In this episode, we explore what trust means, why it’s important, and how to build and rebuild it in relationships. Trust is earned through consistent actions, open communication, and mutual respect, creating a foundation for emotional safety and connection. We’ll discuss common trust issues, like past betrayals and poor communication, and share practical steps to strengthen trust, such as being honest, keeping promises, and respecting boundaries. Whether you’re building trust or repairing it, this episode offers tools to create stronger, healthier relationships.
Tune in to see How to Actively Build Trust Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- In my relationships, how do I define trust? Do I feel I am trustworthy?
- What actions from others make me feel safe, valued, and respected?
- Have I experienced a breach of trust before? How has that shaped my view of trust in current relationships?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/marriageandfamily
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Episode #292 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes on October the 17th. I believe this is 2024, right John?
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Right, okay, good. I got the right year. I’m getting closer to Jesus. Every, every day. Every
John-Nelson Pope: day. Every day. Tick tock.
Chris Gazdik: So this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. We pop on on Thursdays on YouTube lives. If you’re catching us on Spotify, Apple iTunes, and all that kind of stuff, I encourage you to check out.
Looking at Victoria’s beautiful face when she’s talking on YouTube. And also, I must say, we haven’t had a new YouTube subscriber in a couple few weeks that we have seen or noticed. You do have to have your subscription publicly. What is it, Neil? Your profile needs to be pointed towards public and if it’s not, then we won’t see you.
So we may have had some, but if you haven’t told a friend, [00:01:00] tell a friend. That’s your job. You gotta tell a friend, help us to grow, help him to get a free resource that’s really good for him. And a five
John-Nelson Pope: star review. Of
Chris Gazdik: course the five star reviews, we don’t want John to be upset, we’re taking care of him, he has headaches, so don’t give him a problem.
Exactly. Give us a five star review. Yes. He opens his eyes wide, you would see on YouTube. All right, we’re going to be talking about how to actively build trust. The therapy questions that I want you to think about throughout the show today are, in my relationships, how do I define trust? And do I feel I am trustworthy which help me remember y’all we need to have a conversation about focusing on trustworthiness of myself Rather than the other person which is where we usually tend to focus fair,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Well, it’s part of the scout law
Chris Gazdik: Keep that in your brain. We’ll come scout is trustworthy what actions from others make me feel safe valued and respected And thirdly have I experienced a breach of trust before i’m going to answer that for you You Listening. [00:02:00]
John-Nelson Pope: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: And how has that shaped my view of trust in current relationships?
All right. So let me see. Got the book out. I need to get excited about this. Begin telling people, begin really kind of emphasizing the publication date of December the 17th. Rapidly approaching. Look, we’re going to make an attack on marriage, not an attack on marriage, an attack on things that prevent healthy marriages.
This book is about marriage. It’s a good book. It’s a thick book. It’s got a lot of amazing things in it. What’s the name of it? Through a Therapist’s Eyes, Re Understanding Your Marriage and Becoming Your Best as a Spouse. John. Okay. Seven more times you say? Six more times. That’s a lot of times in one episode and we’re not talking, well, we are going to be talking about that a little bit.
Maybe I can accomplish that. We’ll see. That’s right. We’ll see. Thank you. So this is where you get insights from a panel of therapists. Not to delivery of therapy services in any way. And what else do we need to say? I think that’s good. Ready to roll, Victoria? Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, you gotta say your thingy.
Chris Gazdik: The human emotional experience, which [00:03:00]
Victoria Pendergrass: We endeavor to figure out together.
It’s our
Chris Gazdik: thingy. Alright, what is trust anyway, y’all? What are we talking about when we talk about purposely building trust? We always go with definitions a little bit. How do you see this? Because I have a very specific thing that I always go to, to help people understand just how dynamic this is. But I’m curious how you guys help people understand this.
Trust.
Victoria Pendergrass: Trust specifically?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I don’t know.
Victoria Pendergrass: I’m trying to
Chris Gazdik: think.
John-Nelson Pope: Do you use anything from Erickson? Eric Erickson’s Not with this. Trust versus mistrust. Oh, that whole thing. That’s an early stage. Not
Chris Gazdik: with this. Go with that. What were we talking about?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, no, I think it’s from the very earliest ages.
And I think that’s one of the things that a child knows that he or she is loved and can feel safe.
Chris Gazdik: You’re talking about stages of development,
John-Nelson Pope: stages of development. And so [00:04:00] it would be, it’s very important to, to establish that from the get go as particularly as parents. So trust exactly, exactly.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Eric’s team has developmental stages and I hadn’t thought about that in his context, but that’s probably one of the primary pieces of. Maslow’s hierarchy. We talked about that. He’s helping people understand developmentally.
John-Nelson Pope: If you don’t, if you don’t know that, let’s say you don’t have the safety, you don’t have the house, you don’t have love, you don’t have food, you don’t, and love, You’re going to have a distrust that’s going to be basic and follow you throughout your life unless you do some intentional re patterning and you would make relationships with people that would engender trust.
And so if you don’t trust yourself, you’re going to [00:05:00] have problems trusting others.
Chris Gazdik: If I don’t have basic needs met, all people who have been neglected, experienced abuse and neglect. This is a primary issue, being able to
trust another human being. I ain’t gonna do it, because it ain’t worked out for me, and that’s sad.
That’s really the problem, isn’t it? Okay I really like to go into a space where how we think about trust, typically, I feel like is warped. First
Victoria Pendergrass: of all, we tend to
Chris Gazdik: think, Victoria, I trust you, or I don’t trust you. And that’s not a way to think about this, right? Trust really operates on a full 1 to 100 scale.
And Yeah, my mic wasn’t on. Can you hear me all right now? Yikes! My mic was off, y’all. Apologize.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s gonna sound like that you’re talking
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah, that sucks. in a bucket. Do we need to start over or what? We [00:06:00] okay? You just turned it off at some point. Oh, I turned it off. Oh, okay. Thank you. So it wasn’t that way that long.
So, it’s not a, I trust you Victoria, but I don’t trust John. It’s, I trust John on a level from 1 to 100, somewhere around He’s the salt of the earth kind of guy. 74. Thank you. You’re welcome. I trust you a lot. Victoria, unfortunately, you’re about 23, 27 maybe? You’re fickle. It’s, it I don’t trust her a whole Now I’m making this all up and she’s giving me an expression that’s making me feel guilty.
Right? So, so it isn’t an or, either or, on or off. Also, there are two different parallel. So, Forms of this that people don’t think about. And that is a trust on a one to 100 on your intent, but there’s also a trust on a one to 100 of your ability. Mm-Hmm, . Now, John, I love you. Yeah. You’re a hard working man, and I trust you on a high level, but [00:07:00] I fall out on this floor and I can’t breathe.
And you come at me with a knife and a pen. I’m gonna tell you to call 9 1 1. Don’t touch me. Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: right.
Chris Gazdik: I would agree with your ability.
John-Nelson Pope: I would agree,
Chris Gazdik: but I trust your intent.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: a high level,
John-Nelson Pope: even if I had slept at a holiday inn,
Chris Gazdik: right? It’s not going to help. It’s
John-Nelson Pope: not going to help. It’s
Chris Gazdik: not going to help the situation.
I don’t want you cutting me. All right. The nurse practitioner was here that I have a student. Then I’m all about Kendra helping me out.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I literally have a student right now, shadowing me. Right. I’m I trust her ability. She’s a freaking nurse practitioner. And she’s gonna save my life, so I’m good.
Right? I’m scared, but I still trust her. Right? So there’s really an important variations there. It is not an all or nothing. And there’s trusting intent and trusting ability. I don’t think many people think about this that way.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Curious if
Chris Gazdik: y’all have ever heard anything like that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Not on like a continuum spectrum.
But I have heard about the di like [00:08:00] the difference between like trust and ability to carry out things.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: You know,
Chris Gazdik: this isn’t an automatic thing. I’m, I’m, I’m really interested in our conversation today because I, I said before on the YouTube live, like, I feel like this is something that not a lot of people know how to do.
If we were to do interviews on the street and say, hey, how do you actively build trust? I think we would get the silliest answers. I could be wrong.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. No, I mean, or a lot of I don’t knows. I think it’d be
Chris Gazdik: a lot. I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A whole lot of I don’t knows. And we all need to do this. You listening, you need to be doing this in your relationships.
It is not an automatic thing in, it is not a permanent thing. It is a fluid reality. This is something that is built over time. It’s actually probably more difficult to build it and really easy to lose it. Yeah, for sure. Is that fair statement? Oh
John-Nelson Pope: yeah. And with some people, it only takes one time.
Chris Gazdik: [00:09:00] Yep. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: One thing and it’s blown up. So trust is a very delicate, fluid, constantly changing reality. Now, if you told me you went and got some medical care and you learned about tracheotomies and things like that, John, and you, you told me that your military training, I was a Navy corpsman
John-Nelson Pope: and I learned how to do that.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I just learned that you have a trust worthiness and that I need to challenge my ability to trust you. If you come at me with a knife and a pen, when I can’t breathe, Right?
John-Nelson Pope: Right.
Chris Gazdik: Constantly moving, constantly changing. We’re constantly learning. And I want you listening to understand this is very, very it’s a foundation for emotional safety, structure and vulnerability.
And that’s what you were talking about with Erickson, right? Right. This means believing that the other person has your best interest in mind. That’s trusting their intent. And will act consistently with integrity to spinal
John-Nelson Pope: taps. I [00:10:00] had to trust. And then I found out one both of them were like PAs or nurse practitioners.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And I’m going. I think the neurologist should do this. And then somebody told me and said, no, you want this person to do it because that’s all this person does is do spinal taps.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. So your trust level went away. A lot more
John-Nelson Pope: than, than a neurologist who may do it occasionally.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Gotcha. There’s, but I think that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: also like a blinding trust because for example,
Chris Gazdik: Blind trust?
Yeah. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: For example, like, when I, you know, go to the doctor, I’m automatically assuming and trusting that my doctor has the proper, like, education and ability to carry out the things that I need them to do. Like, I’m not, you know, like, going to give birth and, like, asking for the credentials of [00:11:00] my doctor.
Like, where they went to school and like where they do
Chris Gazdik: blind trust good or bad. What? It’s interesting.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, that may not have been the right
Chris Gazdik: word.
Victoria Pendergrass: Word then?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, you have a, but do you get what I’m saying? Like
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, you have a
John-Nelson Pope: predicated trust because in other words, you know, this person has their credentials,
Victoria Pendergrass: right?
Like I have to trust that they wouldn’t have gotten the job at the hospital to deliver my baby had they not had the proper training. Right? Like. Or I’m not totally off base
Chris Gazdik: here. I don’t want to pick on you, but I’m, I’m struggling with the word blind. I don’t, I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think you’re kind of describing.
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe that’s not the right word. You’re describing. I think predicated is a better word. Predicated probably is a good word because you’re looking at like, what kind of degrees do these people have on their, their wall? Is this legit? Is this a legit practice? Are they licensed to the
John-Nelson Pope: board?
See, I see your, I love me wall and,
Chris Gazdik: [00:12:00] he’s pointing out my degrees and stuff like that. Your degrees
John-Nelson Pope: and all that, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: The I love me wall. The I love me wall. I
Victoria Pendergrass: love that.
Chris Gazdik: I love me some me, Neil. Look at my degrees. I don’t know, I should take them down now. No, no, you shouldn’t.
John-Nelson Pope: No, that gives trust.
Chris Gazdik: It does.
That’s why we have them posted. As a matter of fact, it’s ethical to do that.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was literally just about to say, like, you’re, you know, So, you’re kind of supposed to have it. Yeah, you have to. It’s ethical.
Chris Gazdik: Now, blind trust is interesting though that you bring that up because to me, people will blindly trust people which I’m going to submit puts you at a risk.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, I would agree with that. So, maybe blind in my example was not the right word. Yeah, I agree more with what this guy said.
Chris Gazdik: Predicated trust because blind trust is dangerous, John. Mm hmm. Like, you have to be very, you know, Aware and naive. Yeah, that’s like the
Victoria Pendergrass: trust fall. It’s
Chris Gazdik: dangerous. I gotta
Victoria Pendergrass: trust that you’re gonna catch me.
Yeah, man
Chris Gazdik: putting my life in your hands by falling back and you guys are like [00:13:00] 20 pounds and I don’t think Five year olds are going to catch me. I’m not having blind trust there. I’m looking
John-Nelson Pope: back with the knife and the, the the pen. Yeah. I want
Chris Gazdik: to know your qualifications. Yeah. I’m not going blindly to this, trust your intent, but dude, I got to have some verification on your ability.
Yeah. So the other thing that I thought, I’m curious what you guys think about this and understanding and wrestling around with what we’re talking about. What do you think about the idea that having a good sense of what to expect from day to day Might be kind of an interesting way to think about that’s trust
What do you think
Victoria Pendergrass: I think i’m having trouble I’m having to reread this like
Chris Gazdik: with your marriage with your relationships If you have a sense of what’s going to happen from day to day, I mean, there’s always surprises,
Victoria Pendergrass: right? It’s
Chris Gazdik: really really difficult when you have no idea what to expect
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: well, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: that’s a little
Chris Gazdik: [00:14:00] levels of
John-Nelson Pope: that’s a fresh hell
Chris Gazdik: What do you mean yeah, well
John-Nelson Pope: if you don’t know how your spouse is going to be or your partner and One day or you feel like you’re always walking on eggshells Walking on eggshells.
Oh walking on sunshine
Chris Gazdik: And
John-Nelson Pope: don’t it feel good?
Chris Gazdik: No Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: But if you walk, you’ve been s singing in public Man. If you gotta walk,
Chris Gazdik: I’ve been, I’ve been doing this with you way too long, man. Yeah. Yes you have. But I don’t sing in public
John-Nelson Pope: like eighties. Eighties. Now you do. He’s getting But I don’t like, I don’t like, if I felt like I was not having a relationship that was trustworthy and I couldn’t trust my spouse or my partner and I didn’t know where I stood with the partner or something like that, it would be a fresh hell. It’s distressing. Distressing. Yeah.
Chri
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Because I need to have one [00:15:00] island in my life that I can always rely on.
It’s trustworthy. It’s trustworthy. Predictable.
Chris Gazdik: Safe. Yeah, you know, I think I was doing this, I did this somewhere later on, but I’ll bring it out now, like if you can imagine, for instance, like in a substance abuse family system, we’ve talked about that on the show, you literally come home every single day, and you don’t know if mommy’s going to be drunk, passed out on the If mommy’s going to be drunk, screaming and yelling and fighting, or if mommy’s going to be the normal mommy that comes home and And has dinner
Victoria Pendergrass: ready and blah blah blah.
You have no idea. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Which one or something different is going to be There’s a mood
John-Nelson Pope: disorder in the family and it’s mommy or daddy. Yep. You don’t know which, who you have.
Chris Gazdik: Right. They’re going to be stuck in bed, depressed, and strangely not talking to me, or they’re going to be engaged and come to my baseball practice and coach my team, let’s say
John-Nelson Pope: you’re 11 years old, and you don’t know [00:16:00] how to process that, and you don’t know that, that there’s something amiss with that.
Chris Gazdik: John, I’m 51 years old, and honestly, I have a hard time processing it.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: But go ahead.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. You’re right. You’re right. And I think that would, so that person doesn’t have the tools. To be able to, I think at 51, and you’re a very young looking 51. Thank you! Yeah. Dang beast! So, and, and you, you would have problems with trusting.
Yep. You’d have, you’d feel like, Is it me? Is it I? Is there something wrong with me? I was like, then you might start to internalize it. Internalize it, yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s interesting. I’m just listening to you and I’m thinking, my goodness, this is a major task for all of us. However, when you have something, and usually we, you know, we see this in therapy all the time, that was embedded or [00:17:00] troublesome very early on.
It’s a wonder why you’ve lived a life with all of these patterns, from childhood up until, you know, some people live a lifetime this way, never even realizing that they don’t have an ability to trust because of things that they’ve never really resolved.
John-Nelson Pope: So they don’t have that trust. That awareness, I think the difference is, is when that light bulb goes on, let’s say they have that moment of clarity and they say, I don’t trust because this is what’s happened to me, then I can start to change.
Now we can intentional
Chris Gazdik: get to the topic of the show. How do we really actively purposefully build this with somebody? And I think you’re right. Victoria is a whole lot of, I don’t know, is out there. So let’s get. Yeah, to it, right? This is important really because it develops emotional safety, you strengthen your communication, your support vulnerability, your conflict resolution, effectiveness goes way up, you build long term stability, I mean there’s so much [00:18:00] in the game that you’re going to gain if you listen to how to actively do this.
So, does that sound interesting? Yes. I’m thinking you’ve got to be interested in your car, right? Yeah. There’s a lot of causes to this though too. And I think it’s important to have an understanding of, as you were just talking about, various betrayals, various past, you know. I had a conversation with a, with a very good friend of mine in college.
I’m gonna leave her unnamed because I don’t want to to do that.
John-Nelson Pope: I hope she’s a very young looking 51 year old
Chris Gazdik: I think she probably is a very young looking 52 year old 52 year old. She had me by a year. Maybe two.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay
Chris Gazdik: Anyway, we were talking and I was shocked one day we were working through some stuff.
It was an emotional conversation is all I remember But my best friend in high school His name was robert. I’ll put that out there. Hey boy, if he ever catches this He stood her up, John. [00:19:00] Absolutely stood her up. And this was like three, four, five years later? She was tore up about that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Now I was a little surprised by that.
Yeah. But I think that goes into like, you know, this stuff can really, these hurt spots can run real deep, real fast.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh yeah, I mean, think about Probably almost any couple that has sat down on your couch That’s had like, you know repetitive cheating like or You know drinking problems or whatever like, you know, well, they’ve done it before and did it Problem why we’re not gonna yeah, why should I trust that like?
This is gonna be the time that they change and why should I trust that like? you You know, why should I put myself through this again? Even
Chris Gazdik: better yet, Victoria, I trusted that you were going to remain [00:20:00] sober and you drank. And I trusted you that you were going to remain sober again and you drank. And again, and again, and again.
We’re six times deep. Yeah. How much do I believe, right? It just, it sucks the wind out of a relationship.
Victoria Pendergrass: And I don’t, I guess this probably refers to like past things and whatnot, but I was going to say, and you don’t have it listed here per se, but like, Like, childhood and parenting, like,
Chris Gazdik: Ericson stuff,
Victoria Pendergrass: yeah.
Well, like, as a kid, you know, you’re, trust it, like, you have to, like, your job as a parent is to create, like, How much like to create trust for your kid by like providing them with the food that they need Providing them with diapers stability clothes Like a good, you know And so I think but I think that’s where
sometimes a lot of time Like it gets messed up down the [00:21:00] road is when it’s am I jumbling?
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, no. What I was
Victoria Pendergrass: like, if you like, if it starts at home and your parents didn’t provide you with those basic things to like, as a foundation or were able to, as a foundation of like how to trust someone. They’re like, I feel like that’s then drastically going to impact like the rest of life. Yeah, your future relationships Like you
Chris Gazdik: actively do something.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah
John-Nelson Pope: Okay, just add on to what she’s saying on that Victoria. I think it’s not just the the the Being there in terms of your presence and you’re having your yeah. No, you’re the the Providing the basic necessities of life. I think it’s also Making a promise and keeping it and so one of the things is is that Sometimes be a little circumspect what you promise, [00:22:00] because you need to make sure that you’re there.
And if somebody says dad, will you go to my my game? And you better? And you say, I promise. And you better make sure that you’re there. And now a promise is a
Chris Gazdik: promise. A promise is a
John-Nelson Pope: promise.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a phrase.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. You know, I’ll tell you, there’s all sorts of things. I think I’ll go, I’ll go and share a quick story that I’ve shared publicly before to really demonstrate the power of how this can operate.
Right? So the story is when and how I found out about, you know, mommy and daddy separating. It was a rough day, man, because we had a dinner. We usually had dinner at the table, right? Yeah. And this was like no other day, but dad was there, that was a little different, but still cool. And, but there was a different air in the room.
There was something up. And I knew something was up when we were informed that there was dessert. John, we didn’t always have dessert, right? In [00:23:00] the air tonight. So in the air tonight. And it wasn’t a very pretty feeling in the air. And I don’t remember who spoke first or what was said. I think it might have been my mom because she was sitting to my right, my brother was across the table, my sister was right next to me, and my dad was to my left in our normal seating positions.
And it was said that he was going to be leaving. And all I remember is popping out of my chair, running the two steps, and jumping into his lap, just sobbing, right? Just, just sobbing, like, my world has just been crushed. And then, I don’t remember much of what was said, I was about 10, 9, it’s fragmented, so 9, 10, 11, I’m not sure.
Kind of
John-Nelson Pope: traumatic.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely, it was traumatic. And the next thing is, is the question has asked me, hey, do you want to go see Dad’s apartment? And I’m like What and I walked across the living room and I looked down at the car is fully packed and i’m [00:24:00] like And I don’t remember anything else other than it was
John-Nelson Pope: it was surreal what it was surreal I just
Chris Gazdik: remember sitting in the back seat, you know how you put your head as a kid in between the front seat so you could be a part of the front and I just remember driving out of my neighborhood that way and I remember nothing else Now, I’m okay.
I actually remember telling somebody that story on a podcast and my buddy heard it and he was like, Oh my God, I just wanted to give you a hug. But the thing is, is that did a number on me. I had to have had to do a lot of work throughout life to regain the ability to trust. Even when I have a solidified relationship in my life,
Victoria Pendergrass: that
Chris Gazdik: probably plays a little psychology in my little kid brain.
Like, Oh, really? You going anywhere, Victoria? You going to leave the practice? You said you’re going to retire here. Really? All right. Okay. We’ll see. People always
Victoria Pendergrass: leave the things like that. That’s what happens.
Chris Gazdik: Right? So I’ve done a lot of work to kind [00:25:00] of pull that back. Are you leaving
John-Nelson Pope: Victoria? No, she’s
Chris Gazdik: not leaving.
You better not be. You know, but it’s, it’s, it’s a powerful thing that happens to you in Victoria. Thank you for helping us understand the myriad of ways that when you’re young this happens. Yeah. Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: You probably deal with that a lot with your children in your practice. Trust. Trust. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: you see it work out.
Yeah, you see it in the play.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah, it may not necessarily be like a topic of conversation Because some kids don’t necessarily, you know, who don’t know how to articulate that but definitely like in high schoolers and stuff who can actually like Articulate what trust is and like can talk about it in a more Like way like that then yeah, it actually does go up a lot Now that I think about it,
Chris Gazdik: we mentioned a lack of consistency.
We mentioned the betrayal and the different [00:26:00] hurts. We, we mentioned a little bit about open communication and actually like that was, I didn’t have open communication. Matter of fact, I was floored and I’m still pissed off a little bit to this day, to be honest with you. My parents told my older brother, he didn’t tell me.
He knew on that day, on that meal, what was going on. And I did not. And I don’t like that. How much odor? Three and a half years old or something. It’s, it’s, it’s appropriate. Well, and I think, like, it
Victoria Pendergrass: makes me think about, I had a client tell me that because their parents never argued in front of them.
That it was like out of left field
Chris Gazdik: to have when
Victoria Pendergrass: well no for when their parents announced They were
Chris Gazdik: separated
Victoria Pendergrass: because they were like, what the heck like you’ve literally Shown no signs at least in front of us like now you’re leaving and then now hindsight is like As an adult, it’s like, okay, well, yeah, there were a lot of things that were happening that I didn’t necessarily see, but like, yeah, I mean, like, that’s going to [00:27:00] affect, like, well, I can’t trust that, like, this, like, that’s going to be, like, my relationship is going good in the future, my romantic relationship, but in the back of my head, I’m always thinking that they’re going to leave.
Because my parents, they never argued and then they, you know, or we never saw them argue and then they got divorced. I’m like, yeah, battle
Chris Gazdik: your subconscious to know something different.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s, that’s what we’re talking about is battling your insecurities, battling your fear, battling your doubt in people, battling the tendency that we get jaded, right?
Like these are powerful things and they happen from these, these things. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So that affects your, your, perhaps your present. Let’s move forward a little bit into adulthood. There’s a deficit of trust. Yes. Growing up, and so you would think That you [00:28:00] would have some questions with a partner or spouse and saying, yeah, should I trust her or him with,
Chris Gazdik: or even, yeah.
And, and, and honestly, I just want to make the point that it isn’t, this isn’t always in childhood either. Oh, this is absolutely. You had all the family validation and support, encouragement and positive relationships, consistent, predictable, healthy, but then you get married and you find yourself in the relationship that 10 years later, bam, they leave you.
And it just makes you question everything you ever believed. I have a
John-Nelson Pope: client that is still mourning for a relationship from 20 years ago. Wow. End of the break. Stuck. Stuck. And that client was able to rem to marry and have children. Oh, that is stubborn. But, it is nice. It is nice. Not a great marriage.
But, but. There, yes, thank you, but there’s [00:29:00] still that mourning and inability now to fully give oneself heart into the present relationship.
Chris Gazdik: So let me suggest as we begin talking about how to actively build trust as we get through the segments that causes this problem. Understand that the energy as you do work goes way down, but it never goes away, John, does it?
Huh. No. Victoria, it’s always in the back of your head. Yeah. But the thing is, is we can manage that though. It’s
Victoria Pendergrass: a little bit more manageable. Yes, it’s more manageable. It’s manageable because the energy
Chris Gazdik: is way lower. It doesn’t hurt as much. And that’s honestly where I am with my parents divorce and that vignette that It’s on the super
Victoria Pendergrass: back burner.
Chris Gazdik: It’s okay. I’m really okay with it. It’s not an impact. Boy, it used to be. It used to be. So there’s a great amount of hope in that. So communication styles. We talked about openness. Yeah, let your kids know a little bit what’s going on. They can handle it. I think a lot of times we’re afraid of that, Victoria.
I
Victoria Pendergrass: think we [00:30:00] forget how resilient kids actually can be.
Chris Gazdik: Way more resilient than us adults.
Victoria Pendergrass: Way more resilient than us adults.
Chris Gazdik: The avoidance styles that we talk about with engulfment?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yes.
Chris Gazdik: That can really break into, like, my ability to trust. Because I’m on the abandonment side, but also when you have an over talking style, I may be guilty of that, John.
May be guilty of that also, Victoria. She raised her hand on YouTube, just so you know. Listen, that breeds This is why marital communication is so hard. Yeah, because there’s these styles that you get into and you do what you do when you get worked up And it triggers the other person and it’s constant drain a chronic drain on trust but there’s a book john through a therapist eyes re understanding your Your what did I say through a therapist eyes under re understanding your marriage and becoming your best as a spouse boy That’s a tough twister sometimes
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
See, next time, the third [00:31:00] book of this trio, you’re going to have a short a shorter subtitle. I’m
Chris Gazdik: going to shorter subtitle to help myself out.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But, but that’s the first, fourth time is through a therapist eyes.
Chris Gazdik: So unrealistic expectations. I’m going to spend a lot of time. I’ve talked about this, but episode two 88, remember resentments are a marriage killer.
Y’all it, it listened to two 88 on that. And then fears of vulnerability. So how do we do this? What are we doing? How do we actively build trust? We got a youtube comment that says very good subject. Thank you. And ma’am you are welcome Are you interested in figuring out how to actively do this? What do we do?
How do we do this? How does this build how do we grow this if we want to be purposeful?
Victoria Pendergrass: Usually the one thing I know you have it listed here, but I also tell Basically, every client of mine is consistency is key. Be
John-Nelson Pope: consistent.
Victoria Pendergrass: It’s consistent. Like it’s, if it, if you’re [00:32:00] trying to rebuild the trust with your kids.
Okay. And you’re trying to make them see that you really care about them and that you do
Chris Gazdik: maybe as a divorced parent. Yeah. Or blended family stepparent. Right?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. And so what you’ve decided to do is like text your kid every morning and say like, I love you. Have a great, like, we don’t just do that for a week.
Or, you know, when we feel like it, that’s like, if we’re going to do it, we’re committing, it’s going to be every day
Chris Gazdik: behavior
Victoria Pendergrass: every day. And then every day when they come home, I’m asking them how their day went, you know, or I’m doing these things. I’m doing these things and that may not necessarily specifically be for trust, but for as far as consistent, like we’re doing it, we’re not just doing it one time.
Oh, it didn’t work up. Nevermind. Whatever, you [00:33:00] know, we’re doing it over and over again. So, so what
John-Nelson Pope: I’m hearing is it’s not like a diet where you will go on something and maybe lose a lot of weight and then And then go back. Go back. It is a lifestyle change. Yes. So it’s a change of self.
Chris Gazdik: And I want to build on that, Victoria, because you’re making me think of something that I think is a powerful parenting thing as well that I learned from Love Logic, specifically with teenagers.
Think about your behavior. In your relationships, whether you’re a parent, whether you’re talking about marriage, because your behavior speaks loudly to trustworthiness. So, you know, when we have elementary school kids and even midd
wrestle with our kids, we cuddle with our kids, we snuggle and lay together in bed and we, You know, jump in the same blanket, you know, it’s all of that closeness, right?
Then they turn into teenagers and we stopped touching, right? [00:34:00] They stopped touching. Well, but no, also you create that
Victoria Pendergrass: boundary. Like there is a certain point, like right now I still kiss my kid on the lips because he’s two and a half, but yes, there will be a point where like that just stops. Like all of a sudden, one day I will not do that.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. That would be a little weird, but the thing is, is this is important because You know, I really formed behavior hearing that at that conference that I went to and I found a reason to dap my kids, to slap them high five, to pat them on the back, or punch them in the arm. I didn’t want to get into fighting and wrestling with them anymore because my kid was a little bit of a hothead and that was dangerous.
But I found ways because when a teenager is no longer touched, they unmistakably
lose trust. Yeah. I feel like they’re not loved. Something’s different. Something’s isolated. Something’s changed. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. Well, because then a lot of times, like, there’s no [00:35:00] communication of why those things are happening. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: we have a YouTube comment that says, how do you actively build trust? Don’t break it.
That’s awesome. Actually, we’re going to talk about a little quick handout if I have time to get to it about when it does get broken, you know, what is it that we’re trying to do? And what do we want to do to heal and recover that? But what else? How do we actively build this? Interesting. Well, I added that already.
Yeah. Communication touching piece. How much do you guys deal with this outside of marriage counseling in therapy? I’m curious. Trust. Yeah, because I think unfortunately, is it possible to say that we fail to teach this enough in therapy?
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, I feel like we don’t really teach it unless it comes up as an issue.
Yeah. With our clients. Or unless that we see that like they have an [00:36:00] issue. I’m
Chris Gazdik: just gonna submit that I think if we challenge ourselves and we practice some vulnerability and did some transparency. And just like naturally
Victoria Pendergrass: taught it. The reality is.
Chris Gazdik: I think we deal with in therapy more about the problems that caused the distrust rather than the trust itself.
Actively building trust in a relationship. Yeah, I can see that. You know what I mean? I can see that. I
John-Nelson Pope: would, I would agree very much.
Chris Gazdik: Much so, yeah. That’s unfortunate.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: well, yeah, that’s unfortunate. I mean, it is. Yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I think, I think that’s one thing that the longer I’ve been practicing, the more I’ve been doing that with, with folks.
But I, I think it’s, it’s learning, helping people learn these life skills that actually Will help them with their own sense of self acceptance and happiness and fulfillment
Chris Gazdik: All of those emotional safety better communication [00:37:00] Supporting yeah, all these things. Yeah, there’s so many payoffs, honestly, so yeah, I like to follow through on promises john you were talking about and then you know our politics nowadays Is all kind of cranky.
I think around the world. We know that You And I think one of the things is because in the fast paced meme world that we live in, meme, M E M E, Instead of mean world. Which could be Which we also live in a mean world. We live in a
Victoria Pendergrass: mean world too, yeah,
Chris Gazdik: fair enough. Politicians are not allowed to say, Hey, I screwed up, I got it wrong.
Period.
Victoria Pendergrass: So admitting to mistakes?
Chris Gazdik: I don’t trust you. If you tell me all the time, I’m right, I never make mistakes, I’m right, I got the right plan. You know what I’m calling? B. S.
John-Nelson Pope: In the military, I’m just, in terms of leadership, I, I had to go to leadership school and we talked about fess up on [00:38:00] up when you make a mistake, you screw up,
Chris Gazdik: creates, develops, actively builds trust.
Exactly.
Victoria Pendergrass: Sorry.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I was just going to say that a person that knows that their, that their leader has some vulnerabilities is that they’ll, in humility, they’ll be more likely to say, okay, how can I help bolster you in your leadership? You know what I say? In therapy? Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Let’s say, oh, how human of you,
John-Nelson Pope: right?
Victoria Pendergrass: But I also do think that, or maybe this is more opposing a question, but do you think that sometimes people take advantage of admitting mistakes and taking responsibility because then it seems like they never do anything to change it? Like, yes, they admit it, but then they never seem to like do,
John-Nelson Pope: but can’t you [00:39:00] see through that manipulation?
Chris Gazdik: Are
Victoria Pendergrass: you, I mean, you, the hope would be yes, but I do think
Chris Gazdik: that now, John, because now we understand that there is, I trust your intent, but Victoria, I don’t trust your ability to carry it out
Victoria Pendergrass: because like, it makes me think of, I know we keep going, although I don’t use drinking and like substance use, but it makes me think of like, hey, this weekend we’re going to go to this party and I promise that I’m only going to have a two drink,
Chris Gazdik: that’s a word, but
Victoria Pendergrass: Limit
Chris Gazdik: right, right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I promise I’m gonna have a to drink limit. Okay. Well, we go to this party I mess up because we’re all having a good time. I have six beers. Okay, then I realized we got in a fight I messed up the next day. I apologize. I admit my mistake. I take full responsibility I got caught up in the moment. I had six beers instead of two, right?
But then the next weekend we have another party and I make another promise Of like, or not even the next [00:40:00] weekend, but like three months down the road, like we go to another party and I make the same promise and like,
John-Nelson Pope: Victoria, let me speak. Okay. So what I’m thinking is, is in terms of, Of an addiction dealing with addictions, you kind of are frozen at the level of where that addiction began.
Right. And so if you’re a 17 year old and you start dealing with the addiction, you’re going to be emotionally a 17 year old, even if you haven’t, you say I’ve abstained or something. At 35 years old. It’s 35 years old, 40 years old, 50 years old, and I
Victoria Pendergrass: can’t get that. So then what if we replace the example with, I promise I’m not going to yell at you or scream at you
Chris Gazdik: and
Victoria Pendergrass: then that it happens.
And so then it’s like this whole, but I think that, I mean, yes, I do agree that is manipulation and like, and things like that, but I also [00:41:00] agree that
sometimes people can’t point that out or people struggle. Like, realizing that that’s what’s happening to them.
Chris Gazdik: Well, I think a lot of it, like I said, is, is, is, the, the thing that people don’t really think about is trusting somebody’s ability.
Right. And they stay with a fixed, I trust you, John, or I don’t trust you. But we’re really usually talking about your intent. And there’s so much more in trusting somebody’s ability. A kid is probably going to look at their parent and say, Yeah, Victoria, sure, you’re never going to yell at me. I believe that.
Right. Not. Because they don’t believe the person has the ability to not engage in yelling. Yeah, but
Victoria Pendergrass: then, and then it’s also different where if I say, If I promise that I’m not going to yell at you this weekend, And I do, and I apologize for that, But then from that, I am actually like, actively doing things to improve that, so that there is like [00:42:00] this proof.
Or a demonstration. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: At least a demonstration. Yeah. I don’t think you can prove that I am trustworthy. I think that’s an experience. I
Victoria Pendergrass: think that, yes. It’s
Chris Gazdik: a, it’s a sense. It’s a, you know, our human development uses so many neurons, mirroring neurons, biology, helping us to discern, like, how does that work?
Right.
John-Nelson Pope: I just had a thought, you’re thank you Victoria, cause I think that kind of You’re welcome, John. You’re welcome. No, I think now for letting him speak. No, I’m kidding. We go Sorry. I went into Best Buy the other day. Okay. Okay, and I, I wanted to pick up some headphones. They were on sale, half price.
Chris Gazdik: Nice.
John-Nelson Pope: I tried to pick them up. No, we can’t do that. We can’t let you take them. And I’m feeling like, you’re treating me like a damn child. Right. I, you don’t [00:43:00] trust me.
Chris Gazdik: To do this.
John-Nelson Pope: To do this. You’ve got a cop there. Wow. And you don’t let me do this. It was so insulting to me. Wow. Right. Yeah. So, I’m just thinking, wow, that’s
Chris Gazdik: How these things play out.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, how these things play out. We live in a A real experience. Yeah. Just
Chris Gazdik: a moment and it, and it, it touches on something. I’m 71 years old. Great. Absolutely. Yeah. And we can still feel that way. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. That’s, that’s powerful. Are you really 71? Because you know, we think Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I look good, don’t I?
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: You
John-Nelson Pope: know.
Chris Gazdik: What’d you say?
Victoria Pendergrass: I said, is he really 71? Yeah, I’m 71. He’s a beast. He’s
John-Nelson Pope: bottom.
Victoria Pendergrass: Well, we’re all
John-Nelson Pope: When you say hello, 20 years
Victoria Pendergrass: apart.
John-Nelson Pope: Hello I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: 31. You’re 51. He’s 71. I’m kidding, Victoria. It’s a hello
John-Nelson Pope: Sorry. Hello, Boomer. ADHD. I could be your grandfather.
Chris Gazdik: Victoria. Victoria, come back to the Come back to us.
I’m sorry. Come back to us. No, no, but
Victoria Pendergrass: Okay, [00:44:00] I’m sorry. Huh?
John-Nelson Pope: And I trust you, Victoria.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Not to cough in your face.
John-Nelson Pope: No. No, you can cough in my face. I’d rather not. You guys are lost.
Chris Gazdik: I gotta pull this out. Okay. Anyways. So there’s something that I was thinking about as well, John, in, in this. You know, we talk about vulnerability, but I, I think a lot about friendships
Victoria Pendergrass: and I didn’t
Chris Gazdik: realize that, well, until now it’s, it’s piecing together in my brain.
I’m connecting two things right now because I have traditionally talked about actively making friends. You know, like people oftentimes just, well, it happens naturally. I don’t know. It’s weird to think about, like, I’m going to target people and, and try to make friends and go finding a friend. I mean, that’s truly what we do.
And unfortunately a lot of people don’t do, and you know what they tell us in therapy, right? I ain’t got none.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I ain’t got no friends. So one of the things in that I’ve thought about over the years in making a friendship or. [00:45:00] Improving the friendship goes with a rule that I literally learned myself Five six years ago and that is to say you share On the level that the friendship or relationship is or that you want it to be now think about that
Victoria Pendergrass: If
Chris Gazdik: we’re really tight victoria, no, I get what you’re saying I’m going to share a lot with you because I know you and we’ve been really tight and we’re close And i’m but i’m not as close with john.
So my level of sharing with him is going to match our Yes, indeed, so I can’t Well, if
Victoria Pendergrass: you wanted to be closer to John let me finish.
Chris Gazdik: So the other piece of that It’s okay. The other, the other piece of that is, in order to strengthen the relationship, like I said, you, you, you tell something. It’s the vulnerability.
Like if you target somebody and John, I want to be closer to you. So I’m going to purposefully increase the amount that I share about myself. And that has an inherent effect of [00:46:00] deepening and broadening our friendship. So what I never realized is. That’s a purposeful trust building activity share about yourself.
Right? I
John-Nelson Pope: would use as an example of my being in the hospital for eight days.
Chris Gazdik: Long time, a long time, four days
John-Nelson Pope: in isolation, is I got texts from a certain person, a group text from a certain person in Metrolina, and that helped me a lot. Oh, I’m so glad my cousin called me, my sister, my brother. Every day, my mom my people that my friend from Montana who’s a professor and also my childhood friend.
And I, and then of course, Neil, and I just felt so loved.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: right.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. But then that
Victoria Pendergrass: also builds trust.
John-Nelson Pope: That builds trust. I know I can go to them. I was in my worst [00:47:00] state because I thought maybe I had cancer.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Scary. It
John-Nelson Pope: was scary as hell.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. You know, thank you for that, John. I think what you’re teaching us is understand that when you’re compassionate and kind, Builds because you’re being trustworthy.
That’s an actionable. You
John-Nelson Pope: all were trustworthy, right?
Chris Gazdik: Now, you still can be trustworthy and not be trusted by the person. So there’s issues there in your ability to trust. Well, we haven’t talked about that yet, but you know I made another conversation for another day. Yeah, it would be big because, but, but that’s a very powerful deepening of friendship and relationships and job.
Yeah. I didn’t realize that. So that’s, that’s really special that you share that and, and, and, and realize, you know, like what’s his name? Yeah. There’s a ESPN guy. I love what he says. He’s a West Virginia dude, too.
John-Nelson Pope: Not Keith Overman. [00:48:00] No. ?
Chris Gazdik: No. Oh my gosh. I forget his name. Neil, you’re a sports guy. Come on.
What’s the, what’s the espn, I don’t know. Daytime, everyday noon. McAfee. McAfee, yeah. The McAfee Show. Geez,
John-Nelson Pope: I have no idea who
Chris Gazdik: that talking about. He’s WVU kicker. He’s a great guy on e, espn Uhhuh. But what he says is, do something nice to somebody. You might change their life. Yeah. He says that every show. And I love that because when you do something nice you might change somebody’s life is an absolutely true statement It’s his thing and and that builds trust it builds affection.
It builds connection. It builds rapport It builds a lot
John-Nelson Pope: plants a seed. It’s like if you’re like it have you ever had anybody by you? Your call ahead. I mean you’re but they’re behind you and they pay for your in the driver for drive thru
Victoria Pendergrass: That’s what happened to me. Yeah, I’ve done that for other people.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. My church does that. It’s kind of a cool thing. Yeah. I had that happen about three months ago. I was like, ah, I [00:49:00] know what you’re doing. It’s cool. It’s very nice.
Victoria Pendergrass: It
Chris Gazdik: is very powerful. It gives you trust in humanity. Yeah, it does. So I don’t know if you went through that real quick, clear, clearly.
There are people that carry a strategy to go up to the Drive in when they’re picking up their food or paying and they say I’m gonna pay for mine But I’m also gonna pay for the person behind me and then the person behind you comes up to the window and the person At the restaurant says hey this person already paid for your meal Exactly, and the
Victoria Pendergrass: hope is that you continue it
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
Pass it on. Yeah. But yeah, do it for somebody else.
Victoria Pendergrass: I was in a Starbucks line one time where I was like number like 40 something of someone who would like, it was, maybe it wasn’t 40, it was like in the double digits. Like I was like a, in the line. I
John-Nelson Pope: must’ve been in the same line. Did they what? Paid for everybody?
Victoria Pendergrass: No, we’re like, that’s how long it had continued. They continued to pay. They continued to pay for the person behind them over [00:50:00] and over again. And I was like the, like, I don’t know. Was that the Starbucks guy? No, it was the Starbucks in Monroe one time. Really? I’ve never hear
Like, if someone does it for me, and the person behind me doesn’t have an astronomically high amount of money. Yeah. Bill hundred Bill. And there someone is behind me now. It’s happened to me before, where then there’s been no one behind me. And so then I can’t really continue it, but that’s
Chris Gazdik: interesting. No, I didn’t know that that was a, yeah,
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think that’s a good thing to do.
Practice, but that also engenders trust in yourself, that when you do something like that, you’re saying, I trust humankind. Yeah. And humanity.
Victoria Pendergrass: That’ll be worth it. And then it’ll be, you know.
Chris Gazdik: Transparency is huge and I literally had a conversation just yesterday or maybe this morning about being transparent
Victoria Pendergrass: and
Chris Gazdik: how that transparency operates.
And yeah, it was actually a substance abuse client and his, and his wife came in and we were talking about how what’s very different [00:51:00] now from the past rehab four or five different rehab stints comes home and relaxes that what’s different now is they’re both uniquely being transparent with each other.
How many times Do you look at your spouse and say, Yeah, Victoria, I know some stuff. So I can see that look in her eye. I see it. I know it. How you doing? I’m fine, she says. I know. No, you’re not. Just tell me what’s going on. How was your day?
Victoria Pendergrass: Right. Oh, it was good. Yeah, nothing happened.
Chris Gazdik: Being non transparent.
Destroys my trust in you
Victoria Pendergrass: but then I also think it goes vice versa where there’s some times where I might be like In my internally i’m like there’s something I really need to tell chris But I don’t really know if I should tell him and then I’d choose to like keep it to myself Yep,
Chris Gazdik: you missed the trust building.
Yeah, and
Victoria Pendergrass: then that potentially has like ramifications of like whatever but because one thing I always say in my office is like The truth usually comes out. [00:52:00]
John-Nelson Pope: I’m gonna posit this. Is that the transparency? Sorry. No, you’re fine. Understand that the, the transparency builds trust and so might help with the client that’s been in rehab four or five times.
Absolutely. That that’s what’s happening this time. It,
Chris Gazdik: it works. If it worked. If you work it, he’s working it. He’s working transparency. He’s telling the truth. Which is hard to do, John, when you feel shameful, or guilty, or scared, by the way. These are not easy tasks, as simplistic as they might sound, to actually do them, by the way.
Alright, make agreements, then expectations, then follow them rigidly. It’s a phrase. We’ve talked about expectations before. Make agreements, then you can have expectations, then you follow them. And I’m actually using the word rigidly, Because that builds trust. It’s predictable and all the things we’ve talked about.
But then you can change them if you need to. Because you [00:53:00] renegotiate the agreement. You re up. I thought we agreed that we were ba Oh yeah, you’re right. I forgot. Okay. We’re re upping. We’re reaffirming. Right? That’s Or we no longer need
Victoria Pendergrass: an agreement for this specific topic because circumstances have changed.
So let’s change it.
Chris Gazdik: Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: But let’s talk about it. So that we can change it.
Chris Gazdik: Talk about it. Have a routine. If you’re really, really struggling, I have had marriage counseling suggestions of agree to a time, agree to a place, and an amount of time, and have a check in. And make it routine. Once a week, once a month, something.
I think some
John-Nelson Pope: couples make mistakes when they, when they go to a place that they both enjoy being, and then somebody does business. Maybe not the time to do it. You might have another place.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Good point. That’s less threatening. I like that, yeah. Okay. And doesn’t yeah, we go here for fun. You don’t have
John-Nelson Pope: the good memories you so in other words you
Chris Gazdik: I like that good [00:54:00] point
Victoria Pendergrass: We used to do my husband and I used to do a sunday family meeting sunday night family meetings
Chris Gazdik: That’s what i’m talking about
Victoria Pendergrass: like
Chris Gazdik: so how about this sentence i’m curious victoria if you’ve ever heard it seek understanding of one another Through curiosity.
I actually was working with well, i’ll say my therapist, you know and He taught me that that’s something I learned actually as a client Really the last few years, he’s hammered the idea of develop curiosity so that then you can seek an understanding. And I think when you really do that effectively, that’s actively building trust.
Fair?
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would take any kid who like, If I want to be able to trust bugs, because I don’t like bugs, well, some bugs specifically, but I have the curiosity to learn more about them so that I can understand them more so that I don’t like Freak out every time I see a spider.
Chris Gazdik: I was [00:55:00] wondering how you’re going to pull it off.
Then
Victoria Pendergrass: like, yeah, I’m going to like
Chris Gazdik: trusting bugs. Now, John, I’m going to like,
Victoria Pendergrass: go to the library. I’m going to look up things. I’m going to look up how helpful spiders are and how like, you know, and so that that way, when I see the spider Crawling in my office or whatnot. I don’t
Chris Gazdik: freak out because it’s not gonna kill me Yeah, you know, I I think that’s that’s a that’s a brilliant point.
Thank you victoria for doing it that way I didn’t expect it and didn’t know where it was going but think about it if you are sitting there with your spouse And you do not Understand something about them and they convey and you ask and you seek understanding through curiosity Now, suddenly, you’re closer because you actually understand, yeah, the spider.
John-Nelson Pope: Been, been married 42 years, and I learned something about my wife I didn’t know before. And I thought, what else can she tell me?
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And it was something [00:56:00] from childhood and she had a good memory of it. And I’m saying, I’m glad you shared that. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. It, it,
John-Nelson Pope: there was sort of like a joyfulness and another piece.
Yeah. Another piece.
Chris Gazdik: Another piece here. Another piece there. Yeah. As the years go on, how many pieces do you learn that breeds trust.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yep.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And you know, when you’re dating, that’s probably really powerful when you’re dating. You’re going to take the risk. You’re going to share, you’re going to be vulnerable.
You’re going to say something that you’re, that’s a little risky to share. That
Victoria Pendergrass: builds trust. Yeah. If I wanna build trust. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. All right. Lastly, honor agreed upon deadlines. When you have deadlines or you make promises, honor ’em. Mm-Hmm. , you, you, you, you don’t know how much you’re destroying John.
When you said that earlier, I was like cheering because when you don’t honor a deadline or you don’t honor a, a, a, a agreement or you don’t honor. Like this that you’re just breaking a [00:57:00] promise and it’s it’s gonna kill trust and it also builds trust when you do so it’s honestly like sometimes I’ll tell people like make a Deadline.
Mm hmm Yeah, so that you can find out for yourself and trust yourself Or with the other person trust each other. So that’s another piece. All right I’m aware of the time and i’m i’m going to do something that I don’t usually do because I don’t like to do it I don’t think it’s as interesting but just reading I don’t time and honestly, this is a handout I think I gave this to you victoria a while ago.
Victoria Pendergrass: Oh, is that the the one the cheating thing? Yep Okay,
Chris Gazdik: restoring trust and intimacy. This is a colleague of mine named jeff shook that created this it’s developmental steps You After an affair. We’ve done a whole show on this before, but What?
Victoria Pendergrass: I said I have to peace out. We’re Because it’s 730. Unless you’re almost done.
Yeah, we’re almost done. Okay. I can hang out for
John-Nelson Pope: another minute. Can you send this Can you send this to me? Yeah, I
Chris Gazdik: [00:58:00] will. Okay. So I’m just gonna read through this. The betrayer needs to reflect on what led him or her to the affair and what drew him or her to the other person. What was the legitimate need that led to the dysfunctional behavior?
The couple needs to acknowledge that they each significantly contributed to problems in their relationship. The faithful partner is not responsible for the betrayer’s choice or choices. They need to acknowledge that gaps in the relationship left it vulnerable to an affair. Okay, the couple needs to work on actively and behaviorally working on forgiveness and reconciliation What will be done or said to practice forgiveness question mark?
He’s provocatively telling us this is active. You need to do it The couple needs to intentionally build trust and intimacy through working time and dating time. Working time includes problem solvings, communication, listening, conflict [00:59:00] resolution, planning, and activities which build into the relationship.
He says 45 to 90 minutes per week dating time is alone time without the kids or other people three to five hours a week. I always laugh at this one because He’s so particular, so specific, and that’s just Jeff personality. So he comes out in that one loudly. Next, the betrayer needs to volunteer, key word, accountability, including time, behavior, finances, activities, phone calls, emails, et cetera.
Okay. The betrayed person should not play the trump card. The couple must survey the damage. They need to stay present with one another emotionally while acknowledging the negative impact of the affair. The betrayer can reveal themes but not specifics regarding the choices in the affair. On rare occasions, a specific may reveal some issue of the heart.
The person who asks needs to state what he or she will do with the information, how it will help, and commit to self care if the information is [01:00:00] painful. I know there’s a lot there. We’re not going to talk about it, but there’s a lot there on that one. The betrayed person needs to understand that closure for the betrayer may be an emotional process that involves some loss and grief.
Lastly, the betrayed person should acknowledge the legitimate need that was wrongly attempted to be met through the affair and allow the betrayer to bring that legitimate need into the relationship. Listen, if you’re going through an affair or trying to recover trust after the affair, play that back.
It’s a great list. Otherwise, I don’t want your brain to be too stuck on these things. That’s why I just wanted to read it through real fast. Mm hmm. Because if you picked up on anything in there, how purposeful, Victoria, is that?
Victoria Pendergrass: Super.
Chris Gazdik: How specific? Behavioral is this list like super I have kept this and I don’t keep many handouts because it’s you don’t yeah
Victoria Pendergrass: You’ve given it to me.
Yeah. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: John. I’ll give it to you right now. Thank you, right? [01:01:00] So I just blew through that and and we want to wrap up. I know our time is short, but let’s say I’m
John-Nelson Pope: all shook up I’m all shook up by Jeff Shook.
Chris Gazdik: Sing it, John. I’m all
John-Nelson Pope: shook up.
Chris Gazdik: What did you mean by that? What do you mean?
John-Nelson Pope: No, his name’s Jeff Shook.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, you’re all shook. Jeff is all shook. Wow. Okay. That’s a dad pun. That is a dad joke, John. Usually, I love your stuff. That one there, I’m, I’m, I’m struggling with. I’m going to be honest with you. Okay. Really? Jeff’s a cool dude, man. I’m sure he’s had trauma from his life causing him to distrust people, making fun of his last name, like Gazdik.
Anyway. Let’s look for a moment at how do you know when you’re really in a good space with somebody and there’s a high level of trust. I mean you can feel it. It’s wonderful. But what are some specifics? How do we know this?
Victoria Pendergrass: Confidence.
Chris Gazdik: Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: Specifically when talking to each other.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, having a sense of confidence.
I like that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And comfort.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. [01:02:00] Comfort. Yeah. It was the other word I was gonna think of. I mean I was thinking of comfort and confidence.
John-Nelson Pope: I’m going to say this, this might sound counterintuitive, but I’m wondering if you don’t have to spill the beans on everything. You feel comfortable enough with your partner that it’s okay.
Safe. Because the trust is there. The trust is
Chris Gazdik: there. Okay. I like that. That’s true. And it does sound a little counterintuitive, but that’s kind of similar to like, you know, John, when you and I drive in a car, we’re probably going to chat the whole way.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Unless we have a level of safety and trust could be just silent.
How cool is the silence?
John-Nelson Pope: Silence is
Chris Gazdik: cool. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of that because that guy, Jeff Shook, his colleague of mine, we enjoyed some silence on the way up to Raleigh to a conference and it was nice and felt comfortable. Cool. So, open and honest. [01:03:00] Communication seems easier. Or even easy.
Oh, it’s a wonderful space. You mentioned confidence and feeling comfortable in that feeling the mutual respect, like a respectfulness,
John-Nelson Pope: like the great boundaries with the great rock therapist the Eagle said, it’s a peaceful, easy feeling.
Chris Gazdik: Oh yes. Love that.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he really is, John. I mean, Do you have that person that you just know you got my back.
You’re not gonna stab me. You don’t have to worry Don’t have to worry. I really feel secure. It’s it’s just wonderful and consistency and actions predictability, you know Conflicts and disagreements are literally really okay I mean listen these relationships are possible I know that you have some of them, or some elements.
I want you to feel capable and hopeful about [01:04:00] being able to deepen your relationships. But I want you to really understand you’re going to need to make a purposeful decision with specific activities, behaviors, and actions to accomplish it. This does not happen by chance. Automatically it really only happens when you’re purposeful whether you realize it or you don’t even realize it has to begin with you
John-Nelson Pope: intentional
Chris Gazdik: With you being trustworthy You are trustworthy.
Yeah blaming the other person or
John-Nelson Pope: expecting another person to be trustworthy you be trustworthy
Chris Gazdik: Go first
John-Nelson Pope: be that be
Chris Gazdik: like that. I agree All right. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation good stuff. Take care. Be well You We’re going to see you next week. Bye. Bye.
Bye.