14: Live your Way to a Better Marriage

Dr. Corey Allan from Sexy Marriage Radio joins me for real talk about marriage and relationships.

Transcript:

James Christensen, LMFT: My guest today is Dr. Corey Allan from Sexy Marriage Radio. My first question for you, Corey, is what's your favorite memory of Dr. Schnarch?

Dr. Corey Allan: At the last live training I was at with him—I missed the one right prior to his passing that was online—but I was at the one the year prior. I got a chance to say to both he and Ruth how much I respected the fact that they are a huge name, in my opinion, in the marriage world, while still having a marriage. Because so many theorists that I've studied or come across, it doesn't translate. It's a broad brush statement where they're divorced or they're on the third or fourth marriage. I get that life happens and there are a lot of other factors involved, but it's that idea that he and they tended to live exactly what they taught.

James Christensen, LMFT: He talks about that plainly in his books, including the difficulties he had. He was just very real about his marriage. It was a great marriage and it was also a difficult marriage.

Dr. Corey Allan: And they modeled what that is. Just because it's bad doesn't mean it's bad. The seasons we have, you know, it's okay.

James Christensen, LMFT: In his book on marriage, he talks about how he would reach these points in his life where he thought he was past a point. He said, "I thought we were moderately differentiated people." And then they'd run into some marriage chAllange and he'd be like, "Oh my gosh, we're still going through this after all these years." But I think that's the way it is for everybody.

Dr. Corey Allan: Absolutely. And that gives me comfort because my wife and I had that last week where it's like, "Oh, this is sideways. We haven't had this in a bit. Okay. I thought we were further along. I thought we were better than this." No, we're not.

James Christensen, LMFT: I was talking to Bruce Tift. He has a book called Already Free and two of the chapters are on marriage. He's famous for saying that during his 40 years of marriage, he felt disturbed almost every day. But he's once again framing that as, "I've had a wonderful marriage and I felt disturbed every day of my marriage." And that's the way marriage is. I was talking to him yesterday and I said, "So do you still feel disturbed in your marriage?" And he said, "Oh yeah, every day." And I think that's a beautiful way of looking at things.

Dr. Corey Allan: It's so much more real and accurate to the human experience because I think what we've done that's a disservice in a lot of ways to marriage is we've sensationalized and idealized and romanticized what two fAllan humans create. We don't bring in the undercurrent of cruel and harsh and sad and hate and, you know, all these things that we have as part of the human experience. There's no room for it in a lot of the ways stuff is proposed. But the whole differentiation model, to me, that's what drew me to it. It just makes sense. That's a real experience. I can get behind that. And then I can also—I don't like it—but I can totally get behind the idea that the biggest problem in my life is me. And if I can handle me better, I change the course of everything around me.

James Christensen, LMFT: Absolutely. I've never heard it said that way, "The biggest problem in my life is me," but I think that's always true. And it's also the biggest opportunity because that's what I can actually change.

Dr. Corey Allan: Right. That's what I have control over. I can't remember who it was. This was just talked about in a sermon a couple of months ago at our church. I think it was during World War I or World War II, a newspaper put out, "What's the biggest problem in the world?" And I gotta remember the guy's name 'cause it was a prominent guy from America who wrote into the paper with just a simple answer: "I am." I am the biggest problem in my world, and that's so true.

James Christensen, LMFT: There's a Dostoyevsky quote that I like that says, "The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every person." And that is so true. It's so easy for me to get distracted by getting obsessed with the evil in the world, or the evil in my partner, or the things my wife needs to change, or the things the government needs to change or whatever it is. The thing that I can change, the mistake I'm making, is thinking that there is no more work for me to do internally, but of course there is. The only way the world gets better is when an individual does their own work and becomes stronger and more capable of loving and caring. Then the world gets better. And all of my power to improve the world lives in my own transformation.

Dr. Corey Allan: That's so good. And it gets even more compounded when I feel like I'm loving and caring better and my spouse isn't responding in kind. Now I'm even tested more, which is the whole concept of the crucible. And that's the thing I love, because it allows you to be more real and honest about life, about relationships, about real deep things. How else do you frame it? I mean, there are not many other things out there I've ever come across that frame it that way.

James Christensen, LMFT: Sometimes I think of it in terms of right and left brain. Your right brain I think of as the relational brain. And the right brain is capable of thinking of my impact on my wife and her impact on me, and how we're so deeply interconnected. Everything I do and even everything I feel has an impact on her, as opposed to conceiving of her as some separate individual who's just kind of doing her own thing. And it's okay for me to get frustrated with her when, in reality, most of the things my wife does is in response to the environment she's living in. And that's just how normal people are. So I have so much power to impact my wife in a positive way by improving the environment that she's living in, by being a better husband.

Dr. Corey Allan: Just showing up better, being more compassionate, giving more room. I mean, I love the idea of a good, strong, vibrant marriage that has room for both people, where neither one is trying to force the other out for my own comfort or preference. "This is the way I'd rather it be done, so therefore it must be done this way." Really? Hold on. Let's go deeper in that. I don't think that's the case.

James Christensen, LMFT: So before we started recording, you mentioned that you have started thinking about a new book. Tell me about that.

Dr. Corey Allan: So the idea that I'm looking at is really trying to contextualize the action associated with creating a better life, not just the theory. I don't know if you know Chris Brogan. He's a blogger that's been around for a long, long time that I followed. When it comes to New Year's resolutions, every year he doesn't do resolutions. He does "three words." These are kind of anchors and lighthouses on the shore that help direct us, and it gives us a broad range—professionally, personally, spiritually, relationally, however you want to go. I've been doing this for the past eight years, and two years ago, one of my words was "now." That served two purposes. One was to be present, be in the now. But then the other was if I had something that came to mind I needed to get done, do it. Do it now. Like, "Oh, I need to send that email." Okay, stop what I'm doing right then and there, send it, and be done.

And it totally changed my year, how I oriented towards and acted in my life. "Oh, I need to..." Nope, I'd hop up and I would do it. And it changed so much that it started impacting my wife, and then subsequently my kids. We're all kind of impacted by it. The next year, my wife's word, one of hers, was "act." And it was based on watching what it did for me. And that was nothing I was telling her, "Hey, you know, you should do this too." I was just living.

And you start seeing the impact of that. I think that formula works in the sense of what is it that would create a better life and be a relationship as I see it, that encompasses me not just getting what I want, but it also encompasses who I am and who I want to be with. So the idea is just "living my way to a better marriage" because there are tangible things I think we need to be doing, which calls upon my own courageousness, my own ability to self-confront, handle myself, calm myself down, make good responses, and see things through. So it's just this idea that I think there are ways that we can frame that. If I look at the arc of Schnarch's work, that's where he was heading, to be much more practical and tangible from when he started with Constructing the Sexual Crucible.

James Christensen, LMFT: There is an arc there where by the time he got to his last book, it was incredibly practical and focused on what you're calling "living your way to a better marriage," which is a beautiful phrase.

Dr. Corey Allan: So it's the tangible nature of it. I think we all want—I'll speak for me—I want the steps, the plan. My YouTube feed is filled with "eight ways to be a better runner backed by science," "eight ways to get to 8% body fat backed by science." All these things that we want, and we want this with relationships. And relationships don't operate that way. I can give you some principles, but I think there are tangible ways you can act on those principles, and that's where I want to try to steer it.

James Christensen, LMFT: Speaking of acting, one metaphor I use with my clients is "time under load," which is an idea from the fitness world. If I want to get stronger, one thing I need to pay attention to is how many minutes that muscle group has been under load over the last week. The number of minutes per week under load, there's an optimum level there. It's not zero and it's not 40 hours, but there's an optimum level, and that's what I need to target. And so "time under load" for personal growth is how many minutes per week am I pushing myself to become better? As in, I've noticed a pattern of behavior that I want to change, and how many minutes per week am I pushing against that instinct? Am I acting counter-instinctively? Am I acting in a better way than what my natural pattern is? And that's time under load.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, and that's what I love about the whole differentiation model in a lot of ways is it's paradoxical. It's counterintuitive in the sense that most people think—this is what I come across with my clients initially or new listeners to the show that aren't familiar with the idea of differentiation and growing up and maturing as a better way to a relationship—they think of it as, "Oh, we just need to learn how to communicate better." No. You need to be able to handle what's being communicated. That's the paradox, right? So it's seeing it as, like you're describing, when I start to realize I've got a pain point in my life, how do I lean into that, not pull away from it? 'Cause most of us, when we have pain, we want to pull away. "I just want the pain to go away. Gimme an aspirin." Right? Rather than, "Okay, wait, what if I got curious and asked some good questions that actually lean into this, that push my tolerance level to grow?" And then I have more range.

James Christensen, LMFT: How many minutes am I going to tolerate the discomfort for growth? If it's zero minutes, which is where most of us want to go, then we're not going to grow. If I'm going to sit in that for 30 minutes a day or 40 minutes a day, then there's significant growth happening. But there's something about a certain attitude I have to bring to those minutes under load. If I'm suffering and I'm blaming my wife for my suffering, then that's not growth.

Dr. Corey Allan: No, I like the idea of struggle and suffer. This is what came to my mind when you're talking about this. I had a client, one of the ones I have tremendous respect for, a woman I was working with for over a year. She kind of dropped off the radar for a while and then she came back. I love it because when she came back—I don't think she used the word suffer, I think she used the word struggle, but I think they can be a little bit interchangeable. Because life is suffering in a lot of ways too. But she, when we got back together, I was like, "What's going on? Catch me up." And she filled me in on the background of what had happened in her marriage. And then she pivoted to what she wanted. She wanted to learn how to struggle well.

James Christensen, LMFT: That's beautiful.

Dr. Corey Allan: And I'm like, "Oh, that's a fantastic goal," because you've already framed it appropriately. It's not, "I'm gonna make the struggle go away." It's, "I just want to be better in how I address this struggle." And that's marriage.

James Christensen, LMFT: Struggling for a purpose with the anticipation that my struggle will bear fruit. If you approach the struggle correctly, then you will reap great rewards from the struggle.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, 'cause you learn, you open yourself up to something you hadn't even realized you were capable of. And that's what life in and of itself presents. Part of the reason my marriage went a little sideways last week is we're on the cusp of our youngest heading to college in a month. And we already know from the oldest when she left that we had about a month of, "Wow, things are way off." And it's not like we were longingly devastated. We've had in the back of our minds, "I know they're gonna leave. They need to leave. I'm excited for them to leave." But there's the other side of it where it's like, I'm still unsure, there's an identity shift here. And there's an adjustment in all of these things. So it's like realizing I can do everything I want to try to control my environment, or I can realize, "Wait, this is just a stage I need to face better."

James Christensen, LMFT: We had a similar experience where my youngest spent two weeks away from home this summer, and it was the first time in 23 years that my wife and I had been home alone. We had never been home alone since our oldest was born. And so we're in the house alone and our anxiety just went through the roof. It was crazy. It was one of these things like, "I thought we were through this." Oh yeah, we were not through this. We were fine with the kids home, but as soon as it's just us in the house... it took us three or four days to calm down. It was crazy. But it's an adjustment to be expected and, you know, we were strong enough to handle it well and to make something good out of it. But it was pretty interesting how dysregulated I got.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, and that's kind of the whole goal of the message I've got, and it sounds like you do too with your work and this show, is how do we just educate people that when life on life's terms unfolds and it makes me dysregulated or uncomfortable, good. That's okay. That's to be expected.

James Christensen, LMFT: Yeah, that's the way it goes. And if I avoid that struggle, if I avoid the suffering, then I also avoid the growth. It's almost like kicking that can down the road. The only way to have a good marriage is to face the struggle well and face the struggle now, step into the conflict, step into the difficulty, and face my own weakness. And that's the only way to get stronger. If I go to the gym and I'm like, "Well, I don't need to strengthen that muscle," then that muscle isn't gonna get stronger. And it's the same thing in marriage. This is an issue I deal with a lot with myself and in clients: the presumption of innocence. I had a client the other day, I was talking about how he was really fighting to appear innocent, and he said, "So what, am I guilty?" It's like, no, you're normal. You can call it guilty if you want, but you're normal. And you're so desperate to claim your innocence that you won't fight for growth because you're claiming that you don't need to grow. The first step is acknowledging that I really am at point A.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, 'cause most often, isn't it pretty obvious? Well, from an objective point of view, it's obvious. When we're in the middle of it, it's not at all obvious 'cause it's happening to me too. I don't even recognize how lost I am, how unaware and blind I am of myself. I think I've got it, but no, I don't.

James Christensen, LMFT: The great thing about marriage is that your wife sees it.

Dr. Corey Allan: Uh, she'll reflect some things back. Sometimes clearly, sometimes not. But again, it's the courage. Do I have the courage to ask the questions, to be curious, to pause and wonder, "Hey, wait, what if I'm off here? What if I'm missing something here?" I mean, I've had a couple of those moments that are big growth moments for me personally, where an exchange happened between Pam and I and it's like, "Hold on a second. I don't wanna discount the possibility that I'm missing something in me here. So help me understand what you're seeing. Because if this is true, I don't wanna be blind to it. I don't know if it is true, but I am at least gonna be aware that I may not be aware." And that's the goal.

James Christensen, LMFT: A huge change has happened in my communication with my wife over the past year where when we have any kind of conflict between us, the pace has slowed down two to three times from what it used to be. No longer any interruption. It used to be us interrupting each other all the time; that was our normal pattern. Now it's not even responding right after the other person finishes talking. It's like, I'll say something and then there's 10 seconds, and then she'll say something and then there's 10 seconds. Both of us have realized that the first idea that comes into our mind is not what we really want to say. And so we're both at this stage where it takes a few seconds to say the thing that we really want to say. The first idea is usually a pretty bad idea. I mean, we both come from pretty rough backgrounds, and the first idea that pops into my mind is usually a put-down. That's just the way my brain works and it probably will work that way for a while. And so the process I'm going through is time under load, actively working against that pattern. Because there's a better part of me as well, but the better part of me usually takes a few seconds to show up if I'm regressed, if I'm upset. Now, if I'm calm, the better part of me might show up immediately. But if my wife has just criticized me, probably not. It's probably gonna take a few seconds. That pause is super powerful.

Dr. Corey Allan: Well, I'm impressed that you guys can do a ten-second pause. I'm one that's more like a day sometimes, because my family of origin pattern that I still fight is I want to just withdraw. I wanna hide, I wanna run, I don't wanna face this. "It'll go away. You can't catch me." I've at least grown enough of a self that I can turn back into these things. I will come back to it. The scary thing that I'm more and more aware of is my profession doesn't help me personally. 'Cause I think I can stay objective, like I'm a good therapist in this whole situation with my wife. No, no, no. She will knock that out of the park right quick if that guy shows up, as absolutely she should. But it's that element of, okay, I need to get better at staying engaged on a deeper level without the fear of needing to run. And then come back to it.

Sometimes that's a good strategy. One of the tangible things I encourage couples to do all the time when they're first starting this endeavor together is you gotta do something that disrupts your normal cycle of regression and attacks.

James Christensen, LMFT: Yeah, I tell couples to focus on slowing down. That's the one. 'Cause everyone comes and asks for communication tips. I'm like, "Well, here's my communication tip: slow down." Talk slowly. Take a 10-second pause. So your partner says something, wait 10 seconds, and then respond. And if you notice that anxiety going above a five out of 10, then go take a 10-minute break. Say, "Hey, I'm feeling defensive. I'll be back in 10 minutes." It might be 10 days for you, but coming back in 10 minutes, that's the idea. It takes about 10 minutes for people to calm down. You can calm yourself significantly in 10 minutes and after 10 minutes, there's a chance of doing something with the process.

Dr. Corey Allan: We use the adage of, "I'm gonna go get a glass of water." And that's code for, "Gimme a break." I'm gonna go actually get water and I'm gonna sit and drink it. Some days I'm really, really well-hydrated because I'm not good. But that's a code for "both of us need to stop." For sure I'm going to. I'm gonna go get a glass of water and then when I drink said water, I'll come back. That's where it shifted big time for us. That is kind of a tangible thing that helps us disrupt it and then see what's the bigger thing that we're really going after. 'Cause the bigger story that I want to be a part of is I want to be a part of a good marriage. I wanna be a part of a good life. And this is the practice that creates it.

James Christensen, LMFT: That's awesome. Well, I'm excited to see your new book. I'm glad you're writing again.

Dr. Corey Allan: It's coming along. Those things, man, that's a tough deal.

James Christensen, LMFT: Yeah. I might think about it for like five years.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, well I've kind of figured out, and this is probably what I'm gonna end up doing, 'cause the way Naked Marriage came about is it was a course first. So this thing may materialize into something that's kind of tangible. We're gonna kick it off with some of the episodes we do on the show with some of the deep dives into some of the ideas, and then how do you do it, and kind of get the feedback and the real-time interaction with Pam on that. And that helps me. That helps create something that's a lot better than my academic brain that will stay too high up in the clouds.

James Christensen, LMFT: Yeah. One thing I've learned about writing is that it's more about the iteration and the revising than the initial words on paper, which really frustrates me. But I do think it's true. Writing is a way of bringing ideas into polish. Because once an idea is on paper, now I can look and ask, is there a better way to say this? Is there a way to make it shorter, more concise, more powerful?

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, and that's one of the most powerful things Schnarch landed his life on is that idea of the written mental dialogues. That whole tangible nature that you can use with clients, and I use with myself a lot. I'm gonna write this stuff out because it really does help me get a better picture of me and who I'm up against. And then what's the bigger issue? What are we really fighting about? What's this real thing that I want in this relationship or that's reality in this relationship? And so if you look at the arc of his work, he landed on that. He was kicking that around and talking about it at one of the first Crucible Neurobiological Therapy trainings that was in Seattle. It would've been eight, nine years ago probably. That's where I first was introduced to it. And it wrecked me for a while. 'Cause I was like, "Oh, I don't want to do this. This is too meddling into my world, in my own mind." And then you watch how all the iterations just evolved. It was so, so good.

James Christensen, LMFT: Oh, it's my favorite tool. Because I've never introduced it to my audience, would you mind just giving an overview of what a Written Mental Dialogue is and how you use it?

Dr. Corey Allan: So this is the idea. It's built on the principles of the "maps" that we have of each other. I have a history, like I'll use Pam. I use software iteration concepts in this too. I'm married to Pam 10.0, you know, just to throw a number out there. In my mind though is still Pam 2.5 that I will interact with in real time. And it's based on truth, but it's not accurate. So being able to do the written mental dialogues is the dialogue that goes on in our own head about the antagonist. It's not really about the antagonist; it's the antagonist in my head. And if I can't get that sorted out to actually confront that better, there's no way in the world I'm gonna confront the real person better.

And it's not about pinning them down so that they recognize the error of their ways ever. That's one of the key factors to me. It's just about how I can present myself to be dealt with better. They may not wanna deal with me, that's fine, that's not the point. But I present myself better to be handled or addressed. I'm teaching them how to treat me better. And so you take a scene, an interaction, an episode. And in today's day and age, technology helps. You can go through a text exchange with somebody. That's what I start with, with a lot of couples, because here's a real-time example. There are a lot of couples that fight via text. So it's like, okay, let's take that as a movie script and let's unpack it. Let's edit it and let's look at who this person you are is and who this person, the antagonist in your head, is. What are the moves each of you are making? And that's where it's so practical to me because it's all about moves, which is tangible and realistic. You start to see it as, "Okay, wait, that's a move they made, justifiable or not, for whatever reasons they did it or not. That's what they did. Okay, so how do I address that move?" Not more than that.

James Christensen, LMFT: What's the best way to address that move? Coming from the best of me. And so when I start to talk to people about this, they always think I'm talking about backing down. I'm like, "Oh no. We're not backing down. We are stepping up." But I'm gonna help you step up in a collaborative and courageous and a kind way. And that's what I sometimes call the "third way." Because like most of us, I grew up in a family where it was avoid, avoid, avoid, explode. There was no third way. There was no, "I'm gonna talk straight to you and you're gonna know every second that I'm talking to you that I'm on your side and that I really care about you." That was not a thing, and that's not a thing for most people growing up. And that is the only way to have a good marriage. I'm gonna tell you exactly what I think of you, not gonna leave anything out. And at every moment while I'm telling you exactly what I think of you, you're gonna know how much I care about you, and you're gonna know how important you are to me. To create a good marriage. But how could I have possibly done that when I was 25 years old when I had literally never seen it? Impossible.

Dr. Corey Allan: And I don't even know I'm capable.

James Christensen, LMFT: No. I didn't even know it existed. When I got married at 25, all I knew was avoid, avoid, avoid, explode. And all she knew was avoid, avoid, avoid, explode. And that's what we did for like 20 years. Part of what drives me is I want couples to have options that I didn't have when I was young. Because it was just such a tragedy. We believed in love and we believed in marriage, and we were stubborn and committed. And still, it fell apart. We were not even close to prepared. Schnarch says no one's ready for marriage; marriage makes you ready for marriage. But there's also a spectrum there where when I got married, I was so far from being ready for marriage that it really turned into kind of a dumpster fire, which is just so sad because then it affects the children and it affects us and it affected my job and all this.

Dr. Corey Allan: Well, and that's what's so fascinating about this whole lens. 'Cause I was just asked this the other day. I've been a part of a Christian dating app for a while now, and I get to host these tables where I just do Q&A on, "Ask a marriage and family therapist anything you want." There were like 200 people on it this past week from all over the world. And one of the first questions was, "How do I know I'm ready for marriage?" And I quickly answered, "You're not." Let's just be clear.

James Christensen, LMFT: But the only way you could ever become capable of being married is by getting married and figuring it out.

Dr. Corey Allan: Right. But it's recognizing, yes. But there's still an element of, we don't know what we're in for until we're fully in it. This last year's getaway was one of the few times in my memory—this was number nine of the retreat we do—and it was one of the only times where when I go through, "Okay, let's get an idea of the audience," you know, "who's been married less than five years?" Nobody raised their hand. "Who's been married less than 10 years?" Nobody raised their hand. I'm like, "Okay, we can do stuff here." Because anytime people have been there that are newlywed, quote unquote, they don't quite get it. I love the idea of, "The morning I wake up and wonder if I made a mistake is when marriage really begins." And the mistake isn't largely, "Is this the right person?" or "Who is this person?" That kind of thing. Now all of a sudden, that's when marriage really begins. And until the shine is gone, we're idealized. We're not seeing the whole story. I think my love will see us through. No, the love will keep my commitment to keep trying and show up again. I don't know if it'll be enough. It's like we're required to bring our best. It may not be enough in this relationship, but I'm required to do it.

And when you can get that, once people have got life together under their skin with each other, under their belts, and they actually have had moments of, "I don't like you at all, but I'm still here," 'cause it's a commitment I've made to me first, and then I'll decide if I wanna stay committed to you. Now all of a sudden we can work with that. And I think that is such a hopeful message because it lets people... I have client after client that have found me from the show, and there's something different and they're coming in beat down and despondent. And when they can get a sense of, "Okay, wait," but they've got a commitment to themselves with this commitment they've made, that gives me such hope. I don't know if their spouse is gonna be on board with it or not. That doesn't matter at this point. But to watch when it clicks and they're like, "Okay, I can see that. I can see that within my realm and within my grasp is me handling me better."

James Christensen, LMFT: Yeah, and the person you're married to is the perfect person to help you with that. I work with so many couples where one person or both people are considering leaving. And I don't really try to keep couples together, but I do say if you leave before you face the lessons of this relationship, you will regret that. And so what I encourage couples to do is if you can dedicate a few months to dealing with what this relationship is showing you about yourself, it'll change your life for the rest of your life. And there is no better person in the world to help you deal with yourself right now than this person who's sitting here with you. If you are willing to face the reality of what the two of you have created together and what very real weaknesses that you have that are keeping both of you from having the kind of relationship you want to have, you can deal with that right now and then decide whether you're gonna stay together. That's a world of difference from leaving before you deal with the issues.

Dr. Corey Allan: Totally. I tell clients, if you'll give it a good solid six to nine months, it'll be a no-brainer if you should stay or go.

James Christensen, LMFT: And you'll know. You will be more prepared to leave or more prepared to stay. But you need to do the work before you decide.

Dr. Corey Allan: Right. Because otherwise you're just running, and that's what we spend too much time doing, running from ourselves anyway.

James Christensen, LMFT: And if you run, you're gonna end up in a similar pickle in five years.

Dr. Corey Allan: If not sooner. Because how many people out there are serial relationship people? They're just bouncing from relationship to relationship, and they're not dealing with themselves.

James Christensen, LMFT: It's either you go from relationship to relationship or you kind of settle for a kind of monotony and unhappiness.

Dr. Corey Allan: One of my favorite early clients was a lady in her sixties. This was 22 years ago when I was just starting in the field. I'd been in it for two years or so and just starting to dive into Schnarch 'cause I found his work in grad school, so I dove deep into it right away. She was on her fourth marriage that had ended, and she was looking at a fifth. She had a guy, but she wasn't too sure. We were talking and her question flat out was, "I just wanna know how to find better men." And I was like, "How about let's switch this?" "What do you mean?" "How about, let's look at the common denominator of this story. That would be you, ma'am." And she did not like that at all at first. And then as we started unpacking it, she looked at me at the end of the session and goes, "I think I'm gonna like you."

James Christensen, LMFT: She's trying to find an external solution to an internal problem, which is not a real thing.

Dr. Corey Allan: Right. It's that same kind of concept of I'm trying to find a solution to a problem at the same level at which I created the problem. Not gonna do that. If I don't raise my level of functioning and awareness of stuff, I'm not solving the problems at the level I started them at. So it's a constant trajectory of how am I better today than I was yesterday or a year ago or whatever. And there are probably minute improvements all the time as well as some regression times. And I pull back a little bit, that's okay. But when I'm aware of it, I'm better.

James Christensen, LMFT: One of my favorite concepts from Crucible is the idea of brain functioning. I don't know why we don't talk about it this way all the time, but I have a liver and I have a kidney and I have lungs and I have a brain, and they're all organs. If I run today, my lungs are growing right now. My brain is the same. There are certain things that I can do that help my brain become more healthy. And the signs that I have a brain that's functioning well are courage and kindness and discipline. To the extent that I am courageous and kind and disciplined, then my brain is doing well. And when I'm not courageous, my brain is doing less well. If I look at the trajectory of my life over the past five years, there's a massive improvement in brain functioning and what a gift that has been for me. And that's what I hope to offer to clients. Just like you can get stronger at the gym, your brain can get stronger and when your brain gets stronger, the burdens of life feel lighter because you're stronger. It's just like if I have to pick up a 50-pound box and I've been exercising, that's fine. If I have to pick up a 50-pound box and I haven't lifted anything in 10 years, then I'm not gonna be able to do it.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah. Or you're gonna hurt yourself doing so. That's the same thing too, if you look at the trajectory of Schnarch's work and how he ended with the whole concept of regression. That framework, "ugly fish," is terminology that's used in my house with my family. It is so tactically appropriate. My daughter who's 20 was heading back to college last summer after a horrifically bad summer, a breakup with the first college boyfriend. This was a big deal 'cause this was one that looked like it had hope. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, he called and broke up at the beginning of the summer. So she was wrecked for a big chunk of the summer. This was also when we were using this terminology and I was trying to do what I could alongside her to help her navigate some of this. So she's an hour out of town from where her college is up in Kansas, and she calls me. I hate anytime my kids are on the road, I hate a phone call from 'em initially. 'Cause it's like, "What's going on? What happened?" But looking back at it, I love it. 'Cause she answers, I answer the phone and there's some sniffling a little bit and she's like, "Dad, I'm really regressed." And I'm like, "How deep are you?" And she's, "I'm at the bottom." "Okay. Do you need to pull over? Are you close? Are you okay?" "No, I'm good." Okay. And then we talked for the next hour. We just talked because she gave a picture to accurately depict what's going on with her, which, if you can do that, you bring your functioning up immediately. That's the brain functioning. That's the ability.

James Christensen, LMFT: The power of saying, "I'm regressed." What a gift that she just knows how to say that because there's no judgment, there's no shame. "I went through a horrible experience and this is a thing my brain does after a horrible experience. It won't last forever and there's a way out. I know how to take care of myself and swim up."

Dr. Corey Allan: No, this is so good. I use this anytime I get a chance to speak. This terminology is so powerful as a better way to depict and more accurately quantify who I am and how I'm interacting with my world. So Schnarch uses the idea of the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest part of the world, and there are creatures that live down at the bottom. And when my brain caves in on itself, or I go "spaghetti brain" or "fog brain" or "flooded with emotion" or anxiety—any terminology fits with this. That's why I love the idea of "brain state," like you're describing brain function. How well is this organ functioning? When it's not functioning well, I become an "ugly fish." That's the stuff that lives at the bottom of the ocean, at the bottom of this trench.

James Christensen, LMFT: And what are they like? How well do they treat each other?

Dr. Corey Allan: They are as scary and ugly as can be. They also, there are no friends down there. There's nobody in your corner. There's nobody there supporting you. They only want to eat you or screw you. That's all they're there for. And what we don't realize is when I'm not functioning well, I become that, even though I think I'm not. And so the goal then becomes, how do I recognize my level of ugly faster? Or my level of regression faster? Because just by doing that, I at least stop the dropping. And then I can do the steps I need to to become more buoyant in my life. And that's to go for a walk, take deep breaths, talk it out. There's a lot of different things you can do when I can actually level myself off.

So we used it as, we know we can create storms when we walk into homes with each other. If I'm not functioning well, I can wreck an evening. My wife can come home from work after a really stressful... she's a tax accountant. And so after really stressful overload days, which is very common, she can wreck an evening by just her mood and her awareness and her functioning level. And so it's very common now, on the better days, for one of us to say, "Ugly fish warning. I'm not doing well today." And that doesn't mean "save me," that just means "give me some room. I need to do what I need to do for me here."

James Christensen, LMFT: You are aware of what's going on with you and you're also taking responsibility for what's going on, as opposed to the more typical pattern, which is "I'm not doing well and I'm somehow gonna make it your responsibility or blame it on you." That is the normal ugly fish pattern. "You need to fix me and my functioning level. You need to change so I can be okay." But if I can say, "I'm regressed," all of a sudden, just in saying that, I am responsible for my regression and I'm working on swimming up.

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah. It's possible she's only at four miles down while I'm seven miles down. Okay. We can have an interaction. It's not gonna be deep and profound. It's gonna be very, very tactical and surface. "Hey, what are we doing for dinner?" "Hey, this is coming up tomorrow." That's surface-level conversations that aren't deep, 'cause you can't do deep if you're too deep in the trench. So the whole idea is recognizing I will fluctuate up and down moment to moment in my brain state. And the more I can be aware, man, the more empowered I am. "Okay, wait, yeah, I'm not doing well. I need to go for a walk. I need to pet the dog. I need to go sit by the pool."

James Christensen, LMFT: Instead of saying to my wife, "I'm regressed," I'll just look at her and say, "I'm swimming." And she'll just laugh. She's like, "Yeah, I know."

Dr. Corey Allan: I just love the... we haven't gotten to this point 'cause this would be weaponizing and neither of us are operating well enough most of the time to do this. But it's like, "I am a real ugly fish." "Well, what kind? Tell me which one." That doesn't help the situation.

James Christensen, LMFT: That'd be awesome. Like a rating system. All right, Dr. Corey Allan from Sexy Marriage Radio, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Where can people find you?

Dr. Corey Allan: Yeah, this has been fun. My online world is completely housed at SMR.fm. So SMR for Sexy Marriage Radio, and then FM like for the radio station. It is just the easiest. As my daughter claims, I have the shortest email address ever: Corey@SMR.fm. Very quick and intentional.

James Christensen, LMFT: Good for you. It was a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and I will talk to you again soon.

Dr. Corey Allan: Absolutely. Thanks, man.