The last one and a half years have been really exciting.
We had our daughter, our second child.
The business grew dramatically.
We moved to Austin, we bought a second property.
We were able to increase our friend circle.
We were traveling a lot.
We were back at events.
We were hosting hundreds of people.
Life was going perfect
until I recognized and my wife recognized
that we both are in a situation that's less than optimal.
You see, when life goes really fast,
often one of the things that suffers the most
during that fast pace of life is your closest relationship.
And in this moment, me and Neeta, my wife,
were suffering in our marriage.
You see, when all these beautiful things happen around you,
it starts taking a toll
on some things that may be very dear to you.
Me and Neeta were having the same fight.
We were arguing about the same things.
It felt like we were always tired and exhausted
that we were not able to make time for each other,
or sometimes we didn't wanna make time for each other.
So like any reasonable relationship,
we said, "Okay, we should get a relationship coach."
And then I started reaching out
to a lot of relationship coaches,
but they tend to know me and they tend to recognize me
and I felt a little uncomfortable.
And so we had to reach out to therapists,
and we reach out to some amazing relationship therapists,
and we were able to do an introductory call
with this fantastic relationship therapist,
and we were able to find the time
to start our relationship therapy.
But until then, she said, "Before we start our work,
I want you to read this one book.
Ajit, I want you to read this book.
And Neeta, I want you to read this book,
and read it independently
and see what comes through to you
as you are experiencing this book."
And this book already changed our relationship.
It already changed how we looked at each other,
how we communicated with each other.
And what we found is, in a matter of a month,
we were able to resolve most of our challenges
just because we had access to this information
and this book.
I wanna share some of the key nuggets
that I learned in this book,
so you can also see if this could help your marriage
or it could help a marriage of your client
or it could help a marriage of somebody that you know.
The first idea that I absolutely love from this book
is true liberation is freedom from your automatic responses.
This is a quote from Jiddu Krishnamurti
that is quoted in the book.
And what the author talks about
is the real work that we have to do as individuals
is to get free from the automatic response
that we have to everything.
You see, these automatic responses usually happen
because of some past trauma or past story that we've lived.
And because of that past story,
we continue to believe that past is still our present.
And because of that,
we tend to operate from this automatic position
that does not serve what's really happening
for us in that moment.
The second idea was extremely powerful,
and that reminded me of a problem
that we have in personal growth.
You see, personal growth has become really personal,
which means we constantly talk about how we need to heal,
how we need to do the work,
how we need to change our understanding of things.
And what we forget in that
is sometimes it makes us a little bit self obsessed.
And we forget that we live in a relationship world.
We live in a world where we interact
with somebody or something at any given time.
There was a research done by a person called René.
René Spitz found,
and this was in, like, 1940s or something.
And what René Spitz found was he was researching babies
and babies who would survive
and babies who were more likely to die.
And they found that if a baby just gets his basic needs,
which is like, you know, cuddle and rub,
and diapers are changed, whatever that is, right,
you know, change, bathe and all of that,
they would have a normal rate of survival,
but they would have an increased rate of survival
if they were being talked to kindly.
So if they were told, "Oh, my beautiful baby,
oh, my kind baby, oh, you're smiling so well,"
and basically have a conversation with them,
the survival rate of babies would go up.
So effectively what René found
was that if you would just give
a little bit more relationship to a baby,
somebody that is just born in this world,
their likelihood to survive goes up.
That shows how important it is for us to understand
that all of us live in a relationship world
which means we need to understand
that relationship and relational understanding
of each other is equally important in personal growth,
than personal understanding of ourselves.
So it drove my curiosity to say,
oh, I'm getting really good
at being able to regulate my emotions.
I'm very good at reorganizing my thoughts,
but how much effort am I putting
in really understanding people around me,
in relationship with people around me,
with my wife, with my kids, with my friends?
And how am I regulating that?
How am I creating comradery in that
and how am I growing that?
And that was important
as we were rebuilding our relationship.
What happens is when we are in an argument,
when we are in a situation with our partner,
the person that we see, the moment we see them,
is what this individual,
what this researcher, what this therapist calls,
is called a core negative image.
When you are in a fight, when you are in an argument,
when you are in a disagreement with someone,
you start to think that that person
is that core negative image.
And that's just how you perceive them going forward.
But that is not true.
The core negative image is the worst image
that you have of that person
that is not what they are in every single moment.
We think that is the case
because we have this core negative image
that we create in our mind,
and then we keep bringing it up
because we think that is the truth of this person.
And we start perceiving this person
as this core negative image.
If you could bring your attention towards,
is this what the person is all the time,
or is it just my perception
that that person is this,
this core negative image all the time?
You will find that that's just not true.
The person is not their core negative image all the time.
They might be that person
every single time you're having a disagreement,
you're having a fight,
you have some kind of non-comradery
that's happening with them,
but that's not who they are.
Once you have an understanding
that core negative image is just that,
an image that you have created
in the worst of somebody's situation,
you will find that there is also image on their regular day.
And there's an image that you really fell in love with
and that also is present in that person.
This understanding or differentiation
of what is showing up for me in a moment
as a perspective shift was so important
because suddenly I could see
that I was perceiving the person that I love
and I was looking at the person that I love
in a core negative image of theirs.
It wasn't who they were all day, every day.
It was those moments
where I couldn't let go of that core negative image
is where I became hyper responsive to
or I became triggered with or I couldn't accept
because I thought that was what the person was,
but that's not what the person was.
The person truly was the person
that I was in love with and I am in love with.
And the core negative image
is just one of the things that happened to them
when they are at their worst.
And then came this idea and that was the blessing of repair.
You see, this person argues, debates, suggests
that every relationship will have a great honeymoon period.
They would have a period
where it's everything's going to hell and it's not good
and it's not fun and everything is breaking down.
But the quality of a relationship
is not determined with, do they have a breakdown?
Do they have a tough time, do they have a challenge?
The quality of relationship
and power of a relationship is really how they repair.
What is the process of repairing that relationship?
What is the process and ability to repair that relationship?
And repairing is very courageous
because repair requires you to show up
in a very different way
than how you showed up when you were having a breakdown.
You need to let what he calls your adaptive child
take a back seat
and have your mature adult be able to take the front seat
and start driving the conversation.
You see, the author suggests
that we have an adaptive child,
which is basically the child
that has had all these situations
and traumas and belief systems that they've created
which just acts up every single time something happens.
And all of us also have a mature adult.
This mature adult is where you rationalize a thought
and you say, "Why is it that I believe this?"
You regulate an emotion
and then you respond as an adult, not as a child.
And that is powerful
because once you realize
that there's an adaptive child in you
that is wanting and needing things
and is acting out of emotion in that moment,
of frantic energy in that moment,
you'll recognize that there's also mature adult in you
that can act differently, that can think differently,
that can communicate differently.
One of the most powerful ideas in this book
is relationship is not a singular act.
Building a relationship
is not about that big, fancy movie moment
where you propose to the girl and live happily ever after.
It's not even a day-to-day act.
It's a moment-to-moment act.
If you love someone and if you care for someone,
you need to be aware of that moment to moment
and act as a mature adult moment to moment.
Be responsible as an adult moment to moment,
and regulate yourself moment to moment.
Now, I've given you some amazing key ideas
that you can pretty much bring to your life immediately,
but nothing is more powerful than actually getting the book
and reading it and making your own notes.
So I wanna tell you the name of the book.
The book's name is "Us".
It's written by a relational therapist,
the person who created relational therapy, Terrence Real.
And it is one of the best books recently
that I've read around relationships
and how to be a more mature adult in your relationship.
What are some of these ideas
that you think can be applicable
for you immediately in your relationship
or something that you could take to your clients
and would create that shift in them
so they could also have a adult relationship
with their partner?
Share that with me in the comment section below.
Thank you so much for watching.