250: Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT) with Hedy Schleifer

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this episode, Shane talks with Hedy Schleifer about Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT). Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• The Couples Therapist Couch Summary
• Transcript

The Couples Therapist Couch 250: Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT) with Hedy Schleifer

This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more

Get the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new 

Join The Couples Therapist Couch Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/295562197518469/

In this episode, Shane talks with Hedy Schleifer about Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT). Hedy is a Master Relationship Builder, Motivational Speaker, and the Creator of EcT. Hear how EcT was born, how Hedy & Yumi used their relationship as a lab, the unique workshops she’s facilitated around the world, the different types of listening, and EcT-inspired exercises you can do with your clients. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• Why love and deep intimate connection are separate entities
• How hope and dreaming are different
• Our relationship lives in the space between us
• 3 invisible connectors
• The difference between consciousness and presence

To learn more about Hedy Schleifer, visit:

HedySchleifer.com

You can also listen to Hedy on Episode 19 & Episode 71 of The Couples Therapist Couch

 Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below: 

Show Notes

• 250: Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT) with Hedy Schleifer

• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more
• [0:38] Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch 
• [1:15] Welcome back Hedy Schleifer to the show!
• [2:12] How Encounter-centered Transformation (EcT) evolved
• [4:15] A metaphor of the inner elevator
• [6:15] The brain transforms the most during deep connection
• [9:12] What in her practice and personal relationship led to EcT?
• [16:34] Reclaiming our essence in connection
• [19:13] What are the first shifts that Hedy brought to her clients?
• [22:37] How to create joint partnerships
• [23:19] Appreciative enquiry 
• [27:01] Giving your partner what they want, helps you build muscles that sooth your survival pattern
• [29:13] Our relationship lives in the space between us
• [30:45] 3 invisible connectors
• [32:38] The second connector is a bridge
• [34:28] How the encounter shapes your experience of the relationship
• [38:04] This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more
• [39:19] The difference between consciousness and presence
• [40:51] 4 types of listening
• [43:39] The difference between dialogue and generative listening
• [46:47] How to do generative speaking?
• [49:40] The Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges
• [53:01] Hedy's process when working in a couple
• [57:13] What's the importance of non-verbal vs verbal communication?
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP to learn more

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
I just discovered something about myself I didn't know.

00:08
Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now, your host, Shane Birkel.

00:25
Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and the goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to more effectively work with couples and possibly even learn how to have a better relationship. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.

00:54
Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel. And today I'm speaking with Hedy Schleifer, master relationship builder, motivational speaker and creator of encountered centered transformation. Hi, Hedy. Welcome to the show. Hi, Shane.

01:23
I'm so happy to with here with you again. I know you and I have spoken on the show before. So if people find this interesting, they can go back and listen to the previous episodes as well. But why don't you start by telling everyone a little bit more about yourself? I'd like to tell you how the approach that has evolved over the years called encounter

01:52
centered transformation, how it was born. Great. And you know that I'm a psychotherapist and I used to see couples and families and individuals. And I began to realize that I had a closer relationship with my clients, safer, sometimes deeper, sometimes more intimate in terms of

02:21
revealing the inside than I had with my own beloved husband. My husband, Yumi, and I told you this, died two years ago. I miss him terribly, terribly, but I'm learning about grief, that first of all, grief grows. It does not shrink because every new experience I have, I want to share with him.

02:49
So I think we lost more deeply. And then the other thing I'm discovering is that love grows. I'm loving him even more because I can I discover more and more of the richness of his personality as a life. So that's two very big learnings about love. You know, yes. But I realized then that I was very close to.

03:17
clients and that there was a safety I created and an intimacy that grew that I did not have with him at that time. And I came home and I said, something is out of integrity. He said, what? I said, well, you know, I, grow intimacy with the people I work with. I grow the connection. I grow the safety and you and I are not doing this, you know, on a

03:47
really conscious level. We have always shared a very deep love, but love and deep connection and consciousness are two separate entities. And so I said to him, you know, I think you and I should do something about that. And because of who he is, he said, sure, you know, which is great. An electronic engineer.

04:16
I have a metaphor that I love to use. It's the metaphor of the inner elevator that we have. So all of us have an inner elevator, the penthouse, which is our head, the lobby, which is our heart, the basement, which is our gut. And you know the penthouse is all of our thinking. It's got libraries, computers, a fantastic view.

04:43
The lobby is all of our emotions, the big palette of incredible variety of emotions that we all have. And then the gut is our raw emotion, the tears and the laughter and the shaking and all of that. And Yumi was an enormous penthouse guy, analytical and logical and...

05:07
thinking person and I'm a big lobby person. I'm sure you can even tell just from the tone of my voice. And so an integrated human, the elevator works and goes everywhere. But that is something that we really learn is how to have this elevator go to the basement when we need to, to the lobby, to the penthouse. And so you meet this big penthouse person said, sure.

05:37
Let's study relationship together. And we started on a big journey of studying what is a conscious relationship. we went to workshops and we studied theories and ultimately we began to evolve what now is called encounter centered.

06:06
transformation. And it's called transformation because the understanding now in neurobiology is that the brain, which has such plasticity, transforms through deep connection. Transforms the most through deep connection. Clearly it continues to transform. But new neural pathways really form

06:34
when we have the courage to enter into deep connection. And it's based really on a very different paradigm. You you've got the kind of Western world paradigm that our highest achievement is autonomy, independence, you know, being who I am. And then there's a different paradigm, the relational paradigm, in which we say we're born in connection. We are

07:04
hurt in connection, we heal in connection, everything is done in connection and the highest purpose is interdependence. Not independence, but interdependence. To really feel our connectedness at the ultimate level. And that's what changes the brain. That's why I'm calling it encounter centered transformation because the

07:31
Courage to be in deep connection changes our brain. I love that because a little bit about me. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, because especially as children, as we're growing up, so much of the meaning that we make up about ourselves, about our families, about our relationships is based on the feedback that we're getting from those relationships and the connection that we have with those around us. And I think it

07:57
plays a big part in how our brains are formed and how we see the world and how we see ourselves. And that's really cool. think that I heard you, I think I remember you saying something before about how you looked at your own relationship as the laboratory, right? Like you, you working with your patients and then you your own relationship to practice the relationship stuff. It's a living laboratory. And you're saying it's so true in terms of, you know, as children, the brain development.

08:25
What of course has become so clear as our brain continues to evolve, it has that plasticity that continues to be there and deep connection creates neural pathways. As a result, there's blood flow in our brain, you know, from that old brain where we live in, oh, danger, danger. You know, how do I defend myself to the frontal lobe of

08:55
You know, what's a good way in connection to handle the situation? yeah, transformation. Yeah. So how so how long had you been working with couples or what inspired you to, you know, as you came up with the encounter centered transformation, what was going on in your work and your life and your training, the training that you had had? So the training

09:24
I had had I was psychoanalytical. Also family systems. So that combination of psychoanalytical family systems. And that's how I started, you know, my practice as a psychotherapist. But when I came home and I said to you, let's go study. And he said, sure. We studied many, many things. So the first thing we went to.

09:54
a workshop in reevaluation co-counseling. Do you know reevaluation co-counseling? not even sure, Really? I don't think so. Yeah. So I'm going to tell you the story around how we went to reevaluation co-counseling and then I'll tell you about it. So Yumi and I understood that from the very beginning of our marriage, what we call the survival dance was already there.

10:22
And the survival dance is how we survive, let's say, our childhood journey. Me, just extroverted, wanted connection, wanted talking, at all times, eye contact, body contact. You, introverted, rich in a world, very thoughtful, quiet. So we go on our honeymoon and we go to Japan.

10:51
And Yumi is thrilled because he's going to buy his Minolta camera that he's been dreaming of and he buys it. And it comes with an amazing manual, 254 pages, how to have a relationship with the camera. Now here he is with his woman and he doesn't have a manual. How to have a relationship with your new wife. So he plunges into the book about the relationship with the camera.

11:19
and kind of disappears a little bit. And I do all I know how to do is I drag him. I want to talk to him, talk to me, look at me, hold me, you know, take my hand. And he's like focused on that incredible look about having a great relationship with the camera. That pattern continued. That's our survival pattern. I go after him. I want connection. I pull at him. I drag him. And he

11:48
constricts more and more and more and disappears. So many, many, years later, I'm already a therapist. I'm at the corner of a street with my beautiful man. I take his shoulders, I shake him and I say, talk to me. And suddenly I see a car go by and I'm thinking, there's a woman there saying to her husband, see that woman at the corner there with her husband, that's my therapist.

12:16
I really thought, you know, there's something I really need to begin to do about this pattern that's in our relationship. But it didn't happen right away. one day just out of total despair, I said, I am leaving. No, I didn't mean I'm leaving the relationship. didn't mean I'm leaving you. I meant I'm going for a walk. But the way I said it, you

12:45
could have mistaken it to I'm leaving you. I went for a walk. Just so mad, this man disappears. I come back and he is sobbing. On the floor, he's sobbing. You mean, what's the matter? says, I'm not a good man. I'm not a good father. I'm not a good husband. And I'm not a good human being. I mean, he was in his total...

13:14
sense of worthlessness. And I didn't know what to do. I mean, he was just in despair and I truly didn't know what to do. So I called my friend Louise, Louise, Louise, I've wanted you to feel feelings for so long and now he's feeling them but I don't know what to do. And she says, come to a workshop. There's a workshop this weekend in reevaluation co-counseling. I said, okay. I had no idea what it was. We went to the workshop and I went.

13:43
as a clinical psychologist and Yumi went as Yumi Schleifer. So Yumi learned a lot and I learned nothing because I was in my clinical judgment the whole time. But Yumi learned something unbelievably important. He learned that there's a distinction between our human essence and our survival pattern. So our human essence remains intact no matter what the trauma.

14:11
we've gone through in our journey might be. It is an essence of goodness and kindness and creativity and intelligence and depth and soulfulness. And our essence is this rich human essence that we all receive at birth and that it remains intact. However, what we also develop is a survival pattern.

14:36
to survive whatever the situation of our journey might be. And Yumi really learned that distinction there. And he came home and he realized, my goodness, I'm a good man. I'm a kind man. I'm a rich, creative, intelligent man. I mean, he stepped into his essence and then he looked also at why

15:05
has he withdrawn the way he has. And he's gone through the Holocaust, lost two sisters. I mean, he had lots and lots of loss and pain. And for two weeks, he just got his whole life suddenly. And inside, inside, after inside, after inside, he had a heart attack. Because over the years, his arteries had shrunk.

15:32
sort of constricted from the constriction of the survival pattern from not being able to feel, not being able to flow, not being able to connect in the way that his essence would. And so he had a heart attack. In the coronary care unit, he says to me, Haiti, I am coming home. My survival pattern is staying in the hospital. And when he said that, I said to him, you know what?

16:02
I think I need to go back to that workshop when you're well, we're going back to the workshop because I have a lot to learn. Just that distinction is something so profound and what you've just understood about yourself. And so that was our first, we learned about that distinction, about something called co-counseling where you listen to each other deeply just to discharge.

16:31
raw emotion, go to the basement, get out what's in your basement so that the elevator can really work well. And we taught it together as a couple. So that was our first understanding of what is at the base of everything we do, which is reclaiming our essence in connection. So that's amazing. Our essence in connection was

17:01
what we learned then at that first workshop. You know, I love to say that you me and I used to be the Olympic champions of unconsciousness in the sense that we didn't really realize that there was such a thing as you grow your consciousness. That workshop and that way of thinking and of being was our first entrance.

17:31
into the living laboratory that we were building. And it gave us a basic understanding of humanity and that our essence is a beauty. All of us, all of us. Yeah, that's incredible. I've been reading books by Gabor Maté. He's talking a lot about the mind-body connection and

17:58
When you don't move into consciousness, that those things have such a huge impact on your physical health. And so many people don't even realize that this is happening. And I think that's such a wonderful way of putting it, right? That, you know, oftentimes we feel stuck or we feel helpless, like, this is just who I am. This is just how I know to react. But, you know, in the way you're describing the story with Yumi, it was like this ability to see

18:28
his true essence, his true self, and see that there was decision making that could happen, that there's consciousness that could happen about the way that he saw the world, the way that he approached their relationship. Exactly. Yeah. So that was the first entrance into mutual consciousness. There's something we together were studying and together growing.

18:56
and together embracing and we taught it together. And it was the first element of this laboratory we were building. Oh, that's great. And so what are some of the things that you started bringing into your work with couples or learning more about what was helpful in your work with couples? Well, the first thing I did is I told everybody I was working with that

19:23
I'm stopping my work with individuals. I'm stopping my work with families and I'm gonna create a laboratory for couples because I'm doing one in my own relationship and so I'm gonna be teaching what I'm learning. So there was a big shift in my practice. So I only saw couples and then Yumi and I began to

19:53
collect more and more layers of consciousness. So I don't know if you remember it was the days of Est. Do you know? I don't know. Oh, so Est was, uh, Werner Erhardt was the guy who created it and he would gather like 500 people in a big room. And it was all about really sharing.

20:23
deep sharing.

20:27
and about leadership.

20:31
And it was just like re-evaluation co-counseling, also, you know, not everybody accepted the leadership of, you know, the leaders and their life and the integrity. It doesn't matter. For you, me and me, re-evaluation co-counseling was amazing. EST was profound because as a result of that, one of the leaders of that

20:58
as which then became the Landmark Forum. Did you hear of that? The Landmark? That sounds familiar. So the Landmark Forum was the evolution of Est. And one of the Landmark Forum leaders began something he called the Foundation for Middle East Communication. And what it was is bringing Jewish people, Muslim people and Christian people together.

21:24
so that they can tell each other, so that they can step into deep connection, tell each other their stories and begin to understand because through story, the person that isn't your enemy anymore, it's another human, you know. So the next thing that happened was we created then, we lived in Orlando, Florida, we created the Orlando, Florida chapter, actually the Florida chapter of the Foundation for Mediaist Communication. brought

21:54
Jews and Christians and Muslims together. created these workshops for connection. And that was another piece of what then today is called Encounter Center Transformation. this piece of the commitment we had that we really wanted the Middle East to be a place where people meet essence to essence. And so that was the next piece. A lot of similarities, I think, right, between

22:24
Jewish people and Muslims and Christians talking and connecting and listening and couples who are in a relationship. Exactly. Totally. And it was for us a very important, again, joint partnership, you know, thinking how do we create these workshops? How do we bring these people together? How do we handle what happens in the room when suddenly there is conflict? Yeah. So that was another piece of what

22:54
another layer of what I do today, you know, with couples. Then we went to a very powerful workshop on appreciative inquiry. Do you know appreciative inquiry? Yeah, that sounds very familiar. It's a developmental or development practice. And the idea is

23:24
that for deep connection, you need to grow your appreciative eye. You need to get to know the qualities, the strengths, the resources, the beauty, the vision, all of that. And we both fell in love with that whole idea. And a lot of how I work with couples is based on that idea of

23:51
widening the appreciative eye for everything. So for example, they say energy follows attention. The first thing you do is you put a very big vision on the horizon. Your deepest aspirations, your biggest... No matter what the situation is, you put a vision on the horizon. And when I start with a couple, no matter what they bring, we start with the biggest vision.

24:20
The deepest aspiration, the wildest longing. What is it you really, want? What do you see in your dreams for this relationship? And we put it on the horizon.

24:34
And it's it's a revolutionary because people come, they want to handle whatever it is. The conflict is, cetera. We're not going there. We're going to the horizon. We're going north. You find people are really afraid to hope for the and it's not hope. It's dream. Hope is a different element altogether. It's a dream and.

25:03
once you give people permission to dream, my goodness, they dream. There are so many dreams that haven't been formulated that live inside of them. And a prison inquiry makes a distinction between the language of deficit and the language of abundance. So when you dream, you learn the language of abundance because often a person might say,

25:30
I want to not have anymore that bad sex that never happens. That's a language of deficit. In a dream you say, I would love passionate juicy sex. A lot of it. That's a language of abundance. And so when I invite couples to dream, which is the first thing I do with them, I don't even say a word. I just say, so what are your wildest dreams? Number one.

25:59
I teach them the language of abundance as part of what we learned in appreciative inquiry. And when people entered their dreams with a language of abundance, suddenly something opens up as a possibility. And our work is going to be to go in that direction. That's the work, go in the direction of what was put on the horizon. So that's just another enormous layer of study.

26:29
that we did and that became integrated, you know, like everything we did became integrated in what is now called, you know, encounter center transformation. The next thing that was a very big study for us was Imago relationship therapy and practice. And the basic theory there is that you will meet the most incompatible human being

26:59
you'll fall in love with them, they will be the least capable of giving you what you want the most. But if they decide to give you what you want the most, you will both grow muscles that have been atrophied through your survival pattern. So giving the other, that incompatible human being, you know, in our case, the penthouse man with the lobby woman.

27:28
giving them that which they want assists you in growing the muscles that have been atrophied through your survival pattern. And it became something again that we then taught. Yumi and I traveled, I don't know if you know, 39 countries, four languages. Wow. I know. And that's totally Yumi.

27:56
I would never have known how to land in 39 countries and organize all that. That was his vision. We're going to go and we're going to bring. So for example, we went to South Africa in 1994, just when Mandela was coming in and it gave us a chance to have people really cross the bridge to each other. know, Afrikaans people with white people in terms of their whole.

28:25
history. And you know, we had all that experience, Jews and Muslims and you know, we brought everything we knew to that experience. So, Imago Relationship Therapy and Theory became a really important piece because we then became workshop presenters and I became a clinical instructor. And we trained a lot of people, a lot of people around the world.

28:54
because there's four languages we both spoke fluently enough to teach. And so we could teach in those various places. And then the layer that got added that became profoundly important, but you can see each piece is profoundly important, was Martin Buber, the philosopher. And Martin Buber is really the first person who defined

29:23
A paradigm shift, which is our relationships live in the space between us. They don't live in you, they don't live in me, they don't even live in our dialogue. They live in a space that we share and that we're both 100 % responsible for. So in the beginning today, we reconnected, you know, and we were already enriching the space between us.

29:52
By the time you pushed record, we had already enriched our relational space. And Martin Buber says, our relationships live there. And he adds, that space is sacred. And so the whole idea of teaching couples how to sanctify the space between them, how to honor it.

30:20
how to take full responsibility for it, became an added piece to our work. And we then developed this idea that there are three invisible connectors. What connects us? Three invisible connectors. One is a relational space. The richer the space, the more

30:49
connected we feel. And one very important thing about the space between is that the space between the couple is the playground of the child. So if the couple really knows how to sanctify the space, how to enrich the space, how to make the space safe, their kids have a safe playground. Their inner child or their actual kids in their life? Both. That's a very nice question.

31:18
Their inner child, of course, lives in the space between. And suddenly it's safe. And suddenly it's rich. And their real children live in the space between. You know, there's a couple. I'm going to show you something. A Send me a beautiful, when I told them about this. Oh, I love that. Oh, that's great. Kid there in the middle.

31:45
And what they put on their T shirts that they are watering the space between. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna describe it. So there's two parents with a child sitting in between them and on the back of each of the parents shirt is a watering can that's pointed toward the child and then in the child's T on the back of the child's T shirt is a flower growing. That's so beautiful. Yeah.

32:14
And then underneath it says, you know, the space between a couple is the playground of the child. So that whole piece around how do we honor and sanctify the space between us is one very big piece of how we get connected. The second way we get connected, the second invisible connector is a bridge. And why is there a bridge?

32:43
It's invisible, but there is a bridge there because our worlds are so different. Each one of us, our own rhythm, our own music, our own language. You know, in your world, they speak Shanish. For which language? Shanish. In my world, they speak Hades, a different language altogether. And if you and I really, really need to want to connect deeply, it's good for me.

33:11
to learn Shanish and it's good for you to learn Hades. I learned Yomish, he learned Hades, you know. We cross the bridge to know, to learn the other, the other, and to honor the other and the otherness of the other. And so another invisible connector is the bridge.

33:37
Yeah, that's such a beautiful way of saying it because even just the way you're describing it, feel like creates safety, right? Because couples so often get caught up in the right way of doing things. Right. And but instead it's an invitation for each partner to cross the bridge into learning more about the way your partner thinks and feels and experiences the world. Exactly. Exactly.

34:07
So that's that, the second invisible connector. And the third invisible connector is also from Martin Buber, which was a study that we added to that composite of all the studies we studied, is the encounter. The encounter are those magical moments where you suddenly feel deeply connected.

34:36
have such magical moments. don't know how it showed up and we don't know how it left, but we know that experience. We have it sometimes in nature. You you walk in nature and then suddenly you're in the zone of the encounter. Everything smells stronger. The colors are brighter. The sky is more beautiful than you've ever seen it. I mean, you feel like you want to cry about how beautiful nature is. That's that encounter. Or with music.

35:05
You know, you'll listen to a piece of music that you've heard many times, but suddenly you're in the zone of the encounter with it. And it's so deep and beautiful, like you've never heard it. Like, not only have you never heard it before, it's as if you're hearing it for the first time. You know this piece, but you're in the zone of the encounter. I mean, even a sports team can step into the zone of the encounter. They'll win. Because even if they're not the best team, but...

35:35
If they're in the zone of the encounter where they're all feeling that connection to each other, they're flowing with the flow state, the flow state. Exactly. You know, then they win. I that's that zone of the encounter. That's a third invisible connector. And the way they are connected to each other is when you honor the space and you make it safe and you sanctify it and you

36:04
across the bridge to know the other as another, as a sacred other, then you're creating the conditions for that encounter. But the purpose of, you know, bringing couples into those three invisible connectors is for them to have encounter after encounter after encounter till they transcend and live in the zone of the encounter.

36:32
I did not know about the zone of the encounter, but Jumi and I had encounter after encounter and suddenly we both felt like, we're in a different space. We're in a new place. And that new place was actually living in the zone of the encounter. And there, there is no conflict. It was like extraordinary for us. We didn't realize it right away, but suddenly we both kind of said, wow.

37:02
We haven't had a conflict about anything. We're just flowing here. And yes, we were. We were living in the zone of the encounter. And I remember we were in an Uber one day and the guy said to us, you guys aren't married, are you? And you said, well, we just met. You know, he says to him, 56 years ago. the guy couldn't believe a married couple would have the atmosphere.

37:30
that he felt in the car and that atmosphere was the space between, you know, of the encounter and that was that. I mean, he sensed it. And so the three invisible connectors. And so once that became clear that that's what we're teaching, it already became the encounter centered work. And then the understanding of the brain

38:00
We really added it as encounter centered transformation because through welcoming the three invisible connectors, our brain transforms and there is a before and there's an after. And the purpose of the work with couples is a before and an after. That's the purpose. Yeah. Building a private practice can be challenging.

38:26
Filing all of the right paperwork is time consuming and tedious. And even after you're done, it can take months to get credentialed and start seeing clients. That's why Alma makes it easy and financially rewarding to accept insurance. When you join Alma, you can get credentialed within 45 days and access enhanced reimbursement rates with major payers. They also handle all of the paperwork from eligibility checks to claim submissions and guarantee payment within two weeks of each appointment.

38:54
Plus when you join Alma, you'll get access to time-saving tools for intakes, scheduling, treatment plans, progress notes, and more in their included platform. Alma helps you spend less time on administrative work and more time offering great care to your clients. Visit helloalma.com backslash A T P P or click the link in the show notes to learn more. It reminds me of what you were saying about consciousness before. You know, I feel like

39:23
I can imagine my own experience, my own life, where I can just go through day to day and just not be conscious, not be attentive, just the normal marital struggle or just not attention. And then the difference between what you're talking about feels so much more present, so much more compassionate, so much more connected to the other person and appreciative of them.

39:53
fun, really, right? What? Fun. And you know, the word you're using, present, is really so important. And so we've added another piece that belongs to Otto Scharmer. Do you know who Otto Scharmer is? I'm not sure. Otto Scharmer is an organizational development person. And he has an institute, the Institute of Presencing.

40:22
It teaches the difference between presencing, being present, fully present, and absencing, which a lot of how we are with each other is absencing. And so he teaches, and that was another thing, but Yumi already was not as involved when I then added that whole layer of the Otto Scharmer work. But I'll describe it to you.

40:52
He talks about four types of listening. So there is what he calls habitual listening.

41:03
And habitual listening is I'm listening and in my head I'm thinking because I know this or I don't know this or I like this or I don't like this or I agree with this or I don't agree with this. You my head, the penthouse is working. I'm listening. I really am listening and the penthouse working. So that's habitual and it's quite automatic.

41:29
Then there's factual listening. So like right now, you know, part of what you're doing is factual listening and every time you hear a fact that you kind of feel like, oh, this is important, you take notes. You know, that's factual listening and it's really important listening. Like when you go to the doctor, better do your factual listening, you know. So it's an important kind of listening. There's empathic listening. So my heart is open. I understand the feelings you're describing.

41:59
I even identify with these feelings. I've had them. You know, I've had that experience. I know you there and you can feel me with my heart wide open. That's empathic listening. Otto Scharmer describes something completely different in presencing. It's generative listening. Now generative listening has an open mind, an open heart, an open gut, an open will.

42:27
everything in you is open. You leave the shores of your world where you live and you actually leave it. You cross the bridge and you fully fully become so present, so open, so available that when you go back to your world you're a changed person. Something got generated for both of you that is new.

42:55
He calls it the thing you don't know that you don't know. What you don't know that you don't know, that's true new consciousness, shows up, gets generated. And so that now has become a big part of what we teach when people cross the bridge. They bring with them generative presencing, generative listening, and generative speaking, which are different than our regular.

43:25
conversation. Is that similar to the Imago role of the listener? forget what the roles are called. So very different because Imago is a dialogue and generative listening is not dialoguing. So in dialogue, you will speak, you will be listened to, and then there is going to be a trip to the penthouse. I understand a validation, a trip to the heart. can empathize.

43:56
Generative listening has got none of those rules. It's not a dialogue at all. It's really a way of becoming so present that something new emerges. It's not to be listened to, it's to create the new together. Wow. So is the listener saying anything? The listener says very little. Yeah. So I'll describe to you the generative listening and generative speaking.

44:26
The generative speaking is that, let's say I invite you, Shane, over the bridge. And one of the metaphors I like to use is to a neighborhood, because there are neighborhoods in my world, and I invite you to a neighborhood. And the first neighborhood I teach people to visit with a generative listening and a generative speaking is a precious neighborhood. So what's a precious neighborhood?

44:55
Precious neighborhood is where I feel like I am me. I'm in my essence. I am energized. I am creative. I am who I really am in a precious neighborhood. We have many. But what I'm doing now with you, it's from one of my precious neighborhoods. I love teaching this stuff and you probably can tell. So the reason I have...

45:19
couples learn generative listening and generative speaking in a precious neighborhood first is number one because in a precious neighborhoods are our resources and our strengths. And it's a good thing for couples to come to know their resources and strength before they learn to go to a neighborhood of challenge. You know, so that you can come to the neighborhood of challenge already knowing resources and strengths.

45:48
that live in both of you. So I do that, but I also teach that generative listening and speaking in a precious neighborhood because it's easier for me to teach it in a place like that than in a neighborhood of challenge. Is that because the person feels safer? It's because, you know, introducing your strengths is a joyful activity and it's

46:17
often a great discovery because in the generative speaking and the generative listening, you will discover a layer of your strength and resource that you didn't even know.

46:31
Now, what is generative speaking, generative listening? So when I introduce, for example, to you my precious neighborhood, I will tell you in many, many words, I will explore the first thought about it in many, many, many words. And you will be with me and just follow and just hear me really like you're doing. You are a very good listener.

47:01
And so you will just do that. My responsibility then is to take all I've said, that first thought, and bring it to the core essence. So what I'm saying to you, Shane, is I love teaching this.

47:22
then you will look at my face and you will look at my expression and you will feel my emotions and you'll say, then I hear you say you love teaching this stuff. So as the listener, all you will repeat for me are my core essential statements. You'll say, me more. I will say more, till. And each time, exploration, exploration, core. Exploration, exploration, core.

47:51
You know, each time my responsibility as the speaker is to each time come to the core till the core I suddenly say, so what I'm saying to you is, and the five words are completely new to me. I've never known this about myself. It's a complete revelation. And the revelation comes because I've had the courage to explore and essentialize, explore and essentialize, explore and essentialize, till and then I'll say to you,

48:21
Shane, I just discovered something about myself I didn't know. And then I explored that new place a little bit and we're done with that particular visit. Oh wow, yeah that's great. How would you, how do you guide someone there? If their initial statement is I love teaching, how do you get? I don't do a thing. I don't do a thing. It's all their learning. All I do is

48:50
you know, I sit and I mean, are you just saying, tell me more about that? the partner tell me the partner. Okay. Tell me more, but not about that. Tell me more. Tell me more. The person will explore essentialize. I repeated the partner does it. So till the new is there and Uncle Sharma really understood that with generative speaking and listening,

49:20
something completely new will reveal itself. That's why it's called generative. And so the whole point of the couple's journey is for the new to emerge, to be in completely new territory. So that's one piece of the Otto Scharmer contribution. And then the other piece of the Otto Scharmer contribution is the theory U, the letter U.

49:50
heard of the theory U. I don't think so. Yeah, so it's a very powerful theory. The book of Otto Scharmer is called Theory U, Colon, Leading from the Future.

50:07
He says we have two selves, our current self and our future self. And that the emergent future is where you want to go because in the future self there is all the potential that you've actually never fully embraced. And the you is the following. You know, when we have a conflict and if you imagine the letter you right now, we would like

50:37
to jump from the top of the U on one side, problem, to the top of the U on the other side, solution. Right? It would be lovely if we could actually jump from where it's so tough to a fantastic solution on the other side of the U. He says it's impossible. You can't jump. What you have to do is you have to go down the U on one side.

51:06
you get to the bottom of the you which is the toughest thing you've ever expressed or experienced. The darkest place. You've never, never verbalized it in connection. Never. It's there. It lives in you. And with generative speaking and listening you can go down to you, down to you, down to you, till that bottom of the you. What happens at the bottom of the you is unbelievable.

51:35
And it happens every time. You begin to hear the you, it starts to turn. There's like an embedded gift at the bottom of the you. You've never seen that embedded gift because you've never gone to the bottom of the you. But at the bottom of the you, there is an embedded gift. And once you see the embedded gift, you start going up to you because the future starts calling you. And as the future calls you,

52:03
You see possibilities you've not seen ever before. You listen, you listen, you listen, and you arrive at a place you've never been to before. So that's Otto Scharmer's You Theory, which now is integrated in the journey of the couple, because the moment we go to the the neighborhood of challenge, we go down to you and up to you. Wow. You said you would start with the neighborhood of

52:32
The precious neighborhood. The precious neighborhood. The precious neighborhood. The precious neighborhood where I just feel like that's who I really am. This is my strength. This is my creativity. This is where I am really in my essence. And once you work with that for some period of time... Just, no, one visit on one side, one visit on the other side. And it is to learn.

53:01
to learn this generative speaking, this generative. So now I do 10 sessions with couples. Session number one, wildest dream. Session number two, distinction between the survival dance and the dance of life in connection. So how do I do that one? I say to the couple, I'd like you to talk about the

53:29
the thing in your relationship. toughest. I mean the toughest. But for 13 minutes, one, three. 13 minutes? When 13 minutes are up, I'm going to go, stop. And you stop even in the middle of a sentence. You stop even if you're winning for the first time. You stop.

53:46
And the reason I choose 13, 1-3, is because in Judaism, in Hebrew, every letter has a numerical value. And 13, the words, there are two words that have 13. One is Ahava, love, and the other one is Ehad, one. And I say to the couple, you know, if you're going to have a tough conversation, might as well be in the service of love and oneness. So you go and have your tough conversation.

54:16
Anyway, the couple turns to each other and they have that tough conversation. As you know, it's kids and in-laws and money and sex and whatever, you know, the tough conversation. I say, stop. They look at me and look at them. I say, okay, imagine that you were in a restaurant and at the table next to you, this couple, the one that just spoke for 30 minutes, this couple is sitting and you're observing them.

54:44
But somebody whispers in your ears, this couple comes from Wajilia. It's another planet. And so they speak Wajilian. And you haven't understood a word that couple has said. All you see is facial expressions, body language, atmosphere. That's all, you know. What did you see? And the couple describes the Wajilian couple. They describe for the very first time their survival dance.

55:15
So they'll say, you know, the woman seems to be talking louder and louder. She speaks a lot of words. The man seems to be like behind a big wall. He's like getting shrunk and small. He looks through a little hole. He sees her there. You know, she's crying. He moves further back. I mean, they describe the dance they've danced their whole life as a couple, but without content, because the content doesn't matter. It's the process we're going to change. We're not going to change the content.

55:44
You're going to change the process. Once you change the process, the content changes. So for couples, when they describe the Virgilians, it is an unbelievable realization that they've been dancing the survival dance. And so, you know, there's one couple when they realized who the Virgilians are, they went home to their kids and they told them, listen, every once in a while, your mother and father disappear.

56:12
And these extraterrestrials arrive. They're called Wajilians. Would you please make us drawings of extraterrestrials? So the kids did drawings. They put them on the fridge. And they gave kids permission that any time they do that dance, the kids can take them to the fridge and say, Wajilians. And they promise to knock it off. So that's the second session. That's the second session. Because we're

56:41
we're gonna only do the three invisible connectors. What disconnects you? The Ygelians. What connects you? The three invisible connectors. So that's session number two. And in session number two, I also do with them a non-verbal establishment of the bridge. You know, there's been a lot of research on the percentage in communication of words

57:12
versus everything else, know, facial expression, body movement, eye contact, tone of voice, skin, you know, everything else. Do you know those studies? One is by a man called Merabian, which I find a really wonderful study of this. What is your guess, you know, in terms of words in communication versus everything else? What would you guess?

57:41
Well, I think because I'm a couples therapist, I would guess that the nonverbal communication has a lot more to do with how people are feeling than the verbal communication. But I think people think that the verbal communication is much more important. Right. But what do you think in terms of percentage in the study, you know, when they studied it? 70 % nonverbal. 70 % nonverbal. You know, many people will say 70, 70 and 30.

58:11
93 and 7. Oh my gosh. 93 and 7.

58:20
So I start non-verbally. See, I am going to teach the 93 % first. And so the first thing I do with couples is non-verbal. The non-verbal establishment of the bridge through eye contact and skin contact and facial expression and just imagining the bridge and imagining crossing it, but not verbally, just internally and...

58:45
And what's amazing is, you know, it takes like 10, 15 minutes of this guided visualization that is nonverbal. And then I'll say to the couple, what's the quality of the space between you? And they'll say, love, connection, flow. You know, they just nonverbally with 93%, they've just created a rich space. And when they were Vigilians, the spaces.

59:11
and there's frustration and there's anger, it's polluted, you know. Yeah, I just remembered, I had forgotten, I think I went to a training with you, this was almost 10 years ago, I think, at the Networker Symposium. This was you, right? You had the people sit, their knees were basically touching each other. So this is what I'm imagining, you know, they're...

59:39
And you're sort of, are you sort of doing almost like a guided sort of instruction of seeing each other and noticing their bridges and things like that? Yes, You remember that. So that's session number two has that piece in it. And in session number three is the precious neighborhood, how to do the generative listening and a generative speaking. And then it's usually two sessions and two more sessions.

01:00:09
on the U, the biggest conflict go down the U, up the U, and then a childhood visit, you know, the neighborhood of childhood in a beautiful way with a time machine, where the partner's gonna take a time machine to come to a memory and step into the house and say things to the mom, to the dad, to the partner, because of.

01:00:36
another wonderful understanding of the brain called memory reconsolidation. You know where if you create a different picture the memory reconsolidates. It consolidates one way, it reconsolidates. So anyway each session has a purpose. I do 10 of them and when we're done with

01:01:06
Yeah, the couple has had transformation on the whole. mean, there are couples where it feels like it could be good to do a few more visits for transformation really to occur before and after. But usually after 10 sessions, there's been transformation before and after. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.

01:01:32
Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit HelloAlma.com/ATPP or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And thank you again, everybody. This is Shane Birkel and this is The Couples Therapist couch podcast. It's all about the practice of couples therapy. I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye, everybody!