Cultivating Healthy Relationships with Jillian Turecki

On Tuesday, December 12th, FMCA hosted an Ask the Expert webinar with relationship expert Jillian Turecki to share her insights into how cultivating healthy relationships can help improve overall health and wellness. The Ask the Expert series is offered to FMCA students and members of the Alumni Program.

Jillian is a certified relationship coach, teacher, author, and host of the Podcast, Jillian On Love. Certified by the Robbins Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention, Jillian has spent 20 years working to help transform people’s relationships with themselves and their loved ones.

This webinar focused on how health coaches can help their clients cultivate better relationships in their lives. What kinds of questions can coaches ask? What resources can they share with clients? In what ways can healthy relationships improve overall health and wellness?

Health coaches help clients navigate stressful situations, and sometimes that includes interactions with toxic loved ones. This is especially true during the holiday season. With holiday obligations, family gatherings, and workplace celebrations, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and stressed out.

Dr. Sandi wrote in Forbes about how health coaches can assist their clients in weathering holiday stress. She discusses how coaches can coach clients around food, exercise, and self-care. What’s more, she talks about how coaches can help their clients prepare to interact with people they may have a negative relationship with. This is a great extra resource, especially during the holiday season.

Watch the Replay

Ask The Expert: Cultivating Healthy Relationships for Your Well-being, Featuring Jillian Turecki:

Transcript

Dr. Sandi: Welcome, everybody. I am Sandi Scheinbaum. I’m the CEO and founder of FMCA. I am delighted that you are all here. We have members of our community and so many people who are new, who are just joining us. I want to welcome you. And I want to welcome our speaker. I am so honored to meet you, Jillian, to have you here. I’m so excited for you sharing your wisdom. So, if you don’t know, this is Jillian Turecki. She is the relationship coach. So, I’m going to turn it back to Patty, and we’ll get started. Thank you all.

Jillian: Thank you so much.

Patty: You know, not only do we know, as individuals, how relationships deeply influence who we are and how we feel. But as health coaches, we know this is one of the key factors in health. And even though, there can be a certain level of uncomfortableness and talking with the client about relationships in their lives, it may be the piece in their healing that moves the needle the most.

So, today we are so fortunate to have one of the leaders in the field, Jillian Turecki, here to guide us. Jillian brings so many gifts to the world, through her books, podcast, programs as a certified health coach. Welcome, Jillian. I’m hoping you can share a little bit more about your work and your passion with our community.

Jillian: Oh, thank you so much for your kind words and for that very warm welcome. Yeah, so I’m a relationship coach. I come from a history of practicing and teaching yoga for over 20 years. So, the mind-body connection has always been something that I have been passionately exploring for a huge portion of my life. I moved into relationship coaching about 10 years ago, and I’ve worked with all relationships but specifically my interest really lies in romantic relationships, because I really believe that, if we are in a relationship, even if everything is going well in our lives, if our romantic relationship isn’t, it’s almost impossible to be happy.

And then there’s also just the quest of finding love and heartbreak and all of that. So, I do think that our relationships are really what determine the quality of our lives, and our romantic relationships is the place where we feel most vulnerable and most susceptible to emotional pain. And emotional pain, as I’m sure everyone, what you teach at your school is that emotional pain can definitely lead to, can manifest as physical symptoms. So, yeah, I’m just very happy to be here.

Patty: Thank you. And, you know, a big piece of what we’re going to talk about today is cultivating healthy relationships. You talk about how self-awareness is a relationship superpower. So, can you talk about how self-awareness plays a role in relationship with others?

Jillian: Sure. So, it’s important to have awareness of how we behave and how others take us in and how we impact others. And part of having self-awareness from a relational standpoint is we are aware how we behave and we are aware how our wounds and the things that we struggle with, how they impact the relationship, so we have an awareness of that. And that really is the first step. We can’t actually do anything about that. We can’t change our behavior. We can’t change our approach. We can’t repair anything in our relationship if we don’t first have the awareness of how we impact others. And also self-awareness is not only about negative impacts; it’s about positive impact. It’s about being aware of how we operate in the world, how other people interact with us.

And I think that awareness extends beyond the self. It’s also having an awareness of how someone who we are in relationship with, regardless of the nature of that relationship, how that person feels when they are around us, how they feel generally in life. So, awareness is very closely linked to attunement, so having an attunement to oneself, having an attunement to another person. And that’s very important because the people who lack total self-awareness are the ones that we would refer to as toxic, are the ones that we might refer to as a narcissist, or the ones that we refer to as those who are impossible really to be in a relationship with.

So, it is very important. And self-awareness is not something that you’re just born with. I mean, definitely certain people have a natural proclivity towards it, but it’s something that we develop. And we develop that through self-examination. We develop that through curiosity. We develop that through compassion. We develop that through listening carefully, through paying attention, through attentiveness and presence.

Patty: Yeah, that’s amazing. And in a coaching conversation with someone, what does that look like when you’re trying to help them develop some self-awareness with the goal of helping them in relationships?

Jillian: I think it always boils down to the questions that we ask a person. We ask them, like, what was your experience of that? Or how do you think that maybe A has impacted B? How does what you’re dealing with now…? Is there a pattern that you see between what you’re experiencing now versus what you experienced a year from now? So, it’s just really asking questions to prompt your client to look inward and to get more investigative in their thinking of themselves.

Patty: Yeah. No, those are great points and, you know, all of things that coaches can ask during a coaching conversation. If a coaching client indicated that they wanted to go further and explore and help develop some of their own self-awareness, what would you direct them to do?

Jillian: Yoga, honestly. Meditation. It could also be any form of exercise, but yoga in particular is… And it can be any kind of yoga. Yoga is about tuning the intellect inward to be able to spread your awareness to all parts of your body at the same time because part of developing self-awareness is about expanding our capacity for awareness. So, it’s not that we’re just aware of our toe, but we’re aware of our hands and our feet at the same time. We’re able to stretch our awareness to our fingernails while, at the same time, have an awareness of what our collarbone is doing. So, it really is about stretching awareness. And I think that the fastest and most effective way to do that is through our physiology. So, doing something with our bodies and with our breath I think is the most effective way for sure.

Patty: Yeah, I love how you reframe that to expanding capacity because it’s true. It’s not just becoming aware of one thing. It’s becoming aware of multiple things that, kind of, moves the needle. So, thank you. And speaking of physiology, health coaches are focused on helping their clients heal or maintain health. From your experience, can you share how relationships affect our health? And maybe we can follow up with some talk around the nervous system as well.

Jillian: Sure. So, oftentimes, for example, when I’ve worked with clients over the years and they come to me with, sort of, a presenting problem, when I dig deeper, what I always find is that there is something lacking in their relationships. So, that could mean that they’re lacking community. That could mean that they… A lot of times I’ll discover that they haven’t spoken to one of their siblings in many, many years. And actually that estrangement is… They think it’s no big deal, but actually it’s a very big deal and it’s impacting their entire life, including their physical bodies. A lot of times what’s going on with someone really can be tied back to or traced back, I should say, to what’s going on in their marriage or in their relationship.

So, when our core relationships, when our key relationships in life are suffering in any way, we suffer. There is just no way around it. So, if you’re working with a client, whether you’re in functional medicine, whether you’re in relationship coaching, and you’re noticing that they’re suffering in some way, it behooves every practitioner to try to get under the hood of the car, so to speak. And maybe… It’s not a guarantee, but oftentimes what you’ll find is that, by helping your client strengthen their relationship with someone important in their life, that that actually has a profound impact on their overall well-being.

So, yes, our nervous systems, you know, our hearts, our nervous systems, we’re all connected, whether we like it or not. And if we’re feeling very burnt out, if our nervous systems are burnt out, if we need to activate the parasympathetic nervous system because we’re constantly in fight or flight, I think… As you know, it’s about looking at a person’s life holistically. And, you know, what I didn’t say before, which I should have said, it’s like it boils down to the relationship we have with ourselves. And so even if there isn’t perhaps a key relationship with someone else that’s struggling in their lives, it always boils down to the relationship we have with ourselves.

Like, a lot of times people will experience… Since you wanted me to touch on the nervous system, burnout is a condition of the nervous system. But where does that actually come from? It comes from conditioning and beliefs that we have about how we’re supposed to achieve, what we’re supposed to get done, what mom or dad subliminally taught us when we were children and all of that. So, when we feel disconnected from ourselves, when we are operating from a belief system that says that we’re not good enough and that we have to, like, achieve at a certain level to get that validation, these are the things that lead to burnout. If we’re overwhelmed, if we’re not accustomed to asking for help, if we’re experiencing imposter syndrome, if we’re not implementing certain daily routines to help us stay grounded, I mean, those are all the things that… It always boils down to the relationship with self and the relationship with others.

Patty: Yeah, and that connection piece. Thanks for talking about burnout. We did some research with our graduates in corporate wellness in a company. And we saw that burnout was really a lack of connection affecting the workplace and of course, you know, traveling to home too. So, I think that’s such a great point. And if you hear your clients say I feel burnt out, that’s relationship talk really, you know, and we’re invitation maybe, as you said, to go under the hood. So, in terms of going under the hood, how do you do that with your clients?

Jillian: It’s all in the questions that you ask. Everything has to do with anytime you want to form a deeper understanding of someone else, whether it’s a client relationship or any relationship. It’s all in the questions that you ask. So, to be a coach of any kind is to practice and refine the art of asking questions. And so you have to think of yourself as a detective because people will come to the coach with a certain story and a certain account of their lives. And our job as coaches is both to be very good listeners. It’s a fine line between listening to what the client has to say but then also being a little bit skeptical of what they’re saying and being, kind of, a detective and trying to figure out more. So, never just take what they’re saying at face value. Like, you want to know everything about your client. You want to know what is the best thing that’s ever happened to them. You want to know what is the worst thing that’s ever happened to them. You want to know what makes them happy. You want to know what makes them miserable. You want to know where they feel most fulfilled. You want to know where they feel the least amount of fulfillment. You want to know who their key relationships are. You want to know if they have any estrangements, or they’re fighting with anyone at the moment. You want to know what they do for a living. You want to know their culture. You want to know how they were raised. So, I really believe that it’s about really trying to understand the person and know as much about them as possible.

Patty: And that alone, those questions will help develop connection between you and that person, building that a little bit. So, some of those questions under the hood is, how are the friendships in your life? And similar kind of questions…

Jillian: Yeah, tell me about your best friend. Tell me about your community. Tell me about how are things at work. Tell me about your boss. Tell me about your mom. What’s going on there? You know, it’s really just trying to get to the root of what might be going on psychoemotionally for someone and how that might be showing up as something physical and knowing honestly also, like, what’s holding them back from making changes in their life. But it starts with really trying to understand the person who’s in front of you.

Patty: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, talking just more about connection, you know, that it’s a driver for health and longevity. And so do you have any, kind of, you know, not a list but if you were explaining to a client what it takes to cultivate connection and relationships, what are some of the key points that you would talk to them about?

Jillian: I don’t think I quite understand the question. So, if I wanted to help a client cultivate stronger relationships, is that…?

Patty: Yeah, stronger connections in their relationships.

Jillian: So, I would encourage them to be more curious about the people who are in their lives. Even if we are living under the same roof, most of us are strangers to each other. We think we know someone but really there’s so much more to learn. So, I think I would encourage them to get much more curious about the people in their lives. I would encourage them to ask more interesting questions of their loved ones. When was the last time this? When was the last time that? When do you feel most alive? When do you feel most connected?

Because really what we’re talking about is cultivating intimacy between the people, between ourselves and the people we care about. And intimacy is really about understanding each other and feeling seen with each other. So, I think I would tell people to ask better questions to be more curious, to listen, to reach out to them more often, to ask for help, to do more things together if that’s necessary.

Patty: Yeah, it’s great. Is there any differences in, say, cultivating that with family members or in a work setting versus maybe a romantic partner in that area in terms of the way that they reach out.

Jillian: No, I actually think things are actually pretty similar. So, everyone has specific needs. Everyone has the need to feel safe and seen and heard. Everyone has the need to feel like there is variety in their life and adventure, and people need to feel like they’re important, like they’re significant. People need to feel like they’re loved. They have the need to feel loved, the need to feel connected. People need to feel like they’re growing.

And so if you can look at things through the lens of those needs, every single person you know in your life has those needs. If you want to connect more deeply with someone, meet those needs. So, if it’s your boss and your boss is giving you a hard time, maybe it’s about meeting their need to feel more important. Maybe your boss is giving you a hard time because they’re feeling insecure. So, you want to make them feel more certain.

It’s also about learning how to meet our own needs. So, deeper connections with ourselves and with others comes down to understanding what our needs are and where the deficits are in how we meet our needs and the needs of others. So, like, the person who’s going through just to bring this full circle to burnout, the person who’s going through burnout, there’s a number of things that could be happening. They could hate their job. They could feel very pressured to make a certain amount of money. They could be feeling pressure to achieve a certain amount. But the reality is that, like, someone who’s going through burnout, some of their needs are…they’re not able to meet some of their needs. Maybe they feel really uncertain. Maybe they feel like it’s been all work and no play. And so they need an adventure.

So, I think being able to look at…again, self-awareness, a deeper level of self-awareness is being able to look at ourselves through the lens of our needs. We need to feel safe and secure. We need to feel like we have some control in this crazy world that has no…this crazy life of ours in which we have very little control. We need to feel like there’s some adventure. We need to feel like we’re growing. We need to feel like we’re achieving on some level. We need to feel like we have purpose and meaning. We need love. And so if we were to look at all of our needs and see, “Okay, how am I meeting my needs currently? Am I doing a good job? Am I over relying on others to meet my needs? Am I unhappy or am I having stomach pains because I haven’t actually stepped outside of my comfort zone in 10 years and done things that actually make me feel alive? And so therefore I’m really stressed.” So, learning how to meet our needs. And then with others, understanding their needs and learning how to meet their needs more consistently.

Patty: Yeah, that’s so important. I think. You know, we were talking about how to cultivate it too, but it really does always go back to, I think, relationship itself and, you know, that first relationship and learning how to meet needs there first. So, I think, yeah, that’s great. Thank you. If self-awareness is a relationship superpower, stress seems to be relationship kryptonite. Can you talk a little about that? And then maybe, as a follow-up question in a coaching conversation, how do you suggest we approach the subject of managing stress, not only for the health of the individual but also the health of their relationships?

Jillian: Yeah. So, stress is a part of life. And people think that their lives and/or their relationships will improve once the stress goes away, but really it’s how we react to stress that changes our lives and changes our relationships. The more our nervous system has the capacity to withstand stress, in other words, the more resilient our systems are to face the inevitable obstacles of our lives, the happier and healthier we are when we’ve reached that place where we’re getting sick or we’re burnt out or having problems, which includes our psychology and includes our nervous system, that’s a clue that our systems are no longer resilient enough to face stress.

And so stress management is, I think, about strengthening our minds and our bodies to be able to handle stress. And that’s tricky because some of the ways in which we handle stress has a lot to do with how we watched our parents handle stress. A lot of that is learned behavior. And this is not to blame parents because we all do the best that we can do. But if we watched our caregivers freak out every time a pin dropped, we will then freak out, right? So, a lot of us have to recondition and retrain ourselves to be able to be more resilient in life, and that means more resilient in stress. So, we do this with exercise. We do this with meditation. We do this with eating well. We do this with deeper work of understanding some of the beliefs that we have about life and shifting that. For some people, they have to learn healthy boundary setting, because if you don’t have any healthy boundary setting, then you’re saying yes to everything. Then, you feel like you’re just like this feather in the wind and you have no control over your life. And then life becomes stressful very quickly.

When in a relationship, when we are… Stress is a part of life. But when we are chronically stressed, that’s when we become emotionally unavailable. That’s when we become self-obsessed. We start thinking about ourselves disproportionately more than we think about our relationship and with our partner. This is when we become very selfish and self-concerned. This is when we don’t want to have sex with our partners anymore because we’re stressed out. So, like, we just can’t relax. And so stress is the silent assassin of a relationship, but it’s not the stress. It’s how we are habitually reacting to stress. And so sometimes the big wakeup call is just in these words. And someone just saying like, “Oh, my God, I’ve been dealing with my stress. I need help.”

But sometimes, you know, life does get very difficult sometimes and sometimes in a person’s life or in a couple’s life, parents die, people die, mental illness, physical illness like loss of job. Sometimes people have really hard luck, and a lot of bad things happen at once. And so these are really, really deep stress. And so if a couple is facing… Like the pandemic, right, if couples are facing real stress, not just the kind of stress that’s more in our minds because some of us have a really big habit of making things worse than they are. Therefore, we’re stressed out more of the time. But when real stress happens in our lives, sometimes we need help, right? We need a therapist. We need a coach. We need someone who’s going to help us navigate that time together as a relationship and individually.

Patty: Yeah. And what I hope all our coaches or soon to be coaches are hearing, especially in this area, is such an aligned place in where we can work with clients [inaudible 00:26:30] to really help in that area. So, thank you. And I’m going to move on to some of the questions that are coming in from the Q&A box. And I think this is a good one to start out with just so we, kind of, review scope. So, the question is, this is an area of coaching that seems to teeter on therapy or couples counseling type of needs. How do you navigate to provide impact as a coach and staying in scope of practice? So, Jillian, do you have any thoughts on that?

Jillian: I’m not sure I understand the question.

Patty: How to stay in scope as a coach versus some of the relationship issues surrounding relationships versus them going to a couples therapist, not crossing over the counseling line.

Jillian: You’re saying for your particular coaches, right?

Patty: Yes, correct.

Jillian: So, there’s a very… I say don’t be afraid to go there. I don’t think you should be afraid to go there. I think that you’re helping a person anyway. And I think that the more you know about your client, the more that you can help them. If you find they’re having a lot of difficulty in their relationship, no, maybe you’re not trained. People at your school are not trained to deal with that. But what you can do as their coach is say, “I think that you would really benefit from a couple’s counselor. I think that by really paying attention to this, that would really help,” or it could be more indirect. It can be, “Let’s help you harness your nervous system. Let’s help you be the healthiest, most fulfilled person that you can be, and I bet that’s going to make a huge impact on your relationship,” as opposed to, yes, don’t go into like… Okay, this is what you say to your husband and going into that line. And you don’t have to coach them on that. Certainly not. But if you help them be the best person that they can be, and you keep track with them and say, well, how, you know… Because here’s the thing. People only know if they’re improving by receiving feedback from their environment. So, by helping someone…whatever you’re doing, helping them improve their physical health, their psycho, spiritual, and physical health, they’re only going to know that things are changing when other people start to notice, “Oh, I noticed you’re happier,” or, “It’s so crazy. I’m getting along better with my husband,” or, “I’m getting along better with my friends,” because how we feel about ourselves bleeds into everything. So, I think that that… Does that answer your question?

Patty: Yeah, and I think that’s a great… You know, obviously for a health coach, it definitely trains through our school staying in scope of helping someone develop as a person, helping someone feel better about themselves through modifiable lifestyle factors. And as relationships are one of those modifiable lifestyle factors, you can certainly mention those things that you just mentioned, right? But we are referrers as well, so there is a point in time where you as a health coach will need to say this is out of scope, and I think you might do really well with a counselor.

Jillian: Absolutely. Yeah, and if you’re feeling that, then that’s what you should definitely do. But going back to questions, you can say when someone’s starting to feel better, you can ask them. Like, have you noticed that by feeling better, like, other parts of your life is starting to fall into place. Like, how do you know that your life… What’s the impact of you feeling better? Like, what’s going on? And you’ll see that, [crosstalk 00:30:58].

Patty: Absolutely. And you’ve given us some really great questions to ask in a coaching conversation throughout this call, so I hope you guys go back and, kind of, take some notes and see where you could go in terms of a conversation. Again, the client is always needing. So, you’re just noticing what they’re bringing to in this situation and you, kind of, go from there. So, wonderful.

Another question here. So, what are some tips you recommend for helping people develop healthier boundaries with people in their lives that maybe are not… They’re using the word… You know, energy vampire, selfish, narcissistic, you know, just people who don’t serve you. How do you do that? How do you help a client through that?

Jillian: I think that, first, you have to understand what the dynamic is. I think you have to have an understanding of what that relationship is. That’s very important. You never give advice without understanding what the relationship is. But, you know, you can have clients start small, learning how to say, “No, thank you,” right? Like, the art of saying no and just saying, you know, “No, thank you.” If you really believe that someone’s an energy vampire or a narcissist, then it’s about no longer connecting with that person. Like, if you really believe that that person should not actually be in your life. If it’s a family member, that’s a lot more difficult, but then that’s just about, you know… It’s just, in my world, healthy boundaries. I talk about healthy boundaries so that people don’t get themselves into romantic relationships in which they are being mistreated. And so it’s really about identifying certain red flags like, “Oh, this doesn’t feel good. Something feels wrong. Something feels like, if I stay in relationship with this person, I’m violating my own values.” So, I think that helping someone develop healthier boundaries is helping them understand and identify what their values are, and how they want to live their lives, and how they want to feel in their lives, and then helping them navigate what things they need to do differently in order to uphold the boundaries that they want to uphold, and in order to feel the way that they want to feel. And in that, what they might discover is, “Well, I have to start saying no to this thing more often. I actually have to start saying no to this person. I actually have to stop taking on so much work. I have to structure my day differently so that I’m not just at everyone’s beck and call. That’s one way to start.”

Patty: Yeah, that’s great. Thank you.

Jillian: You’re welcome.

Patty: We have another question. It says, how do you coach if the client comes to the conclusion that a friendship needs to end, or they need to remove a person from their lives in order to be healthy. So, in terms of, you know, what supports does a health coach have or give to a client in those circumstances.

Jillian: Well, the thing is is that I don’t do health coaching, right? I do relationship coaching. So, I don’t know what you teach there in terms of what the scope is and what you’re allowed to step out of it. So, I think that your coaches have to just decide. I think keep bringing your client’s awareness back to their relationship with themselves, and how they want to feel, and how they want to live their lives, and help them make their own decisions that are going to lead them to where they want to go in life.

Patty: Yeah, I think that’s great. I think always bringing it back to self and certainly health coaches can also refer to certain resources as well.

Jillian: Yes. But I will say though that, as a health coach, it’s a pretty profound breakthrough when your client discovers that part of what’s keeping them from being healthy is a relationship in their lives.

Patty: Absolutely.

Jillian: And so I wouldn’t want a health coach to then shy away from that. I would want them to be like, “Wow, this is a huge breakthrough. Let’s talk about this more. Let’s talk about how it feels in your body. Let’s talk about if your headaches that you’ve been getting is associated with this. Let’s start to figure out the patterns here.” And so I would encourage health coaches to get much more engaged in these clues that their client is providing for them and to really dig deep.

Patty: And I think you make a great point. And it’s, again, a reason why we are so happy that you’re here today is you don’t want that feeling in there while you want to stay in scope. You also don’t want to have your client feel abandoned at the time when they make this huge breakthrough that, you know, “Okay, well, now we can’t talk about it.” Again, you’re not supporting and giving advice on how to reconcile or move away from relationship. You are really supporting the individual in their discovery, especially around health and healing. You’re helping them take those next steps. And again, a good coach knows those good questions to ask and listens to what the feedback of what the client is giving. And you’ll know then which way to go with it. You need to then refer on or not.

Jillian: Exactly, exactly.

Patty: Yeah. Great. Thank you so much. Great. Just going to get back. I think this is just maybe just some tips around the holidays, because obviously I love how we’re talking about prioritizing relationships so we can feel connected and we aren’t moving towards loneliness. We really do want to talk about how relationships can be incredibly healing as well. So, maybe let’s kind of go in that direction for a little bit and talk about those scenarios where relationships, if we’re using the tips that you have outlined, how relationships can be extremely healing, and talking about that in a coaching conversation as a healing tool.

Jillian: Yeah, I do think that isolation and loneliness leads to a lot of disease and to a lot of sickness. And I think that people need to find… One of the keys to health is community and feeling like you have some sort of purpose and giving back. And so I don’t believe that we are designed to heal alone. I think that we are designed to heal with others. There’s nothing like a good hug. And so I think that it’s really instead of… Yes, I’m glad that you shifted this because I think what’s talked about a little too much in the Zeitgeist and social media and society, there’s so much emphasis on boundaries, on kicking the bad person to the curb. And the reality is that the key is to learn how to strengthen our relationships. And we do that by reaching out more, by being a really good friend, by calling our family, by joining certain communities and fostering community. And so that’s very, very, very important. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who wasn’t feeling well, whether it’s physically or mentally or spiritually or all of the above that didn’t end up feeling a whole lot better by strengthening relationships around them and by building community.

Patty: Absolutely. And there’s no such thing, right, too, as a perfect relationship…

Jillian: No, of course not.

Patty: …as well. And so maybe just in terms of… And we all have different perspectives of what good and not good relationships look like. But in helping our clients and just knowing and talking about relationships, how can we help set expectations around interactions with other people and connecting with them, especially maybe around the holidays. And how do we make the best out of that?

Jillian: Get a little bit more specific, if you will, with your question.

Patty: Yeah. So, if we have… Again, if there’s no perfect relationship and we’re going to be interacting around the holidays and people that we haven’t seen as often and we don’t always maybe see eye to eye with somebody or we’ve had conflict with them in the past, how can we make the best out of the holidays or with those people focusing again on connection versus isolating or just having realistic expectations about relationships with people who maybe we’ve had conflicts?

Jillian: So, what I’m going to share is not what people share on social media. So, I think that it behooves everyone to try to get along. I think that it’s important to try to get along with your in laws, with whoever. Just get along. I think it behooves us to show up to these circumstances as the wisest person in the room and not to get all bogged down with, “Well, they do this and this.” Just try to get along. Really just try to get along and don’t have these grand expectations. Have the expectation of yourself that you’re going to show up and just be an easy person to get along with. This is not exactly what people like to hear, but they need to hear it.

Patty: In this specific holiday.

Jillian: In this specific holiday. Yeah. Like, what can you do differently to make it so that it is easier to get along with you? If you have any sort of beef with someone else, they have beef with you too. So, how can you just make it just easier to get along even if that means that you don’t sit next to them, even if that means you just smile and nod. Maybe it means that instead of having all your preconceived notions about someone, you sit at the table… Because here’s the thing. You have the holidays. You have a family sitting around the table. Maybe you have some extended family. And all these people, a lot of them are strangers to each other, even though they share blood. So, how can you… Because most of us can really increase our social skills and better our social skills. So, how can you do an interesting activity together where you pull out cards where people ask like, what’s the most profound thing that’s ever happened to you? What’s the best trip you ever took? So I would say come up with some cards with some really interesting questions and get the whole family and everyone there engaged in an exercise where everyone has to go around the table and share a story about themselves and their lives based on the question that was asked. That is going to create connection. That’s going to that’s going to at least temporarily put everyone’s beefs to the side and everyone’s drama to the side. And that’s actually how you could actually have a much more pleasant holiday experience.

Patty: Absolutely.

Jillian: Yeah, yeah.

Patty: Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for that paradigm shift, right? Because I think a lot of information that you do see out there is how to separate, how to put up a boundary, how not to say, “I’m not going to go.” And ultimately you’re right. It does create more disconnection and loneliness than it does. And maybe what we all need to focus on is just better skills in getting along. Of course not allowing anybody to treat us in…

Jillian: It doesn’t take away from the fact that, of course, there are circumstances where you have to do that, but the thing is that we are… There’s too much. In my belief, society is telling us too much, you know, pushing people away, building walls. And really what we want to do is try to get along with each other better. That’s what’s going to cure the headache, not holding on to grudges.

That being said, I’m not denying the fact that there are some dire circumstances in which you need a very firm boundary to protect your health and well-being. I know that exists. I’m not denying that, but I think the other part of what I’m bringing up is not discussed enough. I think it applies to more people than not. And I think it needs to be part of the conversation.

Patty: Yeah, that’s a great question to ask in a coaching conversation instead of what boundary do I need and maybe what actions do I need to do towards connection with others as well. So, it’s definitely something that you could… You know, if your client’s bringing up issues around relationship, it’s definitely a valid question for a health coach to put out there as well.

Yeah, so have some time left if you guys have some other questions for Jillian. Especially for our coaches who are working out there and you’ve had scenarios where issues around relationships have come up, we’d love to hear your perspective and maybe some other…just what you’ve seen and how you’ve handled it.

All right, so a couple more questions from the Q&A. I’m not sure what this is. It’s okay if you don’t either. Do you have any experience with using the Fair Play system to support burnout in family or domestic partnership relationship?

Jillian: I don’t know the Fair Play system.

Patty: Okay.

Jillian: But I will look it up after this.

Patty: Yeah, that’s a great question. How do you support clients who are looking to regain trust in others after leaving a bad relationship?

Jillian: It’s really about… Actually what they need to do is rediscover their trust in themselves. They think it’s about trusting others, but it’s really they’ve lost faith in themselves to be able to navigate the world of relationship. So, I help them regain trust in themselves by developing their relationship with themselves. They work a lot in self-esteem and learning how to detect early red flags that maybe they’ve been ignoring. This is particularly useful for people who keep finding themselves in relationships in which they are very much mistreated. So, there are certain clues and cues that they’re missing from other people and then learning how to trust themselves.

Patty: That’s great because I can see that it’s not just in a romantic relationship but also a friendship and relationship with a family member, even especially in a work relationship. I can see that as being something that’s important to really focus on and trusting yourself again. So, yeah, thank you.

Jillian: Sure.

Patty: How can you support a person who feels intense loss and depression after the loss of relationship. So, we’re going to assume here that this person… We’re going to answer this assuming that the person is also seeing a therapist if they are having depression. but if we are working with them as a coach, and they’re also addressing this other part of life, how would we support them in that area?

Jillian: If they’re going through like a breakup?

Patty: Yeah.

Jillian: Yeah, I think that it would be… I would imagine that… What I think would be the best way from the perspective of your health coaches would be to help them continue to take care of themselves. Because when we go through a traumatic breakup and we go through that kind of depression and trauma, we can easily become dehydrated. We don’t eat, or we don’t eat well. We don’t sleep. So, I think it’s about helping that person getting some sort of routine where they are staying hydrated, where they’re staying nourished, and where they are getting sleep. And in that, encouraging them to spend a lot of time with loved ones because the depression that ensues after a breakup, a large part of that has to do with feeling deeply rejected and grappling with feelings of inadequacy. And by spending time, connecting with the people who have been in your life long before your ex was ever in your life and who know you in ways that maybe your ex never did, you are reminded of the fact that you are loved, and you are reminded of the fact that there are people who see you and appreciate you. And that’s very important. And so that’s what I would encourage the coach to have their client do.

Patty: Absolutely. That’s wonderful advice. Thank you. So, this is really in your wheelhouse. What advice would you give someone who’s rather anxious being in a love relationship with a dismissive avoidant partner—stay or leave?

Jillian: Well, I can’t say that. I can’t tell someone whether they can stay or leave because I don’t know their relationship. And so what I will say generally, and I actually would say, listen to my podcast episode that came out yesterday on anxious and avoidant attachment. So, that’s the first thing that I would have you do and just listen to my podcast on episodes on this.

So, I have to answer this generally because I don’t know this person’s relationship.

Patty: Absolutely.

Jillian: I don’t know… I have no idea what else is going on. I have no idea if there’s some… I have no idea, so I have to answer this very generally. But generally speaking, in a relationship, we co-create a dynamic with our partner. And so if a dynamic is dysfunctional, the only thing that we can do is change ourselves. So, we have to be willing to communicate and to change ourselves. And that might look like sitting down with your partner and saying, “Hey, I noticed we’re caught up in this dance.” And I would get very clear, clear with yourself and clear with your communication and say, “I noticed that when I do this, then you do this. And then when you do that, I do this. And then when I do that, you do this.” And talk about it from the perspective of we, “We’re caught in this thing,” rather than you, “You’re the problem.” Say, “We have a problem and I’m noticing what the dynamic is and I’m noticing my contribution to the dynamic. I would love to break this pattern. I would love for us to do a different dance. What do you need from me? This is what I need from you. Do we need to get outside help?” And that’s how I would generally answer that question.

Patty: Yeah, great. Wonderful. Thank you. Yes. And it is a little bit specific, but I think what I’m really hearing and what I think really makes all of the information that you’ve been sharing today so pertinent to the role of a health coach is that you’re really redirecting and refocusing the clients back to themselves.

Jillian: Yes.

Patty: And so, yeah, all of this is really great information.

Jillian: Yeah, because I think ultimately… However you’re coaching someone, whatever the capacity you’re coaching them, we want to empower our client to recognize and to realize that they have agency over their lives, because a lot of people when we’re suffering, we feel deeply out of control. And so if we can point and help a client realize that they hold the key to the change that they wish to see in their lives, that’s ultimately what we are trying to empower them to understand and harness.

Patty: Yeah, absolutely. And to follow up on, kind of, what we were just talking about, the question of, you know… Jennifer said that she loves how you are stating the importance of our relationship with ourselves. It’s so critical for overall health and happiness. Do you have any other suggestions on how to improve relationship with self or maybe some resources that you have?

Jillian: Yeah, so you want to improve the relationship with yourself. Here’s some key things to think about. Make sure you exercise and move your body several days a week. You want to improve the relationship with yourself, be a really great friend. You want to improve the relationship with yourself, climb the mountain. So, whatever that mountain is, maybe it’s the hard conversation that you’ve been avoiding for years. Maybe it’s the vacation that you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s the whatever. Whatever it is. Because to raise our self esteem, we actually have to challenge ourselves to step out of the unknown. So, exercise, be a really good friend because we can’t strengthen our relationship with ourselves without stepping up and being really good to others who deserve it from us, and then doing the hard thing in our lives that maybe we’ve been putting off. And then just in the spirit of relationships, you learn how to deepen your relationship with yourself by… If you’re dating, for example, no longer participating in complicated relationships in which you don’t know where you stand in a person’s life. And I’ll leave it at that.

Patty: Yeah, that’s wonderful. So, this is kind of a great kind of ending question. And Marion is also asking this in the Q&A. She’s followed your work for a while and really appreciates you and has grown as a person and is wondering if there is any literature that you can recommend to help improve our skills and relationships in general. And I’ll also just say… I’d love to expand that further and just talk about where would you direct someone to go or a health coach to go to look for resources that they can then direct a client to, if they want to dig deeper. So, not only the coach can learn but where they can direct their clients to as well.

Jillian: Well, my book in a year, but it’s not out yet. So, one day, one day, but I really love the work of John Gottman. It’s him and his wife, “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.” All his stuff on relationships, John Gottman. So, if you have a client and they’re struggling in their romantic relationships with their spouse, their partner, I would send them to that literature.

Patty: Yeah. No, that’s great. Well, I hope that you guys as coaches have heard all the way though… I know that sometimes there can be a matter of uncomfortableness or there can be certain questions that you would have about how you would interact with a client around relationships. And I hope today’s call really helped to clarify some of that as well. And, you know, we are so grateful to you, Jillian. This was an amazing conversation and something that we really needed to have in our community. So, thank you so much for being here.

Jillian: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Sandi: Thank you. Thank you, Patty and team for organizing, and this has been so enlightening as someone married for going on 52 years. This works, everybody. These principles that she has been describing, this is what I have incorporated in my relationship, and it works.

Jillian: Fifty-two years. You’re the one who holds all the secrets.

Dr. Sandi: So, so grateful for you, for everyone who has joined, who is new to our community, welcome. And for our students and graduates, of course, we always strive to offer you the best programming possible. So, thank you all.

Jillian: Thanks, everyone.

Patty: Thank you. Bye.