach to Finding Joy and Connection in Your Relationship".
561: Navigating Relationship Challenges
Kathryn Ford
In this episode of the Mindful Mama podcast, Hunter Clarke-Fields talks with Dr. Kathryn Ford about her book, The Aperture Effect — a powerful guide to emotional openness in relationships. They explore:
What “emotional aperture” is and why it matters for connection
How to create emotional safety with your partner
Using mindfulness to transform the way we communicate
Practical tools for navigating hard conversations
The role of positive interactions in building lasting bonds
Why asking for help can be a relationship strength
Dr. Ford shares wisdom and actionable steps to help couples deepen connection, improve communication, and thrive together.
Ep 561- Ford
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Hunter (00:05)
You're listening to the Mindful Momma Podcast, episode #561. Today we're talking about navigating relationship challenges with Dr. Kathryn Ford.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama Podcast, it's coming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course and Teacher Training, author of the international bestseller "Raising Good Humans", "Raising Good Humans Everyday" and the "Raising Good Humans Guided Journal".
Are you in a relationship with a partner? Because I am and it's not always easy peasy, lemon squeezy as we know. so you're going to be happy. Welcome by the way, of course to the podcast. I am welcoming you here as well, but I want to let you know that we are talking today to Dr. Kathryn Ford, a renowned couples therapist, psychiatrist, and author of the new book, the aperture effect- a radically simple approach to finding joy and connection in your relationship. And we're going to talk about this idea of aperture openness and you know, how we can build lasting bonds and strengthen our relationships. think it's so important. So if you are in a relationship, you're going to want to listen to this. If you know anyone who's in one, you may want to share it with them. And that's what we're talking about. So let's get to it. Join me at the table as I talk to Dr. Kathryn Ford.
Dr. Kathryn Ford, thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama Podcast.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: I'm really happy to be here. I'm very impressed with what you're doing and it's dear to my heart what you're doing with your podcast. So, happy to be here.
Hunter: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed diving into your book. Of course, I always want to know about things that will make relationships better. And we're going be talking about partner relationships, couples, and your book is called "The Aperture Effect": tell us about how you define aperture and aperture awareness. Because I think it's such an interesting concept.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: "Aperture" came about one day, I was working with a couple, and it was during a period where I was doing some teaching to therapists, and I was trying to figure out what is it that I'm doing that makes my couple's work feel successful? What do I need to convey to them? And so was paying attention through that lens. And what I noticed was it's about how open these two people are together. So therapists, and laypeople I think these days are a little bit encumbered with lot of models of psychology and this is your communication style and this is your love language, et cetera. But what I was noticing is really what I was paying attention to to figure out how to be helpful was their openness to each other. And so when I was describing it to them one day, I said, so here's the deal. It's like there's an opening between the two of you, sort of like an aperture. And at certain moments it's too closed for you guys to really talk, hear each other, et cetera. And then the word kind of stuck with me and I started to use it a little bit more with other couples. And it seemed like instantly people knew what I was talking about. So aperture is really a word for openness and it means our openness for contact with other people. Nature actually is full of all kinds of apertures, the apertures in our eyes that let in light or not. And when you look at biology, you see all kinds of regulations of openness or closeness.
So it's very prominent throughout the natural world. But what I'm talking about is emotional aperture, openness for contact, am I available? And I guess what else I learned about that was that people have a felt sense of that. When I first discovered this idea of the openness being kind of the key to everything else, I thought, okay, so my job must be to teach people to sense their openness.
And then I had a very interesting moment in a session not long after that where I was watching two people talk and he was talking to her and she was starting to close down. And as she started to close down, he talked faster. And as she started to close down more, he talked faster and louder. And then he started to repeat himself. by now she's really like tight closed, nothing is happening. So I said, "Hold on a second". And I turned to him and I said, "what's happening right now?" And he said, "well, she's completely closed down". And I said, "so if you knew that, why did you keep talking?" And he said, I didn't know what else to do. And then the light bulb went off for me. It's not that people don't sense this. We naturally sense this as we're in contact, but we don't know what to do with it. so we kind of, you know, we often screen things out, screen things in. We don't pay attention to it because we don't know it's usefulness. And so then I realized, no, my job is to help people understand all the importance of that and how they can use this sensation of openness to have better conversations with each other and better contact.
Hunter: This is like about attention, right? To me, it screams mindfulness because this is about your attentional openness. know that if I am very much focused on one thing and I'm focusing on a lot, my attention is closed to other things. And so when people are open to listening, they are then attentive to their partner. They're looking at them, they're thinking about what they're saying, they're thinking about what they're not saying. They're maybe not- hopefully maybe not totally in the dialogue in their head, what causes the apertures to become closed? What causes us to become, you know, that partner when he could see her becoming closed, closing, closing. What is causing that for that person?
Dr. Kathryn Ford: Okay, that's a really big question. And so let's figure out where we want to go with it. First, I want to say that you're exactly right. This is an aspect of attention. I think of aperture awareness as a subset of mindfulness. It's a certain place to place your mindfulness. And it very much is about the in the moment openness. We're not talking about, like if I were to ask you, is your partner open to you? You might give me an answer that's kind of the summation of the last three months, three years, three decades, whatever. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the momentary opening and closing, because as people are in contact with each other, aperture is a very fluid thing. In a certain way, aperture is another word for what we sometimes refer to as defenses. But when I hear the word defenses, it kind of invokes something like a wall, something static, something hard bust through it or not. Whereas really what's going on is aperture is invokes the idea of something that's constantly in motion. It opens, it closes, and that's the way we are with each other. If you've ever watched a sea anemone, you know, it's constantly kind of opening and closing. that's, so yes, it's a momentary thing. Now, what would cause somebody's aperture to close down?
First of all, there is what I think of as a chronic aperture, like the state of the relationship. Is it in a really good state? which case, chronic apertures, the usual aperture is kind of open. But the in the moment changes happened because of so many minute things that happened during a conversation. I see a word that's kind of like a trigger word for you, a word that you don't like. And that could close you down. My tone of voice. The biggest thing that closes us down, oddly enough, and this is a bit circular, is the other person's closed aperture. So when people say, how do I get my partner to be open to me? The number one answer for that is check your own openness because they're responding to your openness. Now that doesn't mean that if you're open, they always are, but the first place to look and often people are surprised to see their partner closed because they weren't paying attention inside of themselves to their own aperture and the fact that they were actually becoming closed down partner starts to sense this, all of this is going on not quite at a fully conscious level, it's kind of bubbling out of the surface, but we can become conscious about it. Just like in mindfulness, you can become aware of things that were kind of in the background or out of sight, out of mind. So the number one place to look is, I open right now? And if I'm not, what do I need to be more open and what does my partner need?
So what I advise people to do and what I teach people to do when I'm working with couples is make sure that you, number one place for your attention is aperture. If you lose, you cannot pay attention to everything that's going on when you're talking to somebody. As you noted, it's multifarious and too many things. So, but never lose sight of aperture, especially if you start to feel uncomfortable. Something's going off a little bit. Number one place to check in is how open am I right now, and how open do I sense that the other person is? And usually that's a moment where you need to actually literally check in with the other person and say, you know, I'm feeling like we're getting a little tight here. Do you sense that? And what do you need right now to be a little bit more open to what I'm saying? That kind of interaction.
Hunter (11:15)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
It seems like it's very tied to sort of our nervous system, fight, flight or freeze, sort of the sense of safety, right? And I imagine this is tricky because you're describing couples in a situation where maybe they're trying to be, share something intimate or share something maybe challenging or talk about things that can be hard to talk about. And those can naturally lead to a sense of like not feeling safe. Right? So, I guess that seems tricky to navigate. Like say if you have something you want to talk about and it's making you feel nervous about your relationship or and that sense of fight, flight or freeze is happening and kind of closing you. You need to talk about this thing. I mean, that's sort of a tricky balance to navigate, I guess.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: Absolutely. The thing is when we start to get uncomfortable emotionally in a conversation, our tendency is to speed up. It's almost like you get scared and so you press on the gas instead of the brake. What you should do is press on the brake. So number one thing that I've found helpful for couples is the slow down idea that when you start to get uncomfortable, slow it down, check in with your own aperture, check in with the other person. Yes, a lot of conversations, and I would almost say maybe all conversations between partners or between anybody that we really have a major relationship with, our children, parents, almost all of those have an emotional soundtrack that's going on, and it's often not comfortable, maybe even in minor ways. mean, even a conversation about- or are we going out to dinner or not this Thursday, could give you a little emotional jolt. Like if you always go out to dinner on Thursday, why is your partner asking, you know? So that's going to happen. You shouldn't expect that the goal of the conversation is to stay comfortable and not have any closing down. The key is to know what to do when you close down. And so you're constantly working with closing down a little bit, reopening. You're trying to check in often enough about that, that you don't get to the absolute closed down place at which point you're going to need a nice big time out to recover. There's something called flooding, emotional flooding. And what that means physiologically is you've been in overdrive long enough, you've been stressed long enough, and sometimes it only takes a few minutes in important conversation, that now your endocrine system has dumped a lot of cortisol and adrenaline into your bloodstream. and you're in hyper warp.
And in that state, you can't think very clearly, you can't listen well, you can't even speak well. I for me, I know I'm in that state when I'm trying to express something and I'm like, know, grasping for the words and they're not coming, that tells me I'm flooded. And once you're flooded, a small pause isn't gonna do it because you're gonna have to wait for your bloodstream to clear of those chemicals that are over-stimulating you. And that takes about 20 minutes. And it's kind of hardwired, like it's not that negotiable. And so one of the skills for people is to know that in addition to taking small pauses to check in, to see about reopening a little bit, you need to know that if by chance you get to a point where either one of you is flooded, you need to call a timeout and then you need to go apart for about 20 minutes so that everybody's nervous system gets a chance to settle down.
And then you might resume or you might say, you know, let's talk about this again tomorrow or whatever. The key for calling the timeout, because some people get uncomfortable with that, is to make sure that you indicate, I'm not saying I won't talk to you about this, but this isn't going well right now and I need a break.
Hunter: Yeah, it's amazing. That all makes so much sense. And it's really interesting to me, like as a student of the Zen Master, Thich Nhat Hanh, that's always what he would say. Like, it's so interesting how he intuitively knew all these, had knew these things, like, okay, I am not in a place where I can listen right now. And you would tell you to go mindfully walk or whatever for 20 minutes, right?
Dr. Kathryn Ford: And you know, it's so interesting that that was kind of the instruction and it really jives. I mean, this is interesting, but I think maybe we're at like a little bit of an advanced state. mean, I imagine this is, we're talking for couples who are really ready to listen and talk to each other, right? But a lot of couples are stuck in the same recurring arguments. They're blaming each other on things. let's maybe take a step back and kind of help see if we can move people who are stuck in that kind of cycle towards being able to even dialogue in this way with a little more understanding.
I like that question a lot, Hunter, because you're right. A lot of people are like, okay, but we can't do that. So let's look at what is the starting place. Let's say I often talk about spirals in relationship, downward spirals and upward spirals. Usually when a couple would describe themselves as we're in a really bad place or we're in a crisis in our relationship or we need a therapist or whatever, they're in a downward spiral.
And it feels like things are just getting worse. No matter what they do, things get worse. They can't talk anymore. So let's talk about what would you do if you recognize we're in that place. We really can't even talk anymore and we're really in trouble. What would you do first? The first thing you might do is to tell your partner, and if words aren't working right then you might write them a little note. Say, I care about this relationship. I can tell that we're really not good with each other right now, whatever your language is. And I want to do something about that and I don't know how, will you help me? The question automatically, as you can feel, I can even feel it in my avatar, it opens you a little bit. It's like, you're asking for help.
Most of us respond well when the other person is in need and they admit it and they say, I need your help. It tends, we tend to have a good response. On the other hand, when we need help, but we get kind of defensive and we don't admit it, we get kind of aggressive. The other person can't respond helpfully because the signal they're getting is aggression as opposed to, I could use some help here. So that would be one first step. Another first step would be remember to- that you can build, you can rebuild a positive context in ways other than confronting the problems, confronting your partner, having a hard conversation. And the hard conversations really, whether it's in the upward spiral or downward spiral, the context is everything. John Gottman, whose work I admire a lot, and he did a lot of really great research on what makes a good couple a good couple.
One of the things that he found is in a couple that's doing well, about five to one of their interactions are positive. So what you can definitely do right away is start to pay attention to that fabric of life that's building in the positives. Instead of complaining that dinner was late, you omit that comment and instead you say, thanks a lot for cooking dinner again. I really appreciate that you do that and you do it so well. Now just imagine like your partner may be, "wait, what, thought we were fighting, right?" But it builds in a little sense of, maybe we're not always fighting, you know? And so you start to look at, for every place that you can build in a positive experience for your partner, for yourself, little tiny moments. Thanks for parking my car. I was in a rush when I got home and I just left it in the street. You know, it's simple. Sometimes when I describe this positive context thing to people and give them these examples, they say, well, let's just table stakes.
You know, we're expected to do those things because we're partners. There isn't anything such thing as table stakes in a relationship. Throw that idea out. It's a bad idea because really all these things that we're calling table stakes, like these are the things that we kind of owe each other because we're together. They're not owed at all. These are the things that come out of the generosity of one's heart and the wellbeing of their spirit and the fact that they care about you, the relationship, their life- nothing is to be taken for granted. Being a human being is really difficult. Everybody can relate to that. And so even the grace to be a little less sharp on a day that you've got a pounding headache and you didn't sleep well, that takes a lot of effort. And so just speaking kindly in the morning to your partner sometimes is a big deal and it needs to be noticed. And thanks for that sweet good morning. It made my day better. often, so you build in all this positive.
Then you might try very gently a little bit of conversation and start with something easy. Don't start with the hardest thing. Don't start with the place that makes you want to tear your hair out. And the other thing is to give a little warning like tonight I'd like to try to talk about who's doing the dishes because I'm having some feelings about that. Would that be okay? And so again, you're asking permission. You're asking, can you give me a green light here? I'd really like to try this.
And you need to be okay with a no. If your partner might say, no, we can't talk about that, it's too loaded for me. And okay, well then you have to figure out something else. And so then you might say, well, I'd like to start some conversations. Where do you think we should start? So again, as you're noticing, there's a lot of inviting the other person rather than telling. And there's a lot of almost tentativeness. Like, don't run before you can walk: move forward gently and slowly so that you both have a chance to try some new things and get past some old patterns. Do you think that's something that people can relate to?
Hunter: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think as you're talking about this, it makes so much sense. Yet, I worry about like the moms, right? The majority of the listeners here are moms. Moms are like carrying so much of the mental load. may have been because the way it was, you know, the lack of support in our country, the way they, when the kids were born, they ended up doing a lot more of the things, ended up being and heavier workload at home, also doing maybe, you know, working as well. And I guess I chaff a little for the mom who's like doing all this stuff, maybe feeling some resentment and then is like, so tentative about talking to her partner about it. I mean, that doesn't feel right to me somehow. I don't know.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: So let's think about it through that lens, because you're totally right. I think what I would say is, first of all, yes, the moms need to acknowledge that that is their experience. That's a lot of women's experience. Some men's who are the stay-at-home parent also have some of those experiences, former the women. So here's the deal: it's also, women are carrying this extra load. The other extra load they're sometimes carrying is the load of paying attention to the relationship. Not always. And I've definitely worked with couples where the man was more on top of what the relationship needed and was the person to say, let's call the therapist. But I think historically, because of the way we came up through generations and generations and generations of evolution, women are a little bit more attuned in the relationship.
So what does that mean if you're a woman and you're in a relationship with a man? First of all, there's almost always one person in a relationship that is more aware of the relationship. So let's start there. It's hardly ever both people are, and both people are equally. So somebody in the relationship is the person that's more aware of what the relationship is doing and needing. Usually it's the woman on top of everything else that she's keeping track of. So what does that mean? It might mean that she has to figure out that if she wants to go forward, there is going to have to be some teaching and sensitizing of her partner. In other words, to expect that the partner is going to come in with equal skills and awareness might be a non-starter. And I think for a lot of women it is, and they get very frustrated and upset, but sometimes you have to start where you can start.
Sometimes I say that the word responsibility means response ability. And what that means to me in relationship is the person that is able to respond well needs to respond well. And ideally you'd like that to be shared 50-50 at least, maybe even more the other person. But what if it's not? What if it's really you that has your eye on what the relationship needs? You may have to proceed very slowly. First step might be you have to, you might need to recognize I love this person and they have a lot of good qualities, but one of them isn't keeping track of what's going on in the relationship with me, with the kids, with the family. That's really not their strong suit. But I'd sort of like them to get better at it. And then you have to realize that that means the starting place can't be, this has to be 50-50 and it has to go to 50-50 tomorrow.
It has to be, really want this, let me see what's possible. And with anybody, whether it's a partner or your kids, I think our relationships with our kids are such a good example of this because children are capable of different things at different stages of life. And if we expect a one-year-old to do what a two-year-old can do or a three-year-old to do what a five-year-old can do, it's like, again, it's a non-starter. We have to adjust our expectations as well as our own part of the interaction to meet the person where they are. And I think for a lot of women that means realizing that it is disappointing. You do wish that you had more help with this relationship part of things. And that doesn't mean that your partner can't learn it. It may not even mean that they don't want to learn it. A lot of men are open to learning this kind of thing, but they sometimes need help with that. I guess the other answer would be that I think this is part of why people do go to a therapist is because they feel like, wait a second, not my job, you know? And so, you know, sometimes it's time to think in terms of, could we get a therapist? I think of couples therapy, and maybe all therapy, but especially couples therapy as coaching as opposed to fixing. Couples have difficulty because being a couple is really hard, not because somebody's broken or the relationship is broken.
And so that shift, think, hopefully upload some of the stigma of that. It's sort of like piano lessons. Yeah, you could learn all by yourself, but you might learn a little faster if you got a teacher for a few lessons. And so to go to a cobalt therapist and just, and if your partner is nervous about that, again, start small, say, you know, I think we're going to need some help and I don't frankly know how to do it- and I'm not sure you do, would you be willing to go meet with a couple of therapists? That's different than will you go to therapy with me, which sounds big, endless, scary to some people. You start slow, like I'd like to just check this out. If I get a couple of names, would you be willing to meet with a couple of people? And you go for a one-session commitment, like will you just go meet the person? And then you might go for some, well, if we both like that person, how about if we meet with them for three or four times and just kind of see what happens? Often that's a way to take the load. Get a mediator, get help, all right? Get help, get help. You can't do it all, you don't have to do it all and find a way to make it okay that you can get some help. The other reason I think people can feel very alone, a slightly different thing, which is- I think that part of what hampers our couple's relationships is they are so hidden. It's almost like a magician's act. The important stuff is done out of sight. Couples don't easily, I mean, occasionally you might have a best friend that's a couple that they, the four of you might sit around and talk about your relationship, but very rare. I'm a therapist and many of my friends are therapists and even so I might have one or two couples relationships where we can kind of talk about what's going on on the inside of our couples, but it's really vulnerable, sensitive territory. And so we miss out on learning what's normal, what are other people doing, what are their problems, how are they solving them? It is not visible. Years ago, I wanted to teach some workshops for couples. And I really wanted to do this. I thought it'd be great.
But my nervousness was I thought, couples even come to a workshop where they're with other couples and they're there to talk about their couple? Will they even do that? Well, what I found really surprised me, which is not only would they do it, they really appreciated it. And when I got the feedback forms afterwards, the reviews of how my teaching was, almost always one of the things they liked the best and sometimes the very best was it was so great to be able to sit and talk with other couples about what it's like to be a couple. Now that doesn't mean they shared the most intimate details. It means just being in the room and laughing a little bit about the frustrations that are shared across all couples was a relief because it normalizes something that we don't know. Like, is it normal for us to have this much trouble? Like, are other couples having this much trouble?
And you don't know. And so part of it also is taking away a little bit of the secrecy and just admitting and starting with to yourself, being a couple is really challenging. It's a lot of learning. It's a lot of really hard learning. It's not really supposed to be easy if you're doing it right. It takes a lot of learning about mindfulness, learning attention, learning patience, learning generosity, learning how to communicate. I mean, my goodness. And where we learn those things as adults and where we get better at them is in our most important relationships very often with our partner.
Hunter (32:50)
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Well, it's interesting because it reminds me of parenting too, because that's not something that is, that is something that's also hidden, right? Like it's hidden in the family more or less, and it's something that's vulnerable to talk about and share, you know, how, how things are going in different ways. so yeah, they, there's a lot of relating to that. mean, and yeah, it does, of course, like it's, it's work- challenge because we're always growing and changing. I mean, sometimes I think it's so strange that we, I mean, especially with like a couple in a monogamous relationship, know, sometimes I think it's so strange. this, for the first time in human history, people are trying to be together for so many, many, many years because it used to be one of them would die or we were in hunter-gatherers and no one was monogamous. It was all different situations and now there's a lot of pressure and challenge and we don't have the support of the, I guess the stress relievers of the village or the people around you to kind of take some of the pressure off of the relationship.
So there's a lot of pressure on the relationship just cause it's being asked to be so many things. My husband and were talking about this the other day and that he had read an article about men and men's friendships and there's a crisis today and men and loneliness and things like that. And this article talked about how before we, when we had like arranged marriages or it was just, know, where men, before people married for love and relationship, then men had very intimate friendships, right? Like they had very intimate friendships, like men used to, I guess, Lincoln and, you know, in times back in the day, like men used to walk down the street holding hands and they would profess their love to each other and letters and things like that. And that doesn't happen anymore. And they sort of trace that to like when they started marrying women or in general in a heterosexual couple, like for love rather than just like we are merging these two families. But anyway, yeah, just to say there's lot of pressure on relationships. mean, do you have any suggestions for how to take some of the pressure off and just kind of cultivate maybe more play, less stress in a relationship?
Dr. Kathryn Ford: Right. Let me go there. First, I'll say also what you described also as a part of the secrecy because back in the days where we lived in large extended family groups and small villages communities, was less, how can I say, the workings of other people's relationships were a little bit more on view for Barrett. You kind of did know what kinds of fights your neighbor was having or the fact that they never fought. never talked, you you didn't have as much secrecy and as much privacy. We love our privacy, but we've paid a few prices for it, this being one of them. So how do you take the pressure off? First thing that comes to mind related to what you were just talking about is make sure that you're not trying to get everything from this one person, especially after the kids come along.
But in any relationship, one of the things you can do to help your partnership is to make sure you have other good relationships going on, either with other family members, other community members of all kinds. mean, there are a variety of relationships. I think this is particularly difficult for introverts. I know something about that because I am an introvert. And so for me, a big part of what I find I need to do is to make sure that I spend time with other people than my partner and to make sure that I actively cultivate other relationships. And in the old days, when I didn't do that as much, I think it was too much pressure on me and too much pressure on my husband to fill too many needs. So make sure that this isn't the only relationship where you're getting your needs met is number one.
And the other thing is, I think this thing about normalizing and respecting and honoring what it is you're trying to do. If you're only trying to peaceably cohabit already, that's kind of difficult. Ask anybody who's just got a roommate. They're not even romantic partners. I mean, it's not that easy to cohabitate with somebody else. And now you had kids to the mix. That part alone is really difficult. So a little respect for and understanding of the magnitude of how difficult it is that you're, what you're trying to do. And therefore give yourself a break, give your partner a break. And yes, keep the bar high in terms of your vision of what's possible. We need that vision because being a, being in a relationship is really hard and it's too hard to do for something that's just what you're settling for or just okay. So you need a kind of a high-minded vision about this is what might be possible in terms of comfort, intimacy, security, all of that. Keep the vision before you, but realize that's a vision of what you're learning to do. And so I guess the third thing I would say is to realize you can learn to do this, but it takes learning and you're not gonna arrive at this vision of your relationship just because you put a ring on somebody's finger. The ring is simply a commitment to learn these things. And the learning is lifelong and it's really difficult
And anybody that tells you it's not difficult isn't doing it. It is really difficult. And so don't think that you're on the wrong track if it's really hard. Be prepared. This is going to be hard. And that's why sometimes you need to take it a little slower, lower your expectations temporarily, find a way to move forward gently is what I would say, because it's hard.
Hunter: Yeah, I mean, to wrap it up here, you know, if there is a listener who is feeling discouraged, they're feeling distant from their partner, what's one thing you'd want them to do today? Something grounded, something hopeful to start creating connection again.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: First of all, know that that's a normal feeling and that don't give up before you've tried the right experiments. And the right experiments have to do with learning. They don't have to do with if I cook you a good dinner, then you should be nice to me. That's a good experiment, but it's really the beginning, not the end. Often people, it's like I sometimes say, you can't shoe a horse with an egg.
Um, it's not because- You're a horse with an egg! Shoot! Shoo! Shoo a horse! Can't you a horse with an egg? Shoot a horse with an egg? You can't shoot a horse. Like put a sh- Horse! you're like the farrier shotting a horse. You're not gonna put an egg on that Don't shoot the horse. Okay, all right, all right. You can't
You shoe on it. You have two horse with a leg horse, which means that there's nothing wrong with the egg and there's nothing wrong with the horse and there's nothing wrong with you, but you can't shoot a horse with an egg. And what that means is you have to do the right experiments. And usually what we do is we do the experiments we know how to do. And then when they don't work, we do them again and again and again. And then we start to conclude this is impossible.
So I'm almost certain that some of the people that are listening to this have come to that place where this feels like it could be impossible. Don't declare it impossible until you do the right experiments. And the right experiments have to do with learning to be mindful and to be really aware of what's happening right now, learning to use the moment to figure out how can I be a little bit more open to you and help you therefore be open to me? And what can we learn together and how can we team up to learn what we need to learn so that we both like being in this relationship better? And so again, take it slow, take it gentle, but don't give up until you've figured out the right experiments. And the other thing I would say is, some help. If it's too soon to go for couple therapy, you're too afraid or your partner's too afraid, grab a good book and learn about relationships and figure out a few things and try some new experiments. Try the thing that you didn't know how to do until you read about it in Kathryn Ford's book. And then do that and talk to your partner about the fact that you're really trying to do some new things and that you want to team up about it.
Hunter: I love that. I'm hearing curiosity, baby steps, going gently rather than reaching- going gently and I think a lot of respect for the difficulty of this challenge. It is difficult and if you figure out how to do the learning, can also be very rewarding.
Well, Catherine, thank you so much for doing what you're doing, helping people and "The Aperture Effect" is available everywhere books are sold. Check it out. There's lots of great stuff in there. I really enjoyed it. And thank you for coming on the podcast and talking to me. I really, really appreciate it. If people want to find you, where can they talk to you more?
Kathryn Ford: My website is KathrynFordMD.com and that's the best place to go to see everything. I also am on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and all those avenues, but the best place to find everything is on my website, including they'll find contact information on there.
Hunter: All right, awesome. Yeah, thank you again. This has been awesome. I've really, really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks for coming on.
Dr. Kathryn Ford: Thank you so much, Hunter.
Hunter (46:26)
I may need to listen to this one again. Yes, Dr. Kathryn Ford, so powerful. I hope it was helpful for you. It was certainly helpful for me. And I hope this makes your week a little bit better. Let me know what you thought. I'm @MindfulMamaMentor on social media. So feel free to send me a message. I respond. I like chatting. If you got time to chat, I know you got busy life.
But yeah, let me know. I'd love to hear what you think. And of course I will be back next week to have another awesome conversation for you. And I can't wait to connect with you then. I really appreciate you being here and listening and I'm wishing you peace and joy and moments of, you know, just letting it all go and being here on earth in this crazy life. Yeah. All right. Talk to you again soon. Namaste.
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