Patriarchy, supremacy, and toxic individualism are cultural values that really are at the root of so many social and political problems we face today. Systemic change can seem overwhelming, if not nearly impossible. But changing the power structure within our most intimate relationships? That’s something we can definitely do–starting today. How? By shifting from Me vs. You consciousness to Us consciousness and learning to act from our wise adult rather than our adaptive child as we work through hard things with our partners. When we do this, we spark a cultural butterfly effect that ripples outward into the world. As this episode’s guest, Terry Real, says, “We may not be able to bring peace to Ukraine for example, but we can bring peace to our living rooms and our bedrooms. And why don't we start with where we live?”
Terry Real is the creator of Relational Life Therapy and author of the forthcoming book, Us. Tune in as Terry shares his insight on speaking to your immature, adaptive child parts vs. speaking to your wise adult parts, key differences in how boys and girls are conditioned to be in relationship and how to relearn what was taught out of us as children, the harm that patriarchy and individualism cause us in relationships and how relationships can upend them, masculinity and the current state of our country, the power in changing the choices we make in relationship in order to get more of what we want (rather than pointing the finger at our partners), plus a relational skill assignment to try in your relationship right now.
Note: This podcast episode was recorded in February 2022, before certain current events in the U.S. took place, such as the massacres in Buffalo, NY, Uvalde, TX, the Depp/Heard trial, and news leaked from Supreme Court of the decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, all of which have roots in supremacy, patriarchy and toxic individualism. Any omissions of such events in this conversation are not intentional, though we hope the correlations between these events and the issues discussed in this episode come through and further underscore the need for this work at every level from the most intimate to the collective.
RESOURCES:
Learn more about Terry Real and his work at TerryReal.com. You can order Terry Real’s new book, Us, here.
If you want to dive in deeper, consider joining our Relationship Bootcamp or exploring Rebecca's offerings to deepen your relational skills and expand your self-care. Learn more at connectfulness.com
Also, please check out our sister podcast, Why Does My Partner
