Your Nervous System Is Cheating On Your Partner — Before You Are.
Why the honeymoon phase ends, what your biochemistry is actually chasing, and how couples rebuild a connection that survives the dopamine drop.
Topics: nick, nicole, because, good, honeymoon, phase, together, before
Key takeaways from this episode
- Nicole (00:26) and how your nervous system is cheating before you are or your partner is.
- Nicole (00:00) What's up guys, we're gonna take two, because Nick spiraled on the last one. my gosh.
- When you're in your honeymoon phase, everything is amazing and you're high as hell on dopamine and serotonin.
- Nick (02:14) We've actually, we've spent, because we had every single class together in chiropractic school, so we've spent pretty much every single day together physically.
- Nicole (02:55) You know, and then people are like so sad, the honeymoon phase is over.
Pull quotes
The honeymoon phase isn't love. It's a 12-to-24-month dopamine prescription your brain wrote itself. When it expires, most couples think something is wrong with them. Nothing is wrong. The drug just wore off.
Your nervous system is cheating on your partner long before your body does. It's already looking for the next dopamine hit — at work, on your phone, in a fight — because no one taught it how to feel safe at rest.
People don't cheat for sex. They cheat for regulation. They're trying to fix a dysregulated nervous system with a person who doesn't know their baggage yet.
Transcript
Dr. Nicole (00:00)
What's up guys, we're gonna take two, because Nick spiraled on the last one. my gosh. So we are talking about an interesting topic, which I will say is AI inspired, because we're like, okay, what are the problems of real life people? What do people wanna hear about? And there was the hot topic about relationships.
Dr. Nick (00:07)
Nobody can handle my deepness.
Dr. Nicole (00:26)
and how your nervous system is cheating before you are or your partner is. And I thought this was really interesting.
Dr. Nick (00:33)
So 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, you know?
Dr. Nicole (00:40)
my gosh, we should.
But so Nick and I have been together 16 years, married for nine, something like that. Long enough. 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, my God, we've been above of this. We're here to, you know, talk real and raw with you guys. But, you know, I don't think this is talked about.
Dr. Nick (00:51)
married long enough.
Dr. Nicole (01:09)
And don't get me wrong, there are a lot of different layers to people feeling like they want to cheat or they do cheat, et cetera. So there's a lot of reasons for it. We're gonna 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 gonna tell you why and give you an example that I think is gonna hit home. We have our, go ahead.
Dr. Nick (01:46)
just want to preface.
This would be a podcast that you might want to grab a pen and paper and take some notes on. Cause 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.
Dr. Nicole (01:54)
Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well...
Yeah, and we have survived 16 years in business together. yeah, so take some notes.
Dr. Nick (02:14)
We've actually, we've spent,
because we had every single class together in chiropractic school, so we've spent pretty much every single day together physically.
Dr. Nicole (02:18)
Yeah, that's true.
for like 20 years. my God, that's so terrifying to think, but you're not wrong. Holy shit. He's just really gray guys. didn't kill him. He's like alive. He's not in a mental asylum. So, you know, we're I literally ripped my headphones off. All right, so back to it. I think that a lot of us have experienced what we call the honeymoon phase and
Dr. Nick (02:28)
for our luck.
And she's only said, I've never loved you once. So, I mean, it was great.
Ha!
Dr. Nicole (02:55)
You know, and then people are like so sad, the honeymoon phase is over. But like, what the fuck 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,
and he's so handsome and you know, it's just like everything is rainbow and sunshine and then it's not.
Dr. Nick (03:37)
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, Paul Bragg, once told one of my mentors, Dr. Demartini, 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
feel good hormones slash 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
Dr. Nicole (04:11)
Mm-hmm, yes.
fantasy.
Dr. Nick (04:32)
What oppressive, we would call that bipolar.
Dr. Nicole (04:36)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (04:37)
But when you're in a new relationship, we call that the honeymoon phase, which is kind of interesting.
Dr. Nicole (04:42)
Mm-hmm. 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. 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 fantasy.
Dr. Nick (04:46)
You
Dr. Nicole (05:09)
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, know, 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. It starts to create actual...
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 is not about the fucking 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 things that 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 fucking comfort zone for people. But they think, I'm gonna...
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 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 fucking talked about. And it's just, know, like we think that two people are supposed to come together and then just blend and synchronize, but that's not how any of it works. There's a series 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 gonna be fucking messy along the way.
Dr. Nick (08:29)
Yeah, I mean life is pretty messy. Let's be honest. And 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 fucking sucks. 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
Dr. Nicole (08:45)
Thank
Dr. Nick (08:55)
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 fucking 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
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 originally thought, which stop and think about that. It's the opposite of the honeymoon phase. 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.
Dr. Nicole (10:08)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (10:19)
and then they become the victim that that person is doing all these bad things and they changed, 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 all wear
Dr. Nicole (10:33)
Mm-hmm.
Well, 100%.
Dr. Nick (10:49)
both pairs.
Dr. Nicole (10:51)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (10:52)
And the hard part is we, 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?
Dr. Nicole (11:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (11:22)
And that's what Nicole was talking about with, you know, we have to learn values and we have to learn NLP and how they process.
Dr. Nicole (11:29)
Well, let's get into that
in just a minute because I want to ground this for some of you is that one of the other catalysts to the hormone shift from the serotonin and the dopamine, 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. OK, 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. maybe we're gonna go on a vacation together. Maybe we're gonna 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 at their job because maybe you met them for lunch. Like they talked shit the entire lunch about their coworkers. You start to see them in different lights, in different environments.
Dr. Nick (12:55)
see if they leave clothes, you know, all over the house.
Dr. Nicole (12:58)
I never shut drawers.
Dr. Nick (13:00)
He he he he he.
Dr. Nicole (13:02)
So you start to see 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 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 gonna 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 fucking aligned. And if you think, 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'd be a fucking shit show. So why do you think as a couple, you never have to have conversations about real life shit that is affecting both parties? And the third 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, that you could be just literally running up against a wall. So there's a lot of interesting things. 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 couples alignment system. And this is all based off of things that we use, but essentially it 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 couples 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 us is that Nick is a processor. He is not a person that is going to, if I'm gonna spitball something at him, he's not gonna respond in the moment. And so 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 gonna think.
He doesn't give a shit. 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 fucking pissed.
Dr. Nick (16:20)
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 shit ton of notes, processing everything she's saying, figuring out how I can add value. And then she just continues talking. 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 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 neuro-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 kinesthetic 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. know, Nicole 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 kinesthetically 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.
Dr. Nicole (17:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (17:49)
And as I feel it, I'm, I start to actually see it. And when I see it, then, okay, now it makes sense. There is, there is very...
Dr. Nicole (17:54)
Mm-hmm.
Well, I'm the same. I'm not auditory at all. And if you
come at me with, you know, talking about something that we need to do, even if it's very light, like, we got to take the kids to soccer, it's it's just not going to be well received. But if you send me a calendar invite or if you send me an email with behave, this is the things we need to focus on this week. That's for me. 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 auditory digital, which everything has to make sense. So 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 gonna fight you on it. Because for me, has to add up for me to be fully committed to it. So.
Dr. Nick (18:52)
So can I, I'm going to give one
just quick example is have a private family that we work with and the parents scheduled a private session with me alone to kind of work through some things and it was with a 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
Dr. Nicole (19:21)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (19:22)
First off, you you need to praise that. You need to acknowledge that. Like that's empowerment. That's amazing. That's vulnerability, et cetera. But then as they were going through there, they're going to schedule a 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 mean? Like, how did that child communicate with you? Not auditory. And if you're going to 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. my God. Like we.
Dr. Nicole (19:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (20:16)
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. was amazing.
Dr. Nicole (20:28)
Mm-hmm. 100%. You know, 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 gonna 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 longstanding relationships.
and there's cheating or an affair, there is usually needs that are not being met. 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 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...
Dr. Nick (22:31)
And Nicole's like,
I'll pay somebody else to do that.
Dr. Nicole (22:35)
I have said that. But I delegated it.
Dr. Nick (22:40)
delegate my love.
Dr. Nicole (22:44)
So
everyone has a right to receive and give love however they choose, but if you're not gonna be aware of this and you're not gonna understand these profiles for each other, you could 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.
Dr. Nick (22:49)
you
I give a slightly different twist on it? You're 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. you think about your immune system, it's it's always creating. I protected? Am I safe or do I need a fight or freeze or run away?
Dr. Nicole (23:13)
Of course.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (23:34)
So your nervous system is always trying to maintain the state of equanimity, 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 didn't go with my family. I went by myself so I could be alone. So I could not like whatever that is. Yeah. Cheating could be, I went out to
Dr. Nicole (24:20)
regulate my nervous system.
Dr. Nick (24:28)
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 cheat 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
Dr. Nicole (24:52)
It's our values, too.
Dr. Nick (24:54)
Well, voids is what creates our values. We're always trying to fulfill a life based on what we perceive isn't fulfilled.
Dr. Nicole (24:57)
Yeah, because what you just said,
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 leadership based, leading a, you know, a specific mission 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 a 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 wanna do those things to regulate my nervous system.
Dr. Nick (26:38)
It sounds weird, but it's like 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?
be fulfilled, to be fulfilled, to feel valued.
Dr. Nicole (27:04)
It's always a trick question with you.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (27:12)
So 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.
Dr. Nicole (27:31)
Mm-hmm. I think that an important, mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (27:33)
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.
Dr. Nicole (27:40)
Yeah, it's true.
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 it's usually not because we want to be malicious towards other people. 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 fucking idea what their values are. And even if they think they do, they say things like, family is my highest value, or religion, or money.
Dr. Nick (28:20)
Or they say money.
Dr. Nicole (28:23)
And these are
usually things that they've been told are important. They've been told that 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 of time? Is it the connection? Is it the presence? You know, 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 and...
our couple's alignment or the couple's decode, 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, our focus was like, is this nailing it? Do you feel like when you read this, it's like, holy shit, that is 100 % me, because that was the goal. And 99 % of people were like,
Yeah, like this nailed it. I feel like it was a wild experience that this knew me better than me. 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 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 app.
which is something that you get when you do the couples alignment system, is there's an entire, what I call a rhythm. 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. 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 those three different hats, but they all sync, they all synchronize, they're supposed to synchronize.
Dr. Nick (30:33)
because those are three different hats.
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, well, she's not being a mom, she's being a business person. And it's just like, no, that's.
Dr. Nicole (30:58)
Mm-hmm.
Those judgments are so dangerous in families because we need to stop and put ourselves in the other person's shoes because there's plenty of dynamics they think. If mom is home or whomever is home, there's the fantasy or the thought of, they had it easy because of X, Y, and Z. Or on the opposite, the one that's running the business or at work in the corporate job or whatever it is.
they had it easy, they got to leave all day and they didn't have to deal with the kids and all the crises. But both ends of the spectrum have their challenges. And if we're not gonna understand both of that and we're not going to understand and show some level of appreciation, gratitude and also support, it becomes very, very chaotic and very volatile.
Because the days that I just run the business has 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. No one is superior, inferior, less difficult, more difficult. Like I said, they both have their challenges.
Dr. Nick (32:26)
And I guess as we're kind of wrapping up one major point that we haven't talked about is the, the self-love, you know, because you talked about, you know, just P backing 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?
Dr. Nicole (32:54)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (32:55)
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 literally just almost ready to set on fire.
Dr. Nicole (33:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (33:20)
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 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.
Dr. Nicole (33:33)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (33:47)
Guess what? The more powerful and resilient and adaptable you are, the healthier you are to give that to your relationship. So it's not just about learning how to communicate and serve the other person. It's equally or just as important that you have to start with yourself.
Dr. Nicole (33:54)
Mm-hmm.
The last thing that I want to say here is that, you know, 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 could 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, et cetera.
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 fucking 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 even know what you want to eat. So 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 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? Like you have to run a household like a business. And I know that sounds crazy, but
If you are dealing with fucking chaos all the time, do something different.
Dr. Nick (36:29)
It only sounds crazy because most people don't like their work and don't like business But if you structure a business intelligently that's aligned with values of the business and alignment values of the employees Then it's a healthy strong fun environment 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?
Dr. Nicole (36:34)
That's true.
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (36:58)
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 the household. It's, it's not a blame game. It's just like, okay, well, we just need some better systems in place and better rhythms as you were describing so that we can all communicate properly together, understand each other and be able to actually support.
Dr. Nicole (37:00)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Nick (37:28)
and challenge because optimal growth isn't just support. This isn't just about creating that honeymoon phase. 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.
Dr. Nicole (37:34)
Mm-hmm.
100%. All right, guys, we're going to leave you with that.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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