How To Deal With Triggers In A Relationship - The Intimate Life

We are joined by my partner and the love of my life, Vladimir Druts, for a special series on what we call The Intimate Life. This is a series where we kick back and talk off the cuff about what we're learning in our experiences and partnership that makes life so beautifully complicated.

This partnership teaches me a ton about myself, where the challenges we go through fulfill our greatest wishes for each other - to bring more love into our lives and overcome patterns that don't serve us. We candidly open up and discuss when anger is good, when it's not, how to deal with anger in a relationship, and more.

Tune in every other Tuesday for a new episode on Heart of Humans!

3:09 Being triggered by perceived anger
7:53 Autonomic response of triggers and how to handle triggers
9:53 Water stain on the desk
13:42 Where miscommunication happens
16:29 How to disconnect from anger
18:44 When anger is good and when it's not
20:28 How to transform anger
23:08 How Jen's anger manifested in the past
24:40 The aftermath and forgiveness
27:32 Releasing anger
29:31 Anger vs connection
30:53 The toddler in all of us
32:33 What makes a securely attached person

Vladimir Druts
www.instagram.com/vdruts/

Transcript

Jen Li: 0:01

The heart of humans podcast explores the secrets to building flourishing relationships. We demystify the elements of desire, trust and love by interviewing conscious lovers and providing reflections to help you create the relationships of your dreams. We are joined by my partner and the love of my life, Vladimir drudes, for a special series on what we call the intimate life. This is a series where we kick back and talk off the cuff about what we're learning in our experiences and partnership that makes life so beautifully complicated. Vlad has enriched my life with his courage and his level headed masculine presence, who inspires me every day to own my voice. This partnership teaches me a ton about myself, where the challenges we go through fulfill our greatest wishes for each other, to bring more love into our lives, and overcome patterns that don't serve us. We candidly open up and discuss when anger is good, when it's not, and how to deal with anger in a relationship. I know many of us realize how we hope to act is not how we act. While I may sound self aware in this conversation, I want people to know that it was a struggle for me to identify with how I acted, and the confidence I had with myself at the time, or lack thereof, I should say. And in our challenge, the discord opened up an opportunity for all of us to discover how we can support ourselves and our partners through our highly triggered emotions. We hope you enjoy. Hey, baby, welcome to the podcast.

Vlad: 1:44

Thank you, baby.

Jen Li: 1:46

First time you're here, and I'm so excited. My My pants are off. So I already feel more comfortable. If anyone's wondering or tickets, because I have wide legged flare pants, and they're super nice. But they they do get in the way and are just super baggy and drag me down. So I had

Vlad: 2:08

to take No, I mean, the truth is you you record all of your podcasts completely pantless. So

Jen Li: 2:14

already you have to out me jokes, I really wanted to bring you on to the show. Because obviously, we share the same sense of humor, but I'm so inspired by who you are. And I ended up having an idea about doing this kind of every so often we'll see how it goes, I'd like to do it maybe once a month or more if your schedule allows, busy, we're both busy people. But we can also, you know, hold these places where it's a departure from interviews that I usually do and also feel more accountable to each other. And I like that I like sharing and debriefing over the things that we've learned. We've learned a lot over the past couple, couple months. But in this past week, I feel like something came up that was really, really challenging for me and you. And it was involving our anger. My anger that surprised me most of all, but my response to your what I perceived was anger was was really startling for me. And it's also very embarrassing. Yeah, totally.

Vlad: 3:48

You know, it's interesting, because it's probably a couple of times that like we've run through that particular pattern or scenario where you go from zero to 1000. You get really angry, he usually I would say that there tends to be a trigger, or maybe two specific triggers. But before I even dive into that, or whether even want to talk about that, I think, you know, I've experienced this with a lot of different people, I have my own triggers, as well. And I've kind of learned to manage them mostly. But I think the thing with triggers is that they come up so quickly, and that sometimes they catch us by storm when we're least expecting it. And if we're more tired if we're more stressed, you know if you're on your period, or if you're just more hormonal in general, it's going to be tougher, and I think like at least for me, being able to know what the cues are is really important. And like I was married for seven years, I was in relationship for basically 10 years with my ex wife. And as you know, we've we've got an amazing relationship now as co parents and as friends. But, you know, we went through a lot of interesting triggers as well. So I had to, to really try and wrap my head around why it kept happening in a specific way. And I think like, you, me, everybody has a very specific set of circumstances that can set them off. Because we have a very different language or understanding that's contextual. So for instance, like you're always saying, My anger makes you angry. But in the situations where you perceive me to be angry, I'm actually not angry at all, I'm frustrated. And I'm trying to right express to you my frustration, or my dismay, almost like, just to try and connect with you to feel heard. So to me, anger is something very different. To me, anger comes, is like, way more intense. Like when I get angry, it's, it's a nine day difference than when I'm frustrated. But to you that frustration comes off as anger, and almost like a preemptive retaliation. You know, I think in those situations, you're almost ready to fight. Because maybe you come into the situation with already some sort of pre committed shame or guilt. And yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to explain, explore that. Because, you know, like, I do it too, right? Like, there's certain things that will set me off when I lack patience. And I'm, I'm always very curious about like, why it's happening. But but more so like, fine, it's happening, what can we actually do about it so that it doesn't happen next time? I'm

Jen Li: 7:13

thinking around how I perceive your frustrations as anger. I think it has some tie in with disappointment.

Unknown: 7:24

And I

Jen Li: 7:26

mean, I know not everyone deals with disappointment. Well, but I particularly feel triggered when disappointment arises, and it came from, obviously, from my childhood. But it's, it's so interesting, when you say I go from like, zero to 100.

Vlad: 7:52

That's the hardest thing is, it comes from a place of emotion, it's deeply seated in your body, it's automatic. It's built up over years, it's a response. And so the first thing to do is really just to, you know, be aware that you're experiencing or feeling something that that feels very intense, like, anger coming on, where you're, you're, you know, losing a sense of control. Whenever you feel like, Oh, I gotta put my battle fatigues on like, okay, something's wrong here. Like, I need to win this. Like, whenever there's that kind of feeling coming on, like, I try to refresh where I am contextually, take a deep breath, and just cool down, calm down, like I take a Zen moment to present myself. And if I can't, then I will do my best to say, Hey, you know, maybe this is into conversation I'm able to have right now. Can we come back to this? And And mind you, sir, I just want to say I don't always say that in the best way. I tried to bring that across. But like, sometimes it maybe comes off a little short, where I'll be like, Look, I can't talk about this right now. And that's literally all I'll say.

Jen Li: 9:16

Yeah, sometimes we're lost for words, because we don't even recognize that that person that we say that we are in those moments, right, like in that moment where I disappointed you. I felt like I didn't know how Jen would respond at that moment. I was just responding from my inner child, my seven year old child. Yeah.

Vlad: 9:46

So I think like in order to paint a picture for the audience, let's give them context as to what happened in our specific little situation. May If you feel comfortable with that, I'm just kind of picturing myself coming into this conversation. Sure, we all get angry. But what was specific about this situation? That maybe could have been different? Were at somebody else.

Jen Li: 10:14

Yeah. I mean, so like, in this particular instance, I had made a US water stain on the desk, on the wood desk, and

Vlad: 10:27

on my wood on my desk, right? I mean, our wood desk now, but initially, my windows Yes.

Jen Li: 10:34

And then this is happened before. And so when you walked in, you spotted it. Though, that moment, I felt so ashamed. And you were really, really frustrated. Because it's happened before. And that moment, you know, you had every right to be frustrated, because it's, it's happened before and, and, and, in that in my, in my, in my space, all I could think about was, how, how awful it was. And I went into a spiral where I convinced myself that I was just not worthy of love or compassion. And I didn't obviously, it actually did not show in the way I responded to you. I didn't even give you compassion in that moment.

Vlad: 11:35

Right?

Jen Li: 11:37

So there was some, there was some words to try to manipulate the situation so that it wouldn't be about the spill, it would be about the way you made me feel. But how I felt was, was how I felt about feeling ashamed. And you didn't know what I was feeling in that moment.

Vlad: 12:04

Yeah, and I think like, just to interrupt, I think this is really important, because so people know, like, I'm pretty high level OCD, Queen free, like take very, very immaculate care of all my things. And, you know, it's something that I've been working on because it's, it's not only like, it's it's a double edged sword, right. So it's a blessing, because like, I create a beautiful space for myself. For us, I keep everything very clean. But it's also a curse, because sometimes it's like, I have to clean all the time, everything has to be a certain way, if things get ruined, I tend to get more anxious. So that's something I recognize. So I came in, and, you know, I noticed this thing on the table. And then you you, you had the iron there, and you told me that you had made a stain. And when I saw that, to me, it was just like, a little bit of frustration, because literally, yes, it had happened before maybe, you know, a few times, maybe two, three times, whatever. But we literally had that discussion the day before was like baby like, please, please, please be super careful. Don't put any cups or any water on wood, because they will leave the scenes that are almost impossible to get out. And, and I and we were in agreeance. And then like when you did that it to me it was like, Oh, hey, it's almost like we didn't have that conversation. So it made me feel frustrated because it made me feel unheard. Yeah, again, I maybe wasn't saying it in the most diplomatic way. I was just kind of expressing how it made me feel. And you got really angry. Because Yeah, as you know, you say you were maybe already feeling ashamed. And you maybe felt like I was just pushing your buttons further. And so you were like, how dare you? But it's like, I had no idea what you were already feeling. Right? Yeah, so there's often these miscommunications. I think that happened between people and between us in these particular situations that are very interesting. we're forgetting to realize that we both might be feeling something. Like, we're very focused on our own feelings in that moment. And we almost forget that there is another person that we care about that has their own set of feelings that might be completely different to our hours from

Jen Li: 14:37

and who has more,

Vlad: 14:40

more feelings.

Jen Li: 14:42

They're feeling it almost becomes that relationship. He's quitting all the time. Like my emotions are way more valid than yours. Yeah, I wanted to say as well like, I don't think that it was my, I don't think I knew how to respond at that moment. And so the quickest thing for me to respond was with with anger. And, and you put us you put a stop to it, you were like, you were like, no, like, this, this, this, you're turning this around on me. And you walked away. And it that's something that I'm not used to. Because, for me, it's Yeah, like when you said it's a it's a battle and you try and control the situation, what really is happening in in my own thoughts was that I didn't feel like I had control. And that's why it came out and, and that's why it came out in anger.

Vlad: 15:52

For me, it's 10 years of work to really get to a place where I'm able to number one, draw healthy boundaries, set them and also not get triggered by your anger. You know, it's like just say, hey, this isn't Okay, this behavior is not okay. Like, still come from a place of love and respect. But also say this, this is going too far. Let's talk about this when when you're cooled off, or Hey, you maybe you should go take some deep breaths and a walk and then come back to this.

Jen Li: 16:29

Yeah, there's something I'm learning from you like, how, how is it that you were able to learn how to walk away? Because when I think about it, I think that's complete disconnection. And there's no resolution. So what where is it that you that you tell yourself, like, you know what, I would benefit from a break from this conversation?

Vlad: 16:56

It's hilarious, because it's like, it's really been battle tested with x y, you know, like, thanks for Yeah, thanks for her, you know, her and I have, I would say sometimes very strong personalities, like very type A. And so we would tend to sometimes butt heads, and it would be this huge battle. And sometimes it would take hours and like, we would both be exhausted, and then there would be some sort of reconnection resolution. But, you know, over a long period of time, you kind of learn, unfortunately, the hard way. And I wish I had the story of like, oh, like I read some books, and I implemented it. And that's not how it worked at all. Like, I was almost like one of these dumb hamsters, just going for the electrode getting shocked and doing it 1000s of times, repeatedly, over and over again, until just like my senses were just shot. I think it took a very long time. And it was very gradual. And, and frankly, I think like towards the end of our relationship, unfortunately, when we were, you know, going through separation divorce is when it really hit maybe both of us, especially me about what it means to be better about what I had done before that maybe had hurt her and how I could change it was like a reframe for me. Just how to be a better person in general, and how to not get into the same type of conflict with with other people. So, so so that's part of it. Certainly, I think it's just been battle tested over literally like hundreds, if not 1000s of hours, right? Does it mean that everybody has to go through that? Probably not. There's probably simpler ways of doing it.

Jen Li: 18:44

Yeah, and I want to remind people that it's not a good idea to either villainize or make make war with anger in our emotions, because anger in itself is, is is part of how we make sense of how things affect us. And so I was certainly affected, but I didn't have to bring that on to you. Right. You didn't deserve that in in the fury of my own, my own uncontrollability and I was feeling not in control of myself. And which is why I wanted to like I guess, power, power through power trip through like, yeah, my own inability to gain to gain peace, control. And I think it's important for my, my own experience moving forward and for people out there is to just, you know, be with your anger, but to not inflict it on other people because I've had that with experience with my friend recently. And it didn't feel good. You know, I left her with something. And,

Vlad: 20:10

and it's happened to you as well. Right?

Jen Li: 20:12

And that's happened to me. Yeah, multiple times. And I and I hate that that's affected me I hate that I affected her, my friend you. It's just not. Here's the thing, it's just not productive.

Vlad: 20:28

No, it's, it's easier to step away, it's easier to step away, right? Like, I think what you said is so important that anger is important, it's important to go through if it's in your system and needs to come out like you shouldn't keep it inside. But how to transform it is to do it in a positive way. You can either journal through it, you can go take a walk and shout or do whatever it is, so long as you don't release it on to the people that you love, or, or even strangers for that matter. Like, there are healthier ways to release and deal with it and transform it. Where it can leave your system and not because it's it can be a very destructive force, right? Or it can be a positive for us. If we channel it through something creative. Like go paint go journal, like I tend to journal when I'm very angry box exactly, go hit the gym, like really, you do have to take that break to disconnect and go do something else, like a change of scenery is honestly one of the most healthiest things. And I think it's it's let's touch on the fact that you have the story, that a change of scenery in that moment for you is defeat because frankly, with my ex wife, this was also a story that she had. That made it very difficult for us in the beginning. She would want to get her viewpoint across and in make sure that I understood it. It even when, you know it's like I wasn't capable, I needed that time to just reflect, disconnect, reconnect with myself understand what I was experiencing. So I think it's a common thing that I also experienced when I was younger to have this impatience where we need to we we want to find a resolution right now. And usually what that means is like, I want the other person to succeed and to understand how I feel right now.

Jen Li: 22:31

Yes, yes, I need that from the other person to feel better. Yeah, and there's certainly ways that your other partner can, can can support you, but not in the moment where you want to win, and you want to bring and succeed your anger in the moment. I also wanted to say like, gosh, no, I lost it. I lost it.

Vlad: 23:03

Anger, success. You don't you don't have to feel like you're winning in that moment.

Jen Li: 23:08

It was something that I knew growing up my anger, my anger, actually, I was suppressing a lot of my anger, to be honest. Um, but my parents were often angry towards me. And when when that happens, it was like, I would try and protect myself and say, I wouldn't need them.

Unknown: 23:32

Mm hmm. I push them away.

Vlad: 23:36

Right? Yeah, you'd push them away. As a defense mechanism. What I find really intriguing about this is that like, you know, you have the everyday version of gem that I know that I had have come to deeply fall in love with is like, you've got spunk, but you're also very soft spoken. You're very sweet, like one of the sweetest, most kind and personable people I know. You're always going out of your way to like, help people you wouldn't want to hurt a fly. You never fucking crushed a spider. Like, you'll always take spiders outside. Like you're literally just a Buddhist monk. And yet, when you get angry, like there's been a few times that this has happened, and you know, where you go zero to 1000. And usually, maybe you're hormonal, like it's you literally turn into a dragon. It's like a Pokemon, right? Who gets aggravated and just goes ballistic? Yeah, so it's, it's interesting how much of a like a contrast there is. And I guess I'm curious to like, you know, yourself every, every day to be to show up in the world a certain way. And to me, it seems like when you experience that type of anger, it's in stark contrast to who you generally are. How does that feel to you? How do you deal with that? How do you kind of put those two things together.

Jen Li: 25:03

Oh my god. You've seen how I spiral after that episode. Again,

Vlad: 25:12

you beat yourself up?

Jen Li: 25:13

I do. I do. And I almost like feel like I tell myself that I don't deserve being in a relationship. Hmm. And I'm getting emotional a little bit. Because it's there's a, there's a little bit of truth in. And like the child in me that feels like, it's so not good. It's so terrible to release your emotions like that. It's something that I villainize my own parents for doing. But, you know, they were doing the best they could, and they were operating from their shame, too. So maybe there's some forgiveness there that I have to work on with my parents, my own parents, and obviously, myself.

Vlad: 26:04

Absolutely. And for me, too, right? Like when, when you got really angry at me, it really hurt me. And I had to go through some forgiveness too. And it's like, for me, the journey was okay. What does that look like? When is it okay to forgive? How much forgiveness is okay? And like, how do I still draw strong boundaries, while I'm coming from a place of love so that it doesn't happen again, recognizing who I know you to be, and realizing you're, you're an imperfect human, as, are we all it's like, sometimes it's hard because there's a lot of gray area, right. So for me, that's also a journey is like, getting over what the frustrated, the disappointment that I'm feeling afterwards, and the fear and the pain and all villainizing you for it. Mm hmm. And, and, and coming from a place of like reconnection and telling myself a more positive story about who I know you to be, even though it really hurts at the time,

Jen Li: 27:12

you you put a stop to it by reminding me that this is this is not who I know you to be. And it's not something that you would be ever okay with. And that's your boundary that you made very clear with me. And I'm so so thankful, so thankful for you doing that because I could easily say that I let my I can let my own and convince myself that you know, you're you're the awful person. But if I'm not taking responsibility for my own anger, then then I'm always going to be angry and I'm not going to be able to release it in a healthy way because it's anger is not to be held on to

Vlad: 28:13

here's what's hilarious about this again to paint a little bit of context as I Jen and I literally just moved into a new condo for the for the last two weeks we've been packing, unpacking, selling buying it's been crazy. And you know, both her and I especially me have lost a significant amount of sleep and have dealt with an insane amount of frustration with our place before had a neighbor upstairs kind of a housemate who was an older lady and just absolutely filled with rage and anger at the drop of a dime, unable to communicate unable to draw boundaries, unable to ask for help. And it's it's interesting that this conversation of anger comes up because it's like, through her You almost see a lens of what can happen when you don't deal with your anger. And when it begins to control you and really just build those kind of solid patterns in neural networks in your head that make you almost crave that brain crave feeling like the victim and blaming everybody else around you for not having your needs met, even though you've never expressed your needs.

Jen Li: 29:31

Yeah, I don't know if it's, I'm, it's interesting. I'm thinking like, whether it's about craving, anger or craving connection. Because it's coming from a place of, you know, trying to cause your own perspective. You're kind of pushing your perspective through right. And then and that and it's like it's under Guys if I want to connect with this human being, but it's not coming from a place of connection, it's more so like pushing, pushing through your perspective. I wonder if it's a it's like sometimes, like when I get so angry, I want to get a reaction for from you to push you away so that you can show me how much you you care. I

Unknown: 30:25

love you. Right how much I love you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, how

Vlad: 30:31

much I like say, Hey, don't push me away, come here. It's like the typical, like high school or, you know, child toddler who. And I'm not just saying, hey, you're a toddler in those situations, like I go through those periods, too.

Jen Li: 30:48

I'm a toddler. But sometimes

Vlad: 30:51

you're a toddler. But you know, and I have a toddler and AI and I see how he operates. And it's, I remember operating in that way too. And sometimes I see myself in his shoes as an adult. It's funny because yeah, we it's in toddler speak. And in their mindset, like when they don't get what they want, when they don't even understand what they want. They crave that connection, all they want is the attention when they're not getting the attention and things aren't going their way, they're not getting the love they want in the way that they want it. They just throw a tantrum in order to get the attention back to them. And so like in those moments, that was your way of throwing the tantrum to get the attention, right, it's like, yeah, you're pushing me away, even though secretly, you don't want to push me away. And so there's one thing that's really important that I want to say, and I recommend for everybody, and that's to really, really, really learn. Do a do a test online, your attachment style, and whether you are secure, anxious, avoidant, anxious, or avoidant. Learn your attachment style, and learn what your attachment triggers are. Because honestly, if there's anything that has helped me become a better person in relationship, and in my communication within relationship, especially recently, it's it's learning my attachment style when I get triggered, and what it actually means to be a securely attached person.

Jen Li: 32:31

What does it mean?

Vlad: 32:33

A securely attached person is somebody who is able to give love freely receive love freely, but also doesn't need it all the time. It's somebody who can feel confident and comfortable being alone, or having their partner recede, or pull away from moment to moment. So somebody who is anxious or avoidant might feel like they can't deal with a lot of intimacy. An avoidant might deal with it for a very different reason. Sorry, might avoid it for a different reason than an anxious person, an anxious person might crave it so hard, that they that they then push you away because they're afraid that they're not going to get it right. That something wrong will always happen. And, you know, unfortunately, it really does stem from our upbringing, I think with our parents, maybe some of that is genetic, too, for sure. But largely, it's kind of an operating system that happens from very early childhood, based on how our parent parents respond to our needs, or don't, or how volatile those responses tend to be. And I think when I was younger, I had a tremendous amount of difficulty especially in relationship because I was an anxious avoidant attachment style.

Jen Li: 34:01

Me too. Yeah, me too. I relate to that a lot. Yeah, based off of our attachment styles, we wouldn't know how we could respond just based off of our own, our own lack knowing that there's not enough of what we are capable of providing for ourselves. And it's not always the responsibility of the partner but it is absolutely something that I that I encourage and and why I started this podcast is to start relating to each other in how we how we can navigate those spaces in in love and compassion.

Unknown: 34:52

Well, this is really great.

Vlad: 34:56

Yeah, it was it was it was it was fun. I you know, didn't know what to say. Expect. And it's, it's, it's interesting because you're like in the other room with your door closed, so the audio interference and I almost feel like we're dating again or something like, I'm just calling you and we're having this conversation.

Jen Li: 35:16

We, we also sleep separately too. know we don't know, it's, it's, it's cool to, to also have you contribute because you've been such a contribution in my life and sharing your side of this, of this experience really helps me understand and respect what you go through, and the work that you've done within yourself so that you can be more secure, and provide encouragement and confidence in the moments when I don't feel that way. And, yeah, it's also something that like, Listen, I often think that i think that i have to do it. myself, if I don't feel confident, then I'm not ready for a relationship that's off. That's really what I felt in my entire life. So, in in that way, I do think that man, I'm so lucky to find you. And to to create this, not just find you but to create this ongoingly. But if I don't work on my own confidence, this relationship is is is not going to be one of value and and flourishing as as the best what we create it to be right now.

Vlad: 36:49

Mm hmm. Absolutely. I just want to say like I'm, you know, I'm just as grateful if not even more grateful for you. And, you know, I fall more in love with you everyday because I see you consistently living up to the words of doing the work and taking responsibility, you know, radical responsibility and honesty and you are human, and I love your humanity. And I love the fact that you fall, you always get right up and you always kind of you know swiped the dust off in you always think about, okay, why did I fall? How can I make sure that I'm stronger next time and you do the work and you've always done the work and heck you always bring the passion make me want to be a better person every single day. So thank you.

Unknown: 37:39

I love you. I love you.