Dragging Your Partner Through Change

I said heads are very logic-based, fact and all of those things.

That's the way I look at going through change, is just weighing it all out in some giant pro and con spreadsheet in my head, but let's talk about hearts and how you guys go through change.

'Cause it's a little bit different.

Right, and I wanna back up because I think people don't have the, the same definitions perhaps, and I wanna make sure we're all kinda clear, so we're talking about changes in a life.

So this could be anything from a, a retirement, an empty nest, a, a, a wedding, a divorce, a breakup.

It could be the, the birth of, of some, a child, a grandchild.

It could be a death, a funeral.

Um, all kinds of changes that we all experience as we go through life.

So the change is the event.

You know, the retirement date is X.

The baby is due or, or is born on this date.

But the transition is what we're talking about, which is different because we're not just talking about the changes.

We're talking about the impact it has either personally or as a couple.

So transitions require that we take some time and process them, whether we're heart or head.

So Randy's question then was how does a heart look at changes? So the way that I would, uh, generalize that is we're gonna look at this, this change, this event and what that means emotionally, and we do as a heart look at what am I losing or what am I gaining.

So for a heart, if it's something that is all pluses, if we view, "Oh, I'm getting married and this is all gonna be great," we tend to be very excited about it and happy and tell everyone [laughs] and, you know, and, and show that, express that.

If it's something like, uh, a parent dying or a funeral or, or sometimes even a, a job change where, you know, we, we may not be as happy about the job change, then we can be a lot more worried about the losses and, and grieving that.

that.Everybody's brain hates change.

That's just true.

Even if you are getting a promotion, you're gonna make more money, or you finally got the job you want, or you're getting married, or, or a baby's coming, all of these things are, are, are generally positive changes in a person.

And even if you go, "Oh, yay, I'm excited about this change," there are parts of your brain that are gonna fight with you about that change, that are gonna make it a little bit harder to go through that transition, to get used to that new kinda life.

Specifically, uh, talking about things like the amygdala, which is our fear center in our brain.

What it's doing up there is going, "Well, everything else is unknown, and the unknown is scary.

I don't know how this is gonna work out." Uh, but doubt is there, and, and so the unknown freaks the amygdala out.

It does not like the unknown.