Your Nervous System is Cheating on Your Partner Before You Are

Welcome to Integrative You Radio, where we  challenge everything conventional medicine   for Forgot to tell you. I'm Dr. Nicole, joined by  Dr. Nick, and this is the show for the black sheep   families that look at life differently. We're  not here to tell you what to do. We're here to   open your eyes to new perspectives and new ways of  thinking. Now, let's get into it. Yeah. Feel that? What's up, guys? We got take two  because Nick spiraled on the last one. Nobody can handle my deepness. Oh my gosh. So, we  are talking about an interesting topic which um   I will say is AI inspired because we're like,  okay, what are the problems of, you know, real   life people? What do people want to hear about?  And um there was a hot topic about relationships   and how your nervous system is cheating  before you are or your partner is.   And I thought this was really you can  only imagine how deep I got. How quick   and we had to do a take two. Maybe we'll do  some bloopers from it. Oh my gosh. We should.   But so Nick and I have been together 16 years,  married for nine something. married long enough.   Long enough. Uh running a business together  now. We have two kids. So, yeah. So,   we've been through it. So, we're not here to  be like, "Oh my god, we've been above this.   We're we're here to, you know, talk real and raw  with you guys." But, you know, I don't think this   is talked about. Um, and don't get me wrong, there  are a lot of different layers to people feeling,   you know, like they want to cheat or they  do cheat, etc. So, there's a lot of reasons   for it. We're going to talk about some aspects  that are talked about less or really not at all   because we can overlook the idea that there is a  biochemical physiological component. But there is   and I'm going to tell you why and and and give  you an example that I think is going to hit home.   I just want to preface. Go ahead. This would  be a podcast that you might want to grab   a pen and paper, take some notes  on, because there's going to be   there's most likely going to be some  things that you haven't heard before   because people don't look at relationships the way  we look at relationships as an integrative doctor.   Yeah. And and we have survived 16  years in business together. So,   yeah. So, take some notes. We've actually we've  spent because we had every single class together   back school. So, we've spent pretty much every  single day together physically for like 20 years.   Oh my god, that's so terrifying to think, but  you're not wrong. Holy [  ] And she's only said,   "I've never loved you once." So, he's just really  gray, guys. I didn't kill him. He's like alive.   He's not in a mental asylum. So, you know, we're  winning. I literally ripped my headphones off.   All right, so back to it. Um, I think that a lot  of us have experienced what we call the honeymoon   phase and um, you know, and then people are like  so sad. Oh, the honeymoon phase is over. But like,   what the [  ] is the honeymoon phase? Let's talk  about it from more of the biochemical perspective.   When you're in your honeymoon phase, everything  is amazing and you're high as hell on dopamine   and serotonin. Your body is pumping out these  feel-good hormones. It's pumping out some oxytocin   and, you know, everything feels great. You're so  in love. And it doesn't matter like if he has,   you know, boogers on his face, you're like,  "Oh my god, I love him. He's so handsome." And,   you know, it's just like everything is  rainbow and sunshine. And then it's not   the from an integrative perspective and this is  what I love to be able to provide with people is   that and this is this is something um Paul Bragg  uh once told one of my mentors Dr. D. Martini   um is that the spirit guides the mind and  the mind dictates the body. So if the body   is producing what? Serotonin, dopamine, those  really good feelgood hormones, neurotransmitters.   Well, the body is only producing that  because the mind's perceiving some way.   So if that's feel good, then the mind is attached  to the perception, the belief of feeling good.   Hence, everything's all good and there's no  bad. If somebody sees something either all good   or all bad, experiences manic or depressive, we  would call that bipolar. Mhm. But when you're in   a new relationship, we call that the honeymoon  phase. Mhm. Which is kind of interesting.   Well, I think that's something and it doesn't  always pan out this exact way, but when you're in   that honeymoon phase, you know, it's the fantasy  you have. You start, you know, it starts out like,   I like this person, you know, I really enjoy  spending time with them, but then those hormones   can really kick up and it can drive you to like  one end of the spectrum of this this fantasy.   And then if your fantasy becomes big enough  and this person now gets put on a pedestal,   then you start to have the fears that kick in  and you start to have maybe even a little bit of   obsession and you start to have this mix that  comes along with the fantasy because it's like   I love him so much. What if he leaves? Or  I love her so much. What if she, you know,   uh something bad happens? And so once those  things start to kick in, you start to go from the   dopamine and serotonin into the stress hormones  driving the boat. And the stress hormones of your   cortisol and your adrenaline start to create a  lot of dynamics that it starts to create actual um   relationship dynamics. I'm not saying that this  is just an internal thing that's happening.   It becomes an external thing that's happening.  And people then they ride with that and they start   to now disassemble because they need to protect  themselves. Well, he's not that great and well,   I don't know if my parents are going to like him.  Well, I don't know if it'll work in the long term.   And we start to disassemble it to protect  ourselves. But really, at the end of the day,   in my opinion, being in a relationship,  it's not about the [  ] yo-yoing of   your hormones or someone always keeping you  in this high dopamine or high serotonin.   This is about knowing how to navigate both.  And this is a science. Understanding people,   understanding how to communicate,  understanding the root of each other's values,   understanding the the things that are are rooted  in the belief systems that might be from trauma or   might be from experiences. Like, guess what, guys?  That's out of the [  ] comfort zone for people.   But they think, "I'm gonna have a great  relationship, but I'm never going to have   an uncomfortable conversation. I'm never going  to be vulnerable. I'm never going to go there."   But guess what? You need to you need to know  the the raw and the dark parts of someone.   You need to know the good parts. You need to  understand them. You need to understand why   people operate the way they do in order to be  able to build an understanding to build better   communication. Like these things are not being  [  ] talked about. And it's just, you know, they   like we think that two people are supposed to come  together and then just blend and and synchronize,   but that's not how any of it works. There's a  series of of adaptability. There's a series of   of letting go parts of yourself and building up  other parts of yourself, like growing together   and knowing that it's going to  be [  ] messy along the way. Yeah. I mean, life is pretty messy, let's be  honest. And the the beautiful part of that is   we need that mess. You know, we don't want to  experience it. Nobody wants to experience it. It   [  ] sucks. Let's let's not lie. And we've all  experienced it. And if you haven't, guess what?   You're going to. Let's not lie about it.  But that mess is a feedback system to help   you get to what Dr. Nicole was talking about to  that adaptability to that resilience to that in   the body we call it homeostasis to it functioning  optimally and what's not optimal is the high.   So that honeymoon phase is a high. Well, every  action has an equal and opposite reaction trying   to get you back into homeostasis. So if you're  on a high high, guess what? You have to hit a low   then to bounce back. It's like a heartbeat. You  know, a heartbeat. It goes really up, it goes back   down, then it has its baseline, then it goes up,  then it goes down, then it has its baseline. Like,   if you're jumping up thinking that this person  is the [  ] best and that there's nothing wrong   with them and they only give you support and  no challenge, well, you're going to have that   fantasy. And fantasies are the drivers that create  our nightmares. So, you're going to drop down and   then you're going to think like, "Oh, well, this  is not who I thought I married. This person's the   worst. They don't love me. they don't care about  me. And then you create a story that isn't true.   It's the opposite of what you've originally  thought. Which, stop and think about that.   It's the opposite of the honeymoon phase. Mhm.  The longer somebody stays in a honeymoon phase,   clinically I've seen working with people is  that they're the ones that get stuck in the   nightmare phase the longest and then they become  the victim that that person is doing all these   bad things and they change. They didn't change.  They're just actually seeing the full spectrum of   that person being a human. See, person is the  concept of persona. It's a facade. It's not real.   The goal is to see somebody as a  human, whole, as who they truly are.   Benefits and drawbacks, good and bad, the hero and  the villain. We we all we all wear both pairs. And   the hard part is we a don't know how to  do this because we've never been taught.   And then B, even when we do start to like  accept somebody for who they truly are,   then we have to figure out, okay, well, you know,  these drawbacks that I didn't initially see,   how can I use that to serve myself?  How can I use that to help them?   How do I communicate with this person that I quote  unquote didn't know or didn't see before? Yep.   And that's what Nicole was talking about with, you  know, we have to learn values and we have to learn   Let's get into that in in just a minute because  I want to ground this for for some of you is that   one of the other catalysts to the hormone shift  from the serotonin and the dopamine and the   honeymoon phase that we're talking about into,  you know, now we're running on more of the stress   hormones. Some people it's because of the fear  set in. Am I going to lose this person? Are they   going to leave me? I love them so much. They're so  great. Because you put them on a pedestal. Okay,   so we got that dynamic going on. But then we have  the other dynamic which is probably more common   than not is you're in a little bubble. You're  in your little dopamine bubble and you're with   this person and maybe you're going on some dates.  They come over your house. You go over their house   and then we start to get a little more serious.  And now, okay, I want them to meet my parents.   I want them to meet my siblings. I want to  bring them out into my friends group. Oh,   maybe we're going to like, you know, go  on a vacation together. Maybe we're going   to start to live together. And now you start  to see the person in different environments.   You start to see how they treated your mom,  how they treated your dad. You start to see   how they treated the waiter at the restaurant.  You start to see how they showed up, you know,   at their job because maybe you met them for  lunch. Like they talked [  ] the entire lunch   about their about their co-workers. You start  to see them in different lights, in different   environments. You see, they leave clothes, you  know, all over the house. I never shut drawers. So, you start to see these  different these different things and   it starts to potentially drive up more of the  cortisol response and it starts to drive up   the adrenaline and it starts to drive up this  doubt or this I don't know about this person.   And really what it comes down to, it's not  that, you know, it's just like done. No,   I don't like who they are. I don't like this. You  have to gauge all of that and you have to gauge,   you know, the connection and you have to gauge.  But if you don't have anything to gauge off of,   you're going to just constantly find yourself  on a loop of it didn't work out. It didn't work   out. It didn't work out. It didn't work out. And  you're going to be like, what is the problem? Why   can't I find love? Why can't I find the right  person? And it comes down to, in our opinion,   three major things. one, understanding your own  personal values and taking the time to actually   get to know the other person's values. We're  going to talk more about that in just a minute.   Rhythms. If you do not have something set up  to have vulnerable, real pointed conversation   with your partner, you will never be  [  ] aligned. And if you think, "Oh,   we're just supposed to be aligned because  because that is not how anything works.   If you worked in a company where nobody ever  sat down to have a meeting or have a strategy,   you would leave that company because it would be  a [  ] [  ] show. So why do you think as a   couple you never have to have conversations about  real life [  ] that is affecting both parties?   And the third is is communication. There is a  right way to communicate. There is a wrong way   to communicate. And if you don't understand  how the other person takes in information   or doesn't take in information, then you could  be just literally running up against the wall.   So there's a lot of interesting things and and I  will say we've been doing this work a really long   time and Nick and I have been on our own journeys  individually and then as a couple but even with   something we took a lot of these frameworks that  we use and we plugged them into AI to make them   better and to make them accessible to you guys.  And we created something called the couples decode   and a couple's alignment system. And this is all  based off of things that we use, but essentially   it it was became better taking it through  our framework through this process with AI.   And we did obviously we tested all of our  own products out and we tested out our   couple's alignment and it broke things  down in such a more expansive way that   it just helped us relinquish some of our triggers.  Like an example for for us is that Nick is a   processor. He is not a person that is going to if  I could if I'm going to spitball something at him,   he's not going to respond in the moment.  And so I if I'm sitting there waiting for   a response from my husband and he doesn't give  me one and I don't understand this about him,   I'm just going to think he doesn't give a [  ]  He didn't care about what I had to say. He doesn't   care about how I feel about this situation and  I feel unsupported and now I'm [  ] pissed.   I mean, it's it's great because like I don't know  if can't see green screen or whatever, but like   as Nicole's talking, I'm just taking a [  ]  ton of notes, processing everything she's saying,   figuring out how I can add value, and then she  just continues talking, and you know, I don't   speak anyways. So, that's the foundation. I'm  just joking a little bit there. Just a little bit.   But we you have to learn how like like you  said how the other one communicates and   that that foundation the communication process you  know is one of the best tools that I've we've both   found is NLP neural linguistic programming and it  shows you that we all process information through   our senses. So we process it either a combination  of visually, auditory, and kinesesthetic feeling.   And if you don't understand how the other  person is processing that information,   you're going to deliver it through one of  those systems that they don't actually use. You   know, Nicole tells tells me something to do.  Well, like I use auditory 2%. So, it's like   either a I don't hear or b I don't know how to  actually break that down and make sense of it.   You know, I have to kesthetically  feel it. That's why I go quote unquote   away to process because I have to actually kind of  sit and feel all of that energy. And as I feel it,   I'm I I start to actually see it. And when  I see it, then okay, now it makes sense.   Hey, quick pause before we dive back in. If  what we're talking about today is hitting home.   If you've been told you just need to communicate  better, but the words never seem to land,   we built something for you. It's called the coup's  decode. It's not a compatibility quiz, not a love   language test. It's the assessment I wish every  couple's therapist started with. We look at what   traditional counseling was never trained to find.  The pattern underneath the argument, the family   system you both walked in with, the blind spots  that keep you looping through the same fight in   different clothes. We map the pattern across both  of you to discover where you're aligned, where   you're carrying weight the other doesn't see, and  what's actually driving the disconnect. You'll   each get a personalized relationship report back  from our team. And here's the thing, if it clicks,   if you read it together and think, "Finally,  someone sees us, that $47 becomes a credit   toward our foundation program or coup's alignment  package. So, you're not spending twice, just   taking the first step. No pressure, no countdown  timer. Just if you're tired of being told you   need to talk more when what you really need is  to see more. Head over to integrativeview.alth   and check out the couple's decode. Links in the  show notes. All right, let's get back into it.   Well, I'm the same. I'm not auditory at all.  And if you come at me with, you know, uh,   talking about something that we need to do, even  if it's very light, like, oh, we got to take the   kids to soccer, it's it's just not going to be  wellreceived. But if you send me a calendar invite   or if you send me an email with the, hey, this is  the things we need to focus on this week, that's   for me, it it's delivered in in a way that I'm  going to be able to take it and use it. And even   the other strong suit that I am is um auditory  digital which everything has to make sense. So   if if you're trying to give me information about  finances or a business move that I don't have all   the data points for it to make sense, I'm going  to fight you on it because for me it just it has   to add up it for me to be fully committed to it.  So can I I want to give one just quick example is   have um private family that we work with and uh  the parents scheduled a private session with me   alone to kind of work through some things and it  was uh with their child and they're like you know   our child wrote us this this note  of concerns and I was like well   that's pretty awesome you know that's vulnerable  taking initiative like first off, you know,   you need to praise that, you need to acknowledge  that, like that's empowerment, that's amazing,   that's vulnerability, etc. But then as they were  going through there, they're going to schedule the   family meeting to discuss it. And I was like, you  guys are missing missing one of the biggest issues   right now. And they're like, what do you mean?  Like h how did that child communicate with you?   Not auditory. And if you're gonna schedule  a meeting and then respond auditory,   they're not it's not going to  work. Like that child gave you   how they communicate. So you have  to communicate back to that child   how they're going to understand how they're  going to be able to use it which is written   wasn't the strong suit for the parents but  through that process they actually understood that   oh my god like we no wonder things are not working  out because we're communicating in a way that our   child actually doesn't process and that alone was  solved so many issues within the family. It was   amazing. 100%. You know, the the point that we're  trying to drive home here because you're like,   "Wasn't this supposed to be about cheating?  Why are we talking about all this stuff?"   When someone goes and is tempted to cheat, it's  usually, again, I'm going to say this loosely,   there's a lot of reasons for  it. One reason is it's an escape   because if they cheat and you find out, you dump  them and they didn't have to make a hard choice,   but they've already been mentally, emotionally,  energetically, and nervous system has been   out of the game for a while. And they're like,  I'm not brave enough to make the have the hard   conversation and make the decision. So, let me do  something in order to have you make the decision.   And then there are other people when you're  dealing with, you know, marriages and you're   dealing with long-standing relationships and  there's, you know, cheating or an affair,   there is usually needs that are not being met. And  listen, nobody is right or wrong. So for those of   you that get triggered by what I'm saying, there's  no right or wrong. If needs are not being met,   then you know, people act on it differently.  Some people will go and cheat to say like,   I haven't had physical touch in 10 years  and I literally my primary love language   is physical touch. So now I'm going to go seek it  out elsewhere. There is no right or wrong to that.   When you deal with love languages, what you  find is that the person will give love in the   way that they actually want to receive love. So  Nick's primary love language is physical touch.   And he will literally like when he wants  to be nice, he comes and he's like, "Do you   want a foot massage? Do you want me to rub your  back?" So he's literally pretty much telling me   that's how he's giving me love, which is  essentially really what he wants back in return.   And for me, Nicole's like, "I'll pay  somebody else to do that." I have said that,   but I delegated it. I delegate my love.   So there's there everyone has a right to receive  and give love however they choose, but if you're   not going to be aware of this and you're not  going to understand these profiles for each other,   you can easily be like, why? Why would they do  this to me? And it's not that they did it to you   in all circumstances. It's just there was  a huge huge void for them and they needed   that experience. Can I give a different  slightly different twist on it? Of course.   Your in health, your nervous system is your  master regulator. You know, it's it's also the   one of the biggest components of your immune  system. When you think about your immune system,   it's it's always creating am I protected?  Am I safe? Or do I need to fight or freeze?   or run away. Um so your nervous system  is always trying to maintain the state   of equinimity, state of balance, state of  homeostasis. And when you think of cheating,   cheating is trying to get something that  the nervous system perceives it needs   so that it can actually be grounded, can be  resilient, can be adaptable, can be healthy,   can be in that state of homeostasis. So cheating,  like you said, when we think of cheating,   we think of it always like a physical thing, but  cheating could be I went to the movies by myself   because that's what I needed. Like I I didn't  go with my family. I went by myself so I could   be alone. So I could not like regulate my system.  Yeah. Yeah. Cheating could be I I went out to   the dinner by myself and I sat at the bar so  I could have a conversation about, you know,   business, something that I really care about or I  could do these things like cheating. We're always   quote unquote, and this is the nervous system  is cheating. The nervous system, the brain,   the mind is always looking to try to fulfill  our voids. And if but it's our values too.   Well, voids is what creates our values.  Yeah. We're always trying to fulfill life   based on what we perceive isn't fulfilled. Yeah.  But what you just said, you know, being a mom,   two kids, you know, working, it's like one of the  things that regulates my nervous system is the   same. Good food and a good conversation. And if I  could talk about things that are leadershipbased,   leading a um you know a a specific mission  or or leading something in business like   that will regulate my nervous system in such a  deep capacity. And that is just something that   it helps me because that's one of my core values  is impactful leadership, visionary leadership.   And so you're going to find that people want  to do things to regulate the nervous system   that are more aligned to the nervous system.  So Nick, for the longest time, you would always   be like, and even my dad, he's like, gosh,  you're like, what do you always need to go   to an expensive dinner for? Like what? He's like,  can't we just go somewhere cheap? And I'm like,   it's not about that. It's just I want to  go for an experience because literally   connective experiences is one of my  core values and I an experience that is   filling my taste buds with food and then  I can have good quality conversation   and also like no phones, no nothing, just like  detachment from the digital world like that   is so valuable to me. So, I want to do those  things to regulate my nervous system. So,   it sounds weird, but it's like then your nervous  system cheating occurs before the physical action. The nervous system cheating is it trying to figure  out what it can do, what it can receive to what?   It's always a trick question with you. To be  to be fulfilled. Mhm. To feel valued. Mhm.   So if if we don't know our partner's values  and we're not fulfilling those values,   it's only common sense that  After a certain amount of time,   that person's nervous system has to search  and figure out a different way. Mhm.   And because And because if it goes on long enough,  their body changes, the biochemistry changes,   the hormones change, and then that's just  a greater feedback mechanism saying, "Hey,   you can't continue living how you're living  because it's not working." And I think it's   something for people to understand is that  behaviors and how we operate and things we do is   just not random. And and it's usually not because  we want to be malicious towards other people.   It's it's exactly what we're talking about. We  have a certain set of values. I will say probably   99% of people in the world have no [  ]  idea what their values are. And even if they   they think they do, they say things like family is  my highest value or religion or money. And these   are usually things that they've been told are  important. they've been told that it's to you   should value that or you just have a confusion  around you know okay family is the highest value.   Is it family? Is it what family gives you? Is it  the quality time? Is it the connection? Is it the   presence? You know there there's a lot to unpack  with that. And that's one of the things is that   when we take people through these really  really pointed questions in our coup's   alignment or the couple's decode, it's it's  extracting out what are your actual values. And   it's been pretty cool because when we launched the  product and we were taking beta testers through,   you know, our our focus was like, is this nailing  it? Like do you feel like when you read this, it's   like holy [  ] that is 100% me because that was  the goal. And you know, 99% of people were like,   "Yeah, like this nailed it. I I feel like it was a  wild experience that this knew me better than me."   And you know, and then the second runner up of  the questions was, "Were you able to use this?"   And that's a little bit of the harder part for  people is that, you know, they're like, "This is   such good information now how to apply it." And  that's one of the cool things that we created   inside of the the app, which is something that  you get when you do the coup's alignment system   is there's um an entire what I call a rhythm.  You know, some people might call it a meeting,   but it's really a rhythm. It's something  that you should do set up with your partner   to align to your values. Like a lot of  times we do our meeting, our rhythm,   we do it either out in nature, we do it while  we're doing a walk or we do it over lunch   and we make it like very fun and very light and  very casual, but we fill everything out prior in   the app. And it's different pointed questions that  allow us to stay aligned as business partners,   as a couple, and also as parents. And so if you're  not one of because those are three different hats.   Three different hats, but they all sync. They  all synchronize. They're supposed to synchronize.   Well, yeah, but I mean you we get we either  we get caught up in thinking that we're   only one of those. Or we get caught up in  thinking that, you know, I would judge you like,   oh, well, she's not being a mom. She's  being a business person. And it's just like,   no, that's you know, and those judgments  are so dangerous in families because   we need to stop and put ourselves in the  other person's shoes because, you know,   there's plenty of dynamics. They think, you  know, if if mom is home or whomever is home,   you know, there's the fantasy or the thought  of, oh, they had it easy because of X, Y, and Z.   And or on the opposite, you know, the one that's  running the business or at work in the corporate   job or whatever it is, oh, they had it easy.  they got to leave all day and they didn't have   to deal with the kids and all the crisises. But  both ends of the spectrum have their challenges   and you know if we're not going to understand  both of that and we're not going to understand   and and show some level of appreciation, gratitude  and also support it, you know, it becomes very   very chaotic and very volatile. Um because the  days that I just run the business has it a very   different set of challenges and the days that I'm  with the kids has a different set of challenges.   It's not that one was easier than the other or one  was like the break. It's just two different hats,   two different challenges, two different ways  the brain has to work. Um no no one is superior,   inferior, less difficult, more difficult.  Like I said, they both have their challenges.   And I guess as we're kind of wrapping up, one  major point that we haven't talked about is   the the selflove, you know, because you talked  about, you know, just packing is, you know,   on a business side of things for you, it's like,  okay, how does the business fulfill your values?   And then if you're home with the kids,  how does that fulfill your values?   Mhm. If you're doing something in your  life that's not fulfilling your values,   that's a lot of nervous system stress. And  then because your nervous system's stressed,   it's already on high alert. And then if there's  discommunication between the relationship,   it's it's literally just almost ready to set on  fire. Not that the relationship is that broken,   is that the nervous system is very very  fragile in the first place because of your   quote unquote doing the things that's decreasing  your self-worth. Because your worth is directly   tied to your values. Your highest values is the  the actions and the state of being that gives   you your highest degree of self-worth. The more  worthy you perceive you are, the more worthy you   treat yourself, guess what? The more powerful and  resilient and adaptable you are, the healthy you   are to give that to your relationship. So, it's  not just about learning how to communicate and   serve the other person. Yep. It's equally or just  as important that you have to start with yourself.   The last thing that I want to say here is that,  you know, we I feel like a lot of what we've   talked about is, you know, more behavioral and  more relationship dynamics, but don't be confused   that there is not also a massive amount of  strategy and execution that goes along with this.   And what I mean by this is that if you ever went  to work in a job and they never told you what to   do, but then you constantly started getting in  trouble because you weren't doing the job right,   you would quit. You'd say, "Fuck this. Like, I  don't, you know, or you you would stay and you   would just feel really bad about yourself because  like I'm not good enough and I suck at this job."   And you would just really feel not good. when it  comes to understanding more about how you operate,   how your partner operates, you know, what are  the values of the family, etc. There's also an   action plan that goes along with that. And this  is part of why we have these rhythms every week   where we connect because what I say is choose a  [  ] lane. Don't be the person who cooks dinner   90% of the time and then you expect your partner  to read your mind that you have too much on your   plate that week and that they should take over  cooking dinner but you actually never had those   words come out of your mouth because they're  like I don't understand you always cook dinner   like I don't I don't even know I don't  even know what you want to eat like so   if you you have to actually apply this information  and be very clear on who owns what in the house.   It's the same thing if you ever hired someone  to be a nanny in your house or you hired someone   to um clean the house and you're then annoyed  because they're not doing the job right. Did you   give them the playbook of exactly how to do the  job according to what you need or did you not?   Did you have the clarity on the playbook of the  role that you play in the household versus the   role that your partner plays versus the roles  that you expect out of your kids? Are you and   your partner holding your kids accountable to  those roles? And like you have to run a household   like a business. And I know that sounds crazy, but  if you are dealing with [  ] chaos all the time,   do something different. It only sounds crazy  because most people don't like their work   and don't like business. That's true. But if you  structure a business intelligently that's aligned   with values of the business and align with values  of the employees, then it's a healthy, strong,   fun environment. Mhm. Just like your home should  be. But if there's misalignment between the family   values, values of the household, the values  of the individuals of the family, and you're   not working together, well, guess what? You're  breaking down. You're growing apart. So, it's   just understanding that nothing's bad or good. You  know, we need feedback in a business that's not   working properly so that we can actually get that  information and put the right systems in. So, if   shit's breaking down in the household, it's it's  not a blame game. And it's just like, okay, well,   we just need some better systems in place,  some better rhythms as you were describing   so that we can all communicate properly together,  understand each other, and be able to actually   support and challenge because optimal growth isn't  just support. It this isn't just about creating   that honeymoon phase. It's it's about having,  like you said, those candid conversations like   you do in business, but you have challenge and you  have support. And when those are equally balanced,   you have optimal growth. 100%. All right,  guys. We're going to leave you with that.   Thank you for being here with us today. Remember,  this isn't about telling you what to think.   It's about giving you something worth thinking  about. If this episode shifted your perspective,   share it with someone who needs it because  they won't hear this in a waiting room.   Subscribe, leave a review, and if you're  ready to stop guessing and start transforming,   head to integrativew.health. We'll see you  next time. Stay curious, my black sheep.