Transcript: 

You Had Me at Hello: Falling in Love, Not into Anxiety

 

Welcome to the Us & Kids podcast. I'm your host Jan Talen. I'm excited to have you here with me today because we get to talk about old movies and falling in love and how that helps us stay out of that anxiety muck hole. So just so you know, I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And this Us & Kids podcast is all about how to be married forever while you parent together. It's not an easy task. So I encourage you, subscribe to the Us & Kids podcast in your favorite app. I'm glad you're here. Let's make your home and your family and your marriage fulfilling and really good.

 

So I have a little story for you. Recently, my husband and I were sitting on the couch, but we do that almost every night next to each other and then we watch part of a show or something that is somewhat boring and relaxing, but we wondered our usual wonder, what do you want to watch? And we sighed like, I don't know. We don't like blood and guts and gore. We don't like sex. We don't like drama. We don't like people yelling at each other. So it gets to be a little slim pickings sometimes it seems. But my husband Chip said, Hey, let's watch Jerry Maguire. It's a movie. It's an old movie from the past. And I looked to him and I said, I don't think I've ever seen that movie. Well you know, you could just understand there are lots of things. I don't remember if I've just sat down and just relaxed and enjoyed them. I've gone in the moment and maybe not much more than that so he could bring me to the same place several times and I'll go, that was so fun. We've never been there before. You know, he could get away with it cause I don't always remember all those details. Anyways, he said, wow, let's, and then he starts to rattle off quotes. So he was testing my memory to see what I knew and whether or not I was just bluffing him about not remembering this movie.

 

Oh you had me at hello? I think I've heard that before, but it was like, I've heard it from other people before. I don't think I've ever aligned it with a movie. So anyways, long story short, we sat back and we turned on that movie and we watched it together. It was fun. And towards the end of the movie, there's a rerun of a sentence that I think was more in the middle of the movie and it was the sentence where they looked at each other and one of them just said underneath their breath, listen to me, not remember the details, just the line, you had me at hello. And I looked my husband Chipper in the eye and I said to him, you had me at your brown eyes.

 

What created that first spark of hormones and chemicals for Chipper and I were his brown eyes. And every time I look into those beautiful brown eyes, I melt all over again. So I'm sort of going to invite you. What helped you fall into love and what helps us fall into love? What helps us stay in love? Because those are important components and we'll talk more about them when you join the course DNA for fun, a communications course that we'll talk about how to connect and then the falling in love part with our spouse but also with our children. Different events, different in some ways but very similar in other ways, requires some of that spark of hormones and chemicals.

When did you first melt? When did your first kiss and your foot pop off the floor like a yup, I like this? If we fall in love and we stay in love, did you know that that often can help us not fall as deeply into that quiet black muck of anxiety? I wonder for you, I thought about it myself. What's more dangerous for you when your heart is full of anxiety or when your heart is full of love? Both of them have risk, so the question was sincere. What's more dangerous for you when your heart is full of anxiety or when your heart is full of love because they both have risk. Another question, which emotion is better for your body systems and for your brain balance so that your brain isn't so funky? Is anxiety better for you because it keeps you more heightened and aware and being in love makes you a little lazy or less attuned and in tune with the acute details?

 

What is better for you? It's a sincere question, but it's good to know. And what emotion do you know more? Is your body and brain more connected to being in love and feeling that in a safe way or is your body and brain more connected and responsible to being in anxiety? And that's where your body and your brain become really connected? Well, I'm sort of hoping that you said the answer to the first two questions was, Oh no, it's more dangerous for me to be full of love, but it's also way better for me and my body and my brain are happily connected when they're there and I recognize the risk. But I also recognize the strength that I get from it. Let's for a few minutes. What does it take to fall in love and to stay in love? And what do you do when love is being buried in that black hole anxiety?

 

I'm trying really hard to not focus is totally on the virus that is going on in our world. However, I am well aware that when couples have to stay home in this kind of unanticipated space, that the anxiety could grow quite big and begin to bury the love that's around you and within you. And so that's part of the reason why I'm talking about this is because I want you, I would encourage you to work towards the love we talk about here. It is a very, very powerful tool in terms of avoiding the blackness that anxiety can bring into a household. So let's talk about love for a few minutes. Okay. What does it take to fall in love? This is fall in love, not stay. We're going to do that in a few minutes, but this is fall in love. And the first answer is it takes chemicals.

 

Did you know that? Oh yes. It takes chemicals and hormones running around in our brain and multiplying like crazy. Those chemicals are supposed to be as noisy as your children are these days. We need dopamine and serotonin, norepinephrine, and when those all mixed together, this isn't exactly chemically correct, but when they all mixed together, we end up with oxytocin and that's not exactly true, but that's sort of how it works. Okay? Because when we get dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, all together, we get courage, we get pleasure, we get daring and we get, Ooh, I like this and our confidence goes up. Our joy goes up. Our ability to overlook the little things that don't need to matter goes up and that helps it so that through the day we can say it's going fine. Well, where do we get those from? Right?

 

This is how it starts. In the beginning. Do you remember how you fell in love? For me, it was those brown eyes of Chipper, right? The sound of his voice, the look on his face. When we finally went on a date, holding his hand, feeling his hug, all of those things look, touch, smell, sound, bounce around in our brain and turn on the hormones. They add a spark of interest in safety and courage and energy and they all come together and mix up really well in a pretty good balance. That's when we go, Oh, they're calling. Oh, they texted. Oh, I'm so glad to hear their home. And if we're five or seven or 10 years into marriage, we don't always show it. I'm gonna encourage you in this time a life show it. Say you had me at your brown eyes. Say you had me at your quirky smile or the way you sang to me.

 

Say it again and again, because the visual, the smell, the touch and the sounds are still good. They still turn on the hormones now, not as fast because there are other spaces that have built in the bonding connections for us. But these hormones and those interactions of sweet sounds, good smells, like brush your teeth, right? Take a shower, wash your face, shave that beard a little bit, shave your legs, add a little bit things there that add a little bit of balance to the hormones. You're right. Your body shape might be in a bit of a different shape, but your pretty eyes and your sweet smile, your beautiful voice, your gentle touch, your giggle. Well I'm hoping those are still intact, right? So use them to send love to your spouse and to your kids and then breathe out and absorb what your spouse sends back.

 

Do it together like it did when you dated. Flirt, that is what I'm saying. You're exactly right. That's what I'm saying. Flirt a little bit. Play with your kids. Relax and let those hormones bounce up and down. What we want is the hormones to have at least a bit of a steady drip into your brain and into your body. When you first started dating, it was probably more like the faucet was on full blast. Okay, but now real life has happened and you have real stress. So what are we going to do to keep the drip going? And this is where our relationship develops. We add things to keep it going. It becomes a little bit more complex of a recipe, but it's still a good recipe. The basics have to be there. So what are we adding to this recipe? Tender touch. Often when we're doing kids and the kids have been all over us and touching us and climbing on our backs and in our arms and we've been nursing and maybe we've been baby wearings.

 

We have one on our front and one on her back and another one hanging on her leg who wants touch except for a non-sexual touch, maybe even a sexual touch of a shoulder rub of an arm around. A good bear hug can really help up the level of that drip of those other hormones and that lowers the anxiety and ups the room for falling in love. Now add a sweet word, words of affirmation. Thank you for letting the kids hang all over you. Thank you for getting the dishes out of the den and into the kitchen at least. Thank you for cleaning up that spilled milk. For flushing that kid's toilet. Whatever it is, those little words of affirmation pleases and thank you as you did a good job at that. Whew. Good thing we did that together. Those are important and they help the drip keep going.

 

Now add little gifts or little acts of kindness. Okay, so sometimes this is, I was at the store and noticed you were out of gum, so I got you a package of gum or you know, we haven't had a sweet treat for a little while. My husband and I were having dessert last night or finding a little dessert and I had a little piece of chocolate caramel and I took it on a plate and I cut it up into fours and he looked at me, he said, I was just thinking we needed a good dessert and we just sort of winked at each other and enjoyed it. It's a little gift. Do little kind things. Make the bed, hang up the towels, close the garage doors, bring the kids' toys in, help each other out. And if you don't know what to do, ask, just ask. And if someone asks, just answer.

 

Don't say, nothing I got it. Actually tell them something that they can do to help because it keeps the love flow going on and as the love flow stays on, the anxiety can stay lower. Now add some self respect and some self-responsibility, self-respect, clean your body, clean your teeth, change your clothes, put your dirty stuff away. It helps everybody when you do that and then be respectable about how you treat yourself. Feed yourself good food, slow down the cigarettes, alcohol, the extra drugs that are out there on the market so that you can bring your real self into the relationship and they can attach to actually you instead of you with alcohol or you with marijuana in your system. That builds respect and connection in the relationship and when you've done something wrong along with self-respect that keeps that love flow dripping is self responsibility.

 

That means that sometimes you're going to say, I'm sorry I blew it and I'd like to do this instead next time and offer an alternative remember to say, Oh, I can help with that, or, Oh, I didn't know that, you are right. I can take care of that. I'll be more aware next time if I can. Otherwise just ask and finally to keep that love flow going. Have attentive time with each other. Okay. Listen and understand. Enter into their world. What's it like for them? If you're both home from work, you're both missing something that work gave you. What's that like for them? Maybe they're enjoying it. Maybe one of you thinks this is awesome and one of you thinks this is awful, but both are real for both of you. And that empathy of saying, yeah, that's hard for you. I can see that helps to lower their anxiety and keeps the two of you connected.

 

So I have a little story for you. A little while ago I was having some childhood flashbacks in the scheme of things in the world, my flashbacks are not awful, but for me this one was powerful in the world situation as it's going on right now, mirrored it in many ways. I have a sense of powerlessness and bewilderment and those senses grew and fill my heart and my mind with worry and despair. I was trying to hide it as I went to bed, but my husband picked it up. He wrapped his arms around me. He kissed me on my cheeks, he listened and then he reminded me of his love and admiration for me. Phew. I came out of the black hole that was trying to eat me in, suck me in, and I went into the eyes and the arms of his love. I'm going to do a little play on this hole idea because this hole that he pulled me back up into this hole of love for me is safe and fun and free.

 

Now many of you know I'm a water person. I like water if it's not raining, I like snow, but I also like water that I can play in and for me a big hole that's filled with water like a big Lake is just that. It's like the arms of love, safe and fun and, and my husband's gentleness, he was very tired and he paused and came right into my world and reminded me that I was okay. I'm not saying that this is a direct way of how to get out of anxiety. A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, we did a different podcast on befriending anxiety and that link will be in the show notes. What I'm saying to you now is that showing love, giving love and absorbing love during this time, attention or any time of tension and unusualness is really helpful to lower the household and the personal anxiety.

 

Remember, I have talked about this mostly from the love marriage relationship because that's just where I experienced it recently. Do not forget our kids sense this distress and they truly need good, solid love and care from us to. The hormones that are released in us when we fall in love, in that romantic way are released with our kiddos. They need to be touched and affirmed and enjoyed and laughed with and encouraged, showed respect and tenderness as much as we do. Don't hold back here, folks. Generously give it away because it will help your kids cooperate with you and trust you and stay connected to you. So my encouragement for you today, if you're going to dive into a whole, put on your life jacket of love and dive in with your tenderness, with your care, with your compassion, with your empathy, with your admiration and your affirmations.

 

Do what a whole lot. Splash it all over the place. You can do it, stick together, make good changes in your own heart and mind and your own relationships so that that muck pond of despair is no where near you. I'm really glad you joined me today. I'm going to just encourage you to remember we have a refresher of this up on the Facebook page often that goes up on Friday as a Facebook live and we have the DNA for fun communications course. What we've done today is to teach you part of the end, part of the necessary skills for really communicating well and then necessary skill we talked about today is about connections. That communications course will be out for individual purchase. Again, I think in the next week or so, keep an eye on the website, but you can also join the wait list and then you'll get a notification when we're and set to go again.

 

Always glad to have you here. You know that and I look forward to talking with you soon. Oh, one more thing. How could I forget? You know, the printables up there, right? So be sure that you go to the website. If you don't see it in the email and download the printable for today as well, helps you just remember it when there's something in your face for you to see more quickly. Alrighty, cheering for you. Thanks again for joining. We'll talk to you later. Bye. Bye.