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218: Imago and Polyvagal Therapy with Hayley Hoffman

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this episode, we’re talking with Hayley Hoffman about Imago and polyvagal therapy. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

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The Couples Therapist Couch 218: Imago and Polyvagal Therapy with Hayley Hoffman

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Learn more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

In this episode, Shane talks with Hayley Hoffman about Imago and polyvagal therapy. Hayley is a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist and a psychodynamic mental health counselor supporting clients in making meaning out of daily events while living life on life’s terms. Hear how to figure out why things bother you, how to stay present, how Imago therapy works, how to improve your relationships, and how polyvagal therapy overlaps with Imago therapy.

This episode covers everything from Imago to polyvagal therapy. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

    • How did a workshop change Hayley's life?
    • What kind of workshops does she teach now?
    • Why does it help to slow down?
    • Is it important to create space in your relationship when needed?
    • What are Hayley's Imago workshops?
    • Can couples do workshops as individuals?
    • What is Imago therapy?
    • How does polyvagal therapy play into Imago therapy?

To learn more about Hayley and her workshops, visit ImagoCenterDC.com and HayleyHoffman.com

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below: 

 

 

 Show Notes

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Hayley Hoffman 0:00
The idea that if they do nothing else, but every day, take a moment to gaze with warm, welcoming eyes at each other, if they do nothing else, that will change their relationship.

Intro VO 0:15
Welcome to The Couples Therapist Couch the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now your host, Shane Birkel.

Shane Birkel 0:32
Everyone, welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm really excited to share the interview with you today that I did with Hayley Hoffman. She's a really experienced Imago therapist who also teaches other therapists how to do the model, and she also uses polyvagal theory in her work with couples, which we talk about. I'm excited for you to listen to how she uses that but before we get to the interview, I wanted to let you know that there are a few spots open for the membership that I created called the couples therapist inner circle. In my mind, it's the quickest way to make a ton of progress in your work with couples and to learn how to become a couples therapist for as little cost as possible. And that was my goal, to make it accessible to everybody. And you know, we talk about how to use EFT, Gottman, RLT, all the different models we talk about how to work with affairs, how to work with high conflict couples, all kinds of different topics are covered. And the great thing about it is the personal connection that you get with everybody in the group with me. I'll answer all of your questions. And like I said, you know, if you're not ready to invest 1000s of dollars in becoming certified in a model, then this might be a good way to get a ton of education and support in your journey in becoming a couple's therapist. So if you're interested in that, click on the link in the show notes. And without further introduction, here is the interview with Haley Hoffman. Hey everyone, welcome back to the couple's therapist couch. This is Shane Birkel, and today I'm speaking with Hayley Hoffman, polyvagal-informed Imago therapist and educator. Hey Hayley, welcome to the show.

Hayley Hoffman 2:23
Hey Shane, it's great to see you.

Shane Birkel 2:26
Yeah, good to see you again. For those who for everyone who probably doesn't know you, were recently teaching at The Networker Symposium on Imago with Harville Hendricks and Helen lachelli Hunt, and you and I were able to spend some time together, which was really cool. But why don't you start by telling everyone a little bit more about yourself? Sure.

Hayley Hoffman 2:45
So I got my seat here in a very typical way. I was in a relationship that was not working very well, and so I read Harville and Helen's book way back in 1990 I tried to get my husband to read it as well. That marriage did not work out. We ended up, after 25 years, getting divorced, and when I met my next partner, he, too had been in a marriage that hadn't worked, but he had done some Imago therapy, and so he was pretty insistent that if we were going to do something different than what we had done before that, we were going to need help. And I, at that point my life, had never done any therapy, and was what we refer to in Imago as the draggy. He was pretty insistent, and I was like, yeah, no, I don't think so. And so I did a getting the love you want workshop with him, and it changed my life. And the result was I decided to go back to graduate school and become a therapist so that I could do this with other couples.

Shane Birkel 3:50
Wow, what an amazing story. Can you say a little bit about how that workshop changed your life?

Hayley Hoffman 3:58
Yeah, as somebody who had never done therapy, the idea of kind of peeling back the layers of how I got here and what I do, I can vividly remember us sitting in that workshop, and the outcome of a dialog that we were having was that I might be a Little bit rigid, and I was like rigid, and my husband was at the time, he was like, well, maybe a little bit and like, the ability for me to start to look at that and and hear that and understand why I might be somebody who needed to control things and needed things to be just so and and that that that it was something I hadn't even recognized in myself. I thought of myself as being kind of, you know, Earth mama, really hippie and hip and groovy and, you know, able to kind of, like, flow with things. It was like, hmm, maybe not. And so, like that, that ability to get to know myself in a way that I could. Do it relationally with somebody who was going to hold that space for me and accept me, and like my husband had no judgment for me, he was just like, that might show up sometimes. And so that was huge, yeah,

Shane Birkel 5:16
and I think it's a whole different way of seeing the world really. You know, I think many of us are operating out of this sort of, you know, if somebody tells me I'm rigid or something that I have, like, a natural response, you know, that comes up in me, that this is just the way I communicate, right? This is just the way people communicate. I'm just being myself, if I'm being defensive or whatever. And that the idea, you know, going to something like that, and really, have I had that experience as well? You know, having my eyes open to the idea that, wow, that, you know, this communication can be a lot different, and it's going to require me to look, take a look at myself in a different way. But once you start understanding that it just, it's just so helpful. And I think it's freeing in the way that we can just be human in the world, absolutely

Hayley Hoffman 6:05
just be human in the world. And like, let's stop like, pathologizing what we do. These are brilliant adaptations. They come from way back when in our childhood, and like, we do them because they work. They get us to a place of being able to get through or or survive whatever we're doing. I often say to my couples, we have two choices in that moment when something happens. And we can either choose that survival pathway that says, When in distress, I turn away from you, or we can choose that connection pathway that says, When in distress, I turn towards you, even when you are the perceived cause of my distress. And that piece of turning towards means that we can move into some space of safety. And the only way we learn to do anything new is when we feel safe and so we can keep doing what we were doing, or we can bring a little bit of curiosity and creativity and intention to Ha, I wonder what this is all about. I wonder why I'm doing this in this moment, at that at this time.

Shane Birkel 7:22
Yeah, and you teach those workshops now, is that right I

Hayley Hoffman 7:26
do it's actually the one of the favorite things that I do, and I love it both because it's amazing to go into a weekend and spend time. We do this in our home. I do it with my husband, who is not a therapist. So our relationship gets to be right out there on display, and often is we have some funny, funny stories of having to say to the group, hey, I think we need to have a dialog right now. Do you guys mind watching and like working through something right there in front of everybody and and so it's amazing for us to get to like, tend our our own relationship and do like, really walk our own talk, but also to watch people come in and see the the change that occurs when they realize that there is a way for us to actually meet Despite our differences and maybe because of our differences,

Shane Birkel 8:23
yeah. And I think that's so cool. I think it's important for people to see that even if we're taking the role of as therapists, that we're also walking our own journey, right, and we're also still learning and practicing and working at it, yeah?

Hayley Hoffman 8:39
Yeah. I need that. I need that reminder every day,

Shane Birkel 8:43
yeah. And I think it sets people at ease, you know, to realize, you know, nobody has this all figured out, and it's okay to make mistakes, and it's okay, you know, even the therapist you know, is still working on their own relationship, although I do believe that it's important that as therapists, we do our own work. We that we have done a lot of this in order to guide people, the people we're working with.

Hayley Hoffman 9:10
Absolutely I think it is almost impossible to do this if you haven't done the work yourself. I do a lot of work around polyvagal theory with my clients and my couples and I don't believe a therapist can actually be a safe port for people if they haven't actually done the work to be able to maintain their own safety. It doesn't matter. Mean that that in a session that I might not have a reaction to something. It means that in a session, I know how to stay in, in myself present inside what's going on with the couple, what's going on between the couple, what's going on between the three of us. Because all of that is at play, that energy of what's happening. And it does mean that, like in the moment, you. Like I might say. So I'm noticing this right at the moment. What are you noticing? Whether it was feeling of energy, whether it was a reaction that I had? It's one of my my favorite dialogs that we do in Imago starts with I notice I have a reaction when you and couples always think that that dialog is going to go down a path of telling your partner why they do what they do and what's wrong with that, and what it is is a path of going down a dialog that says, Why is that a problem for me? We often talk my husband and I are also both actively in recovery, and so we often talk about the spiritual axiom, and the spiritual axiom in AA and Al-Anon is that whenever somebody else's behavior bothers me, something is going on with me, and so it means I have to turn it back and look at me, because the other person doesn't have the power to make me frustrated, Happy, unhappy, irritated, but the other person is just being them, doing their brilliant adaptations. And so can I be curious about it, like, why am I bothered by you right now?

Shane Birkel 11:11
Yeah, and I love that. I think it's very empowering, too for you as an individual to think about it's not that I have to change this person or control this person. I need to take a look at myself and what decisions I can make in this, in the face of this, yes,

Hayley Hoffman 11:26
exactly, the energy of what's going on between us, and recognizing that I'm 100% responsible for what I say and do and how I put that into the space between us and and to be able to see that that what I say and do matters, that it makes a difference if I'm going to roll my eyes or turn away or shut down, but I can manage me in that moment. And the number one tool in Imago that I use to manage myself, and I suggest for my clients, is mirroring that if I can slow down and say what I heard you say is, is that what you're telling me is there more and get myself to be really present in the moment, then Chances are my my autonomic fight or flight, or that express elevator to shut down is going to actually slow down, and I can shift and move towards connection. So mirroring to me slows down the conversation. People often say to me, this is really slow. And I'm like, Yes, this is really slow. And the slower we go, the more we can actually, like, really breathe better notice what's happening in in the biology. And it could just be about biology, not about personality or or, you know, traits that we carry, but like, oh, biology says, do this right now. And is that going to get me what I want?

Shane Birkel 13:03
Yeah, and I think Slowing down makes it very intentional and brings us into the reality of what's really going on. You know, as it's easy to to go quickly through it, but then we're likely to fall into the same patterns, maybe in the future, because we haven't really taken the time to work through it in a different way.

Hayley Hoffman 13:23
Yeah, yeah. Again, you know, if, if we are in any sense of reacting to somebody, then we're going to do what we already know how to do. And those patterns, they're, they are well worn, like I know how to, I know how to be the avoidant person in a relationship. I have learned that from, you know, 60 years of being a person. And so my partner knows how to be the anxious person in a relationship. He's got 60 years of practice at that. So that's what we'll do when we're having a reaction. We're going to we're going to jump right into those places. I was

Shane Birkel 13:58
going to ask you about something you said earlier, which was, you know, teaching people how to turn toward instead of turn away. You know, when they're in those moments I was thinking, aren't there times where it's important for someone to say, I need space, or I or I need some time for myself before I can come back to this or something like that?

Hayley Hoffman 14:18
Absolutely, one of the exercises we do in the workshop is we invite the couples to choose a side of the room when we start describing things. And every time we make a description, they get to say, Oh, I belong on this side of the room. The side of the room that is maybe needs to have a little bit of space. Maybe needs a little bit of time before they talk about things. Maybe needs an opportunity to catch their breath or regroup. And the other side of the room are the folks who need to do this right now. Need to talk about it now. Need to talk about it to actually solve it. Need their partner to show up. Want it's the difference between. Energized side of the room and a more settled, quiet side of the room. I think of them as maybe one is more settled with being internal and the other is more settled with being external. We describe them as minimizers and maximizers, but by the time we go through the list of like 12 different situations, almost every time one member of the couple is on the minimizer side and the other member of the couple is on the Maximizer side. And so we ask the minimizers to talk to each other and figure out what it is that they want their Maximizer partners to know. And we ask the maximizers to talk to each other and figure out what is it that you want your minimizer partners to know. And when you have, first of all that, that first opportunity in life where it's like, Oh, these are my people. You guys understand me, all of a sudden, they, they, they have a clear picture of what it is that they need and and how you need to be able to say, Can I take a pause? And how much your Maximizer partner needs you to say for five or 10 minutes, like, I'm not just going to take a pause and never come back. I'm going to give you a framework and say, I need a half of an hour. Can we come back and try again? And a half of an hour, whatever that looks like. But to give the Maximizer some reassurance that you will come back, because that minimizer has a history of saying, Can I take a pause and never coming back? And that Maximizer has a history of knocking on the door and saying, are you ready? Are you ready? Can we do it now? And so it gives both of them the maximizers come away saying, I really need to know that you will come back. And so like giving them both that opportunity to flesh that out with people who can hear them, and then to share it with each other. It's just brilliant watching it happen. Everybody's like, wow,

Shane Birkel 17:00
yeah, that's great. I love that. And we're sort of getting into some different pieces and parts of Imago, but let's take a step back. You know, if there's a couple out there or a therapist who's thinking about getting some training in Imago, or a couple who's thinking about doing what, what's the workshop called again? So

Hayley Hoffman 17:19
we have two workshops. One is called getting the love you want, and that's for couples at any stage of relationship, couples that are entering into a relationship and just want really great tools. We've got a generation of people out there that are are setting themselves up, that are, it's just amazing to watch. I routinely have somebody who's who's in a new relationship, or a couple that has just gotten engaged, somebody's given it to them as a wedding gift. So those couples show up. Then there are the couples who are have been together for a while, and just are feeling, maybe they have a kid or two, and they're feeling like we never see each other, we're not doing so well together. Like, how can we do better? We want, we want a good long game here. And so those couples show up, then we have the empty nesters show up. Like, now what do we do? Like, who's this person? And, like, pretty often have somebody who's been married for 50 years, and either they've done it before and they're coming back for like, Hey, we're just kind of like tuning up. Or they're like, we just need some help here. Like, well, how do we do the next 20 years? You know, what is that going to look like? But literally, they've been married for that long and they've come back in. So we have the whole range, but and, and we often have the couple that's like, this is the last stop before divorce, and so that couple shows up in the workshop. So that's the couples workshop. We also do a workshop that is, really is designed for individuals, whether you're in a relationship or not. It's called keeping the love you find at one point, somebody asked Harville the question, don't you think those titles are backwards. Don't you think we should have keeping the love you find for the couples and getting the love you want for the individuals? And he said, If I had known I was going to write two books, I would have done it the other way, but I didn't know that. So keeping the love you find is based on another one of Carville and Helen's books, and it is kind of a deeper dive into like, what is the stuff that I bring? And so it's the lesser known of our workshops, but an amazing one. I try to do it at least twice a year. And I do all my workshops in person. And so they happen at my home and and we try to, you know, explore what that means, like, go deeper with what you learned about yourself in in the Getting workshop. Or, if you've never done the getting workshop, dive deep and do

Shane Birkel 19:52
you and would it? Would couples be able to do that just as individuals, if that makes sense, on the same Workshop? Yes,

Hayley Hoffman 20:00
they can come together and and I'm going to do a combination of things where I'm going to have them talk to each other, but I'm also going to have talk to other people, so they'll they'll get the practice of dialoguing in a variety of different ways. That's the big goal with the workshop. It's a deep immersion. We meet on Friday nights, starting at six o'clock and go for about two and a half, three hours on Friday nights, and then we do eight hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday. And the goal is for couples to actually do six or seven dialogs with each other, where they get to really dive deeply into them. And every one of them, we demonstrate first, and so they get to see what it looks like, and then they go and do it. And so it's, it's like deep practice of how to dialog.

Shane Birkel 20:48
Yeah, that's great. And can you, I mean, I think the dialogs are part of it, but can you give just a little bit of an overview of Imago? And you know, if somebody were to go to therapy with an Imago therapist. What would that experience be like? Or or as a therapist working with people?

Hayley Hoffman 21:05
Yeah, so whether I'm working with individuals or couples, using that dialogical practice, we refer to Imago as being a in the relational paradigm. So either I am in relationship with the individual, because I'm going to be holding them and mirroring them and reflecting back to them for the couple is in relationship with each other. The first session with me generally looks like the couple arriving. We invite them to sit as close together as they can comfortably be ideally, I'd like one person's knees touching the other person's chair. You can see my chairs behind me in Imago, the couple faces each other and talk to each other. And so we start by doing a centering that invites them to just gaze into each other's eyes. And I begin by asking, asking them to send a message from their eyes and their face, from all of this that says thank you and welcome, and I delight in you. And I lead them through this process, and then I invite them to make an intention about how they would like to be seen or known in this session, and I often ask them to hold hands with each other and say something to each other with just their hands. And so this whole process might take anywhere from seven to 10 minutes, and in this time, a tremendous amount of communication has occurred without them saying a word. And I remind them that Harville often says, the most dangerous thing we do is talk to each other. And so the idea that that, if they do nothing else but every day, take a moment to gaze with warm, welcoming eyes at each other. If they do nothing else that will change their relationship, that just making that practice of like I see you and I delight in you without saying anything. So I often say I say it in the workshop. I say to my couples, if you do nothing else, you don't need to come back like that'll that'll change things immensely. And we have like, three different parts of our relationship. We have the past that we carry in here with us. We have the present that we're living with, and we have the future that is the hope that we can live in, that can be different than what we we have either had in the past or we're doing in the present. It's very rare that couples come into my therapy office, you know, feeling great about each other. They come in because there's something they want to work on, and that something is the thing that I want them to like, set down for the moment. And so I invite them to dream, dream about the future, dream about, what does this amazing relationship look like if it is everything that you want? And so that first session is the process for me to hear and understand what they're longing for and dreaming about. And then from there, we begin by the next session by actually teaching them the dialog. At the moment, I just want them to look at each other and hear each other. We do something to help them integrate whatever they heard. And so at the end, I asked them to say, like, what did you notice? What did you feel what's the story that you're telling yourself? And give them a chance to hold on to that. And then, as the sessions go on, I begin to teach them the dialog skills, how to do an appreciations dialog. Are you available? How to build a space of of connection, like, Are you available to receive an appreciation? From me and the other person being able to say, Yes, I am available. I encourage couples whenever it's like a dialog that's nice, that's a gift. See if you can be present. Say yes, okay. And then from there, we go into to like, what is it about myself that I know that I do in this relationship that is probably challenging or painful for you. So the next session is to explore what I've been doing in the past, and then after we go through that and explore that, we get to learn the dialog in that process. Then in the next session, we're going to look at like, what do we want to do in the present? Like, what do I want to do that is different, and so that is based on it's a dialog that we call a behavior change request, but it is really the process of like, How do I look at what's going on with me when I am bothered? How do I notice and respond to myself in that moment, then interspersed in there, depending on the couple, I may actually do some psychoeducation around their nervous systems and how their nervous systems are showing up in the space between them. I'll talk to them about zero negativity, and how when we put our shame blame and criticism and our cynicism, that piece of you're going to do what you usually do I expect that from you when we put that into the space between us, how that prevents us from being actually in connection with each other?

Shane Birkel 26:29
Yeah, that's great. And I'm so curious, how do you incorporate the polyvagal into and I don't even know that. I think I had someone else who did an episode on polyvagal therapy in general, but I don't know, I'm certainly don't know that much about it. But how do you incorporate that into Imago? Yeah,

Hayley Hoffman 26:47
so polyvagal theory, I think, has been part of Imago right from the very beginning. We talked about it differently. And once Steven Borges really brought his theory into into, you know, the space that everybody's talking about it, and Deb Dana turned it into, like, this is how it could be a clinical practice. I recognize that, oh, we're doing this, we're doing this, but now I have good language to do it. And so I will actually map my my clients nervous systems, and I do that by walking them through an experience, a felt experience, of what it's like for them when they are in a reactive state that would be the sympathetic fight or flight, and what, what do they do in that experience, like, what are the sensations? What are the emotions? What are their behaviors and what are the stories that they tell themselves? And then we leave that space and we investigate what it's like for them when they go into a shutdown state, and what, again, what are the sensations that they experience when they are withdrawing or pulling away? What are the emotions? What are the behaviors and what are the stories that they tell themselves? And then I go to the connected state, or that state of safety, when our left prefrontal cortex is actually on board and our nervous systems know that we have choice, we have possibility, we have nuance and language. We have connection and we have the ability to learn Okay, and so I invite them into a moment when they felt absolutely like as their true selves. Like this can be in their relationship, or it can be individual, but a moment of like, joyful aliveness, or a moment of just knowing like, this is me being me. And again, we look at like, what are the sensations in their body, by the emotions, what are the behaviors and what are the stories? And then we do a dialog in which they share the different ways in which they see themselves, the ways that they see the world and the ways that they see their partner depending on the neurobiological state that they're in. And so we often see the story that we tell ourselves in fight or flight is a story of action, I have to do something right now, and the story that we tell ourselves when we shut down is a story of inaction, like, I can't do anything right now. This is hopeless. And the story that we tell ourselves when we are like, fully ourselves and able to be in connection, that is often a story that says, Oh, I'm good. You're good, everything's good. Like, look, we are we're good together. There's something there that says engagement is possible, and so just recognizing that those biological stories are showing up and they are are guiding us. We we take those stories and say, this is true, this is my true. Truth when in fact, the story has a couple of pieces of evidence that are factual, and then our nervous systems embellish them to make them like this story of always or never, or worst or or best or whatever. And so if we can, like, recognize, oh, this story means that I'm in fight or flight right now. We can actually do something to shift our actual biology. And so we start by, like, noticing it and naming it, by saying, Oh, my heart is beating fast, and I have to do something right now, and I don't know what to do in order to get safe. And so if we notice that, you can just stop for a moment and say, What could I do to slow my heart down? Is it a breath? Is it a movement? What can I do to tolerate it's not a matter of like, get rid of this or put it away, but can I tolerate this uncomfortable thing before I do what I usually do in my my activated state, and that is like, if this, this doesn't feel good, I'll do something else. If that doesn't feel good, I'll do something else, until I shut down, until it's like I can't do anything. So can we tolerate it so we can move up the autonomic ladder instead of down the autonomic ladder? That, that was a lot. Did I, did I say too much?

Shane Birkel 31:32
No, that was great. I can imagine how healing that can be for couples, you know, when you're guiding them through that. And I'm wondering if there's a, you know, is there a framework for them when they go home and they run into the next situation where their nervous system is, you know, going into fight or flight, if they you know, are there ways they can manage that as they're just learning to work through it?

Hayley Hoffman 31:57
So we always suggest that they look two directions. First of all, you look to yourself to say, is there something, what is the smallest, something that I could do for myself in this moment? And then to look to your partner, is there something the smallest, something that I could either get or do with my partner that would allow me to actually tolerate whatever is happening right now, to be like just to slow down enough that I don't do what I usually do, the thing that I know to do, and and so whether that is is as simple as taking a breath and letting it out, whether it is just noticing, I notice I'm having a reaction to you right now, and that may be being an invitation, I notice I'm having a reaction to you right now. Are you available to dialog with me, or even being able to say, I notice I'm having a reaction to you right now. Could we take a pause and come back in about 10 minutes? I want to be curious about why what you're saying or doing is bothering me. And so that's huge. If you can actually say that, that's huge. So can you just stop and look at each other. Can you reach out and hold hands with each other? Can you breathe together? Can you just say I'm feeling active right now, or I'm feeling pulling like I need to pull away from you, to give them language, to say that like, Of course you are, of course you're feeling that, that that's the way you are built, and it makes sense so that we can just say, like, yes, is there something that you need right now? Is there something you need from me right now? Either partner can turn towards that's exactly what I mean by, I turn towards you in a given moment, which is an invitation to just like, do it differently. The moment you invite that in, you already change what was happening. Does that make sense?

Shane Birkel 34:12
Yeah, that's great. Do you ever use a family of origin to deepen the understanding for people? You know, if I'm feeling controlled in my relationship, is it because I grew up with a controlling parent or something like that, right? Or, you know, so that both partners can move into compassion for whatever's going on in the moment,

Hayley Hoffman 34:32
right, and see that the child that shows up in the room in that moment. So, so that behavior change dialog as we continue down it that behavior change dialog starts with, I notice I'm having a reaction to you when you and your partner mirrors I heard you say. You notice you're having a reaction to me when I and then the the person who notices says and the story I tell myself about you when this happens is and. And you go to, like, that's my autonomic This is the cynical the past. Like, this is what this means when you do this. This is what happens the partner mirrors that, and then the next stem, because we this is a very structured thing, and some people push against it, but eventually you find that, oh, the structure is safety, like I know where this is going, so the next STEM is and the feeling I have, the emotion that I have when I tell myself this story, I really want them to look at the emotion when they tell the story, but they might say the emotion I have when you do this okay, and my impulse when I feel this is that's the next step. So my impulse is to do what, and you start to explore that. And I do that because, or I do that to protect me from or I do that because I'm afraid if I don't. And we explore like, why do I do? What I do? My I'm avoidant in relationship, and my impulse is to stop talking. My husband says that that like when we're having a disagreement, and he realizes that I've stopped talking, he'll lean over and he'll say to me, How am I doing in there? And I have to say, Yeah, you're losing this battle in my head. Okay? And that, like, that little moment of levity brings me back. But I'm like saying all the things that my avoidant self says, Oh, you're not allowed to say that. Don't say that. Don't, don't say that. And so, so, you know, I do that because I learned in childhood. I mean, the rule for us was children are seen and not heard. It's not a bad rule, necessarily, but I took it to the far extent of like, children are absolutely not heard. Don't say anything, okay? And so we look at this of like the problem with me doing that is the problem with me stopping the conversation, not talking anymore. And I have to look at that for a moment. And so the problem for me with doing that is that that I, you know, am all alone, I feel disconnected from you, and then we go to the next level. And the problem with me being alone or feeling disconnected is that I double down on believing that I'm better off on my own, and I can do anything I need to do. I can take care of myself. I'm self reliant. I'm very independent. And the problem with me being very self reliant and going out on my own and being very independent is that I'm alone, and so we keep going until we just get to like, what's underneath of that. And then when we get to like, the bottom of what's underneath of that, the next STEM is. And what this reminds me of in my childhood is. And so then we start to dig into it. And so you can see this started with it really bothers me when you do x, and now we're talking about me, okay, and so we explore that, and we invite the the person who's exploring to like, see if there's like, an actual moment, a moment that you can remember that when this happened, when this experience, you had, the the emotion that you had, or you had the behavior, like, how do you learned to do what you do and like, what, what was occurring for you? And can you share that with your partner? Can you describe it? Pull that all out, give it all the the detail that you can so your partner can see the child. And then we ask the stem of and what I'm most deeply longed for in childhood when this happened, is and you try to say that, like whatever comes up in that moment, and then we say, What I'm most deeply long for with you is now we're talking to our partner and we try to tie them together.

Shane Birkel 39:07
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's great. That's amazing. Yeah,

Hayley Hoffman 39:11
it's powerful, and I love it.

Shane Birkel 39:14
Yeah, I'm just, you know, thinking about the idea that, you know, when I go to that place in my head that I don't even need my partner, I can do this on my own or something. It's like, maybe, maybe a twisted way or of that adaptation, like I there's some way that I adapted during childhood that is a twisted way of seeking safety, right? If I can just tell myself I can do it on my own, then I don't have to be hurt by someone. Yeah,

Hayley Hoffman 39:45
it is one of those things that I have to help clients see the difference between safety and protection. They're not the same, and so my survival invites me to protection and survival is solitary. Right, but safety invites me to connection. And so that's a pretty big thing. And and, you know, we are wired for survival. Survival is our go to we. We know how to do that better than anything else. If we want to be wired for connection, then we have to practice it. I will say this a million times to couples. I do groups as well. And so you'll hear this in my group. You get better at whatever you practice. Doesn't matter what it is. So if I practice survival, I get better at it. If I practice connection, I get better at it. And so, so if you, this is where I said at the beginning, if you just practice every day gazing with welcoming, warm, soft eyes at your partner every day for two or three minutes, you get better at doing that. You get better at that connection. And without saying anything, just hold hands and look at each other and send each other a message that says, I love you. And and then, if you did that every day for 21 days, we all know like, oh, great, there's a new habit that we've learned. And we also know that if you do it every day for 66 days, that your nervous system habituates to it that just the idea of, are you available to eye gaze with me, your nervous system goes, this is going to be nice, and it shows up. And we also know that if you do it every day for 90 days, you create a new neural pathway. And so now, when that moment of uh oh shows up. I now can choose survival, or I can choose that pathway that says, I choose to connect with you, even while you might be the person that is worrying me or bothering me, that's

Shane Birkel 41:53
great. And when you say for people to do this for 90 days, how long are they doing the eye gazing for each day.

Hayley Hoffman 42:01
So I would say, do it for as long as it feels good. You know, like we want this to be a feel good experience. And so maybe you start out with a minute, because a minute is as long as you can do it. And then if you can do it longer, do it longer. And I would give you at least a minute, because our nervous systems take that long to feel the effects of the dopamine and the oxytocin and the serotonin that you're going to produce, we're absolutely giving our body the biological experience of producing those hormones that say, Hey, Let's get together. This is good. Let's connect Okay, and trying to give it a little bit of relief from that excess of adrenaline and cortisol that comes up when our nervous system says, Uh, oh,

Shane Birkel 42:52
yeah. Great. Also, I have another logistical question, which is about, when you're working with couples in session, how long do you work? How long do you typically work with people? And are they in that space where they're, you know, knees are touching, or they're, you know, one person's knee is touching the other's chair for the whole time. Or, you know, are they turning to look at you at times to answer questions? Or how, you know, how is that set up?

Hayley Hoffman 43:22
Yeah, so their positioning is always facing each other, okay? The only time I don't do that is when I do the their dreams at that very first session, they are angled so that they can see each other and they can see me, and we're a little triad, because I'm having the dialog with the individual at that time, okay, and so, so that experience and is me mirroring everything they say and and really crafting the story that they are writing in the simple sentences. And so I dig deeper. It's where I find out everything about like, what it was like growing up in their childhood, their dreams are all about their childhood, and so I find out how many siblings they had, and what their parents marriage was like and and like, why these are their hopes and dreams. And so that I'm doing with them. But other than that, they're going to face each other, and they're absolutely it's it's one of those moments. One of the signals when I need to do something polyvagal is when the couple sits down and they know that their knees are supposed to be touching the chair, and they push their chairs back. Then we're going to stop and say, Hey, what was that all about? Like, what's going on here right now? What's in the space between you that that feels too uncomfortable and that you're more comfortable farther back. And so we're going to explore that, and then we're going to see like, can you get any closer together? The distance together is partly driven by the idea that we'd like their eyes to be about 18 inches apart. And the reason we want that is because that is. The earliest distance that we had an experience of CO regulation of somebody looking into our eyes as an infant, holding that baby before us and and gazing with adoration and delight. And so we know that that's the distance at which Mirror Mirror neurons fire in our brain, and that we are learning without language. We are learning by reading the other person's face. We are learning what safety looks like. We are learning what connection looks like. And so that's why I want them that close together, and I explain that to them, so they're going to be that close together as much as possible, and generally speaking, they will be in dialog with each other. I'm going to try to do that. There are moments of education that I do, and there are moments of integration where I'll say, like, let's I want you to do a little bit of writing. And so then I invite them to move their chairs back, and then move them back in, in terms of how long couples come to see me, you know, I would like to give them a three month window, because that's my 90 days. If I can get them to start practicing this every day, then in 90 days, there will be a tool that they've got without any question, that if they want to keep practicing it, I say to couples that you should come in as often as you need a refresher on doing what it is that we talk about doing. And so couples in crisis usually need to come in more frequently. And couples who are like coming in just because, like, we're just kind of like not connecting with each other. I want them to practice at home. I i My goal, and I say this to every couple is for them to fire me, and then to know that I'm here, like, if they need a tune up in, you know, a year or 18 months, then they know that they can come in for a tune up, or they can come in and do another workshop. If they've done one of the workshops, I haven't gotten to the point where I require the couples that I work with to do the workshop, and I'm very close, because the workshop, the workshop, is valued at like, three to six months of therapy. We get so much done, wow, in the workshop, yeah, that's

Shane Birkel 47:10
so cool. Yeah. It must be such a good foundation for people to have that. Yeah, yeah.

Hayley Hoffman 47:16
And I do four months of every other week follow up in the workshop, reminding them, oh, you could try this now. And so for four months, for every two weeks, they get a little bit of support material.

Shane Birkel 47:30
How many? How many couples do you typically have in your workshops? No more

Hayley Hoffman 47:33
than eight. Because we do it in our home, and we want to keep it like close and intimate. Yeah,

Shane Birkel 47:41
that's great, yeah. Well, and I know we're getting close to the end of time here, so maybe it's a good time to ask, like, Where can people find out about the workshops or your just your website, or whatever you have going on? Absolutely.

Hayley Hoffman 47:54
So I work for the imago center of Washington, DC, so we can be found at imagocenter dc.com, the workshops are listed there under events. You can also reach me by emailing me at my name, [email protected]

Shane Birkel 48:13
Great, great. Thank you so much, and I'll put that in the show notes so people can find out more. But I really appreciate you coming on. This has been a great conversation. I've learned so much.

Hayley Hoffman 48:23
Thank you so much. Shane, it was great to come and talk to you. I'm really delighted in meeting you last March, and I look forward to seeing you again. Yeah, that was

Shane Birkel 48:32
that was great that we had that opportunity to spend some time together. I know

Hayley Hoffman 48:36
that was just such a great unexpected thing that happened.

Shane Birkel 48:40
Yeah, great. Well, thank you again. Hopefully we can catch up again at some point in the future. Yeah, sounds great. All right. Thank you so much, Hayley, and thank you to all you listeners out there. I'm so grateful for all of you. Definitely go to CouplesTherapistCouch.com you can find some free resources there. You can also join the Couples Therapist Couch Facebook group, which is a free group for where we have conversations about the episodes and all other topics of couples therapy. Also, right now, you can join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle. If that's something you're interested in, definitely click the link below. We have beginner therapists. We have really experienced therapists in the inner circle. It's a really great way to take your practice with couples to the next level and get a ton of education ton of support. We have a group where you can ask questions at any time of the day. I will I jump on calls with people to talk about cases. There are courses on EFT, Gottman, RLT, all kinds of different things. So if you are a couples therapist, you want to take your practice to the next level, and you're not ready to invest thousands of dollars into, you know, getting certified in a model, this is a really good way to get a lot. Of education really quickly. So if you're interested in that, click on the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Shane Birkel, and this is The Couples Therapist Couch. Thanks, everybody!

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