Brianne: Today we're here to talk about relationships and the good old-fashioned red flag versus green flag analogy. Now, if you're somebody who has been seeing this trending on social media, or maybe you've even used this in your own life to weigh the pros and cons of relationships, then you're gonna want to tune into this entire episode because we're gonna talk about why this analogy can actually harm us instead of help us. And a better way of looking at it that actually makes sense in terms of growing and raising the level of our relationships versus just throwing in the towel and walking away. So by the end of this episode, my goal is to have you look at your relationships in a little bit of a different perspective, have more compassion, and also a little bit more drive, determination, and resiliency towards keeping these relationships flourishing in the right direction. So without further ado, let's dive on in. Hello, Rig Babe, and welcome back to another episode on the Go Regulate Yourself podcast. My name is Brianne, I am your host, and as I said, today we are here to talk about relationships. Now, before we get into all that nitty-gritty, I want to fill you in a little bit on what's been going on for me. We are officially near the end of October, which means that my husband and I are about to take off out of country. That's right, we are heading out for another six months or so of traveling abroad, and I am so excited to be able to take you, our listeners, on this adventure as we end up who the heck knows where. Now, last time I chatted with you, I was thinking that we were gonna be landing in Honduras, but our plan actually is to now start in Panama. So taking off next week, we will actually be landing in Panama. Heading to one of the islands, Bocas del Toro, where we're gonna spend a little bit of time before we actually start moving on and expanding our horizons in terms of different countries. We have previously been to Panama, but I'm still excited because we haven't actually been to the island and we're gonna get some diving in and obviously check out a brand new area that we are not familiar with. So right now, life is a little bit crazy. I have been doing my best to batch some episodes in advance, get everything scheduled, ready to go, so that way. When we actually hit the ground running here for our trip and our travels, I'll be a little bit ahead of schedule, which is gonna make me feel so much better in terms of what's happening here with the podcast because we're hitting some pretty incredible milestones, which is gonna be our next episode. I'm gonna be chatting to you about some of the incredible things we're celebrating here, both behind the scenes and then also out in the spotlight. And we're gonna get to chat about all of those incredible things. But Life right now is just looking a little nuts. We are in the midst of packing and checking off those last-minute to-do lists, getting in our last-minute visits with family and all of that sort of stuff. So I appreciate you being here with me. And believe it or not, this is actually what has sparked the topic for today. And the reason for that being is that my husband and I have had a lot on our plate this last month. And I have found myself in quite a few moments actually looking at him and whatever action or task he's doing, feeling very incredibly grateful for him being in my life. And it's funny when these moments have struck me because it's always been in the least glamorous light. Like for instance, he was washing the windshield as we were waiting at a gas station for him filling up gas. And he was washing the windshield. And I took a little video of him doing that without him realizing because I was so incredibly grateful for him taking over the quote unquote what I like to call blue jobs, things that I don't particularly like to do. Filling up the vehicle with gas and washing the windows is an easy example. And I've been really appreciating him in a lot of these moments in a way that I feel like I haven't in a really long time. And that's a really big thing for me because earlier this year, my husband and I were kind of in a rough patch. And not a rough patch that is like, the marriage is about to end and break up, nothing like that to that extreme. But there was definitely this. Difference in our energy. It was very palpable. We could both feel that we were off, whether it was from stress or other things happening in our life, we just weren't as connected as we normally are. Our communication was down. We were both a little bit more distracted and doom scrolling on our phones. We were, you know, caught up with life and what's happening, not necessarily engaging with each other as much as we normally would. And so after a few disagreements had happened, and we kind of noticed that. This palpable energy started to escalate a little bit. We sat down and we had a conversation about it. Like, look, something's not working here. And we need to be able to adjust or do things differently to bring ourselves back to who we are within this relationship. Whether that's focusing on our own independent selves and making sure that we're getting what we need and taking care of ourselves in a better way, or we're actually focusing consciously on the relationship itself. Something needs to be done. And so what this conversation earlier this year and what the last few months leading up until this point have shown me is just how easily and how quick a lot of people tend to throw in the towel when it comes to a relationship. And it's not necessarily just about a romantic relationship. I mean, we could also talk about friends and family within the same spectrum too, but predominantly within romantic relationships. Now, I don't think it comes without a surprise that 40% of marriages are actually ending in divorce, which is quite a significant number. And it's really concerning when you start to think about it and break that down to understand why some of those things might be the case. One of the things that I truly believe and think is that. Although social media is a really incredible, beautiful thing that obviously has given us so much more advantage from years and years ago. We can do so much more, reach so much more, download more information, understand things to a greater capacity, share our businesses, etc. There also are these trends or these things that start to take off in the viral world that ultimately lead us down a road of. Putting connections together where maybe they shouldn't actually be. We start to take this allotment of information and specify it down in a particular way, in a particular nature, that it was never intended for. We try to make all of those square pegs fit into the round holes, and they just don't work that way. So when Talking about relationships in this essence, what I'm noticing a lot in terms of the trends of the viral things that are happening out there is a lot of people referring to this red flag and green flag analogy as if it is a pros and cons list for a relationship that we just decide right off the hop. Now, don't get me wrong, I have been out of the dating world for quite some time. It's been 14 years of being together with my husband. But even with that being said, You can still see these trends or this information being applied in a lot of ways to marriages and what it means to stay in a relationship or to leave those relationships. And what I I believe a lot of people have done is taken these really serious concepts of what a red flag actually is and started to apply it to minuscule human nature actions or characteristics. Determining that those are just no good and that we have to start abandoning people or abandoning relationships the moment that a red flag pops up. And I get that the color red indicates stop, and that would be typically what is true. If we were to throw up a red flag, it would mean stop. But when we're talking about relationships, the way that we've taken this generalized information and fine-tuned it down. We're now taking things that were never meant to be indicated as a red flag and deciding that they are. We're getting really confused about this subject and what it actually means. So, like as an easy example, a red flag used to mean that this was a toxic, very unhealthy, abusive type of pattern that is continuing to show up again and again. A red flag, for instance, might be a form of abuse, whether physical, verbal, mental, emotional. It could be something like being very controlling in the tendencies, right? Wanting to know where somebody is at all minutes of the day, who they hang out with, saying yes and no to what they can wear, what they can do, that sort of thing. These type of behaviors are something that we would consider a red flag. These are things that are not just something to move through in terms of communication, but they are something that is a little bit more in-depth and difficult to overcome. They are something that likely isn't going to change and therefore something that we really need to consider what implications this is going to have upon us and our lives, potentially leaving that relationship if it is a true red flag, or what we're going to do about it in this instance. And so when we're talking about these big things, these big headings that a red flag could actually apply to, it makes sense to us and we understand that that is something we would want to navigate away from. It's something that we would want to bring caution towards and or have a plan for ourselves in terms of exiting that relationship. But what happens when a red flag has been taken from this toxic, unhealthy or emotional, you know, pattern? And we've now applied it to something like communication not being really strong, to somebody shutting down every time that we try to have a conversation about something. Is that a true red flag, or is that perhaps a conditioning and programming of the experiences that individual had in their lifetime, the trauma that they experienced that taught them how to react or respond in that particular way? Is that a true red flag, or is that a human being natural tendency? Because when we're talking about human beings, it's important to understand that. We're not just a product, right? We're not just something that is fixed, set in stone, and we come one way or the other. We have experiences and things that we go through in our life that can actually shape the way that we show up, how we speak, how we walk, how we interact, how we respond, how we take action in our lives. There are so many things that the experiences in our life have taught us. And we have this beautiful flexible ability to be able to change and navigate with time as we move forward. What I think a lot of people are assuming from this analogy of the green flag versus red flag is that human beings are like products, something that you would buy from the store that should come in a perfect condition that requires zero maintenance. And just fit perfectly in like a puzzle piece, right? We're looking for these puzzle pieces that we want to add to our particular life. And if that puzzle piece doesn't quite fit, instead of rotating it or moving it to a different part of the puzzle, or maybe altering that puzzle piece to help it fit into what we are trying to create, we're just automatically throwing that puzzle piece away. But human beings aren't something that requires zero maintenance. We aren't just this fixed dynamic that has no ability to grow to up level to change with time. We in relationships as human beings require there to be mutual effort. We require there to be communication, to be compassion, to be a lot of different things to help us show up as our best selves. The moment that you popped through the womb was a state that you were in for the rest of your life and you never knew better, never did any better than that moment you popped out of the womb, what would that say about you? Would would you assume that you were the same version that was born on this earth however many years ago? Or would you agree that you have gone through life lessons and experiences that has helped you up level, helped you expand? Helped you grow and become a better person than even you were yesterday. We as human beings require the ability to up level and grow. So when we understand this about ourselves and we can recognize that yesterday we were not the same as we are today, why do we then, in fact, believe that relationships or the people within the relationships that we're welcoming in should therefore be perfect and should therefore be zero maintenance and should therefore not require any room for growth and up leveling. The truth is that it just doesn't work that way. And as much compassion and willingness we are giving ourselves to be able to change our minds, to grow, to do all these things, we therefore have to be willing to expand that to other people on this planet, especially if we are trying to welcome them into some place within our lives, right? Whether that's a romantic relationship, friendships, etc., we have to be willing to see that human beings naturally have challenges, naturally have flaws, naturally have different communication styles. We're not all built the same and there has to be some room to recognize where certain individuals might have strengths or certain individuals might have weaknesses. And how can we support each other in this relationship as we move forward? Coming back to my relationship with my husband, there are definite things that I have a strength for within our marriage, and things that he has a strength for within our marriage. And I can count, you know, so many times. Where I used to get mad and fault him for the things that he was not naturally or innately strong at. Things that came naturally to me, things that were easy for me to recognize. And we used to butt heads over this all the time. And if I was really adhering to a lot of those trends and the things that we see online, I would have declared every time that he did something different than I wanted, than I asked, than I did in my own life. I would have declared each of those actions a red flag. I would have thrown in the towel every single time he did something that I didn't necessarily agree with or didn't necessarily like. And that's really what this green flag and red flag analogy has turned out to be. It's a it's a form of keeping score. You have so many red flags or so many green flags, and you wait until the red flags outweigh the green flags, and then you decide whether or not that relationship's going to end. And truthfully, I think most marriages, most partnerships, most relationships that we have nowadays, we're expecting things to just come naturally, and we're really willing to walk away from those without putting in consistent effort. And that's just not how relationships work. They do require effort on both sides of the fence. And we can't just say that, the other person's not willing to put in any effort when we haven't bothered to change our communication styles or approach things in a different way or maybe try to see things from an alternative perspective. Relationships for me have been this really big learning curve where I have had to step out of side of my comfort zone and I have had to take accountability for the things that I was doing wrong in our marriage. Things that I would declare a red flag for myself. And that's the thing, right? Is if we're truly being honest here in relation to healing and growth. We're gonna be able to acknowledge that every single one of us has red flags of our own. I have fucking bucket loads of red flags of my own. Things that are naturally not the healthiest, things that I have had to really learn and outgrow and overcome because of the things that I was conditioned and programmed throughout my life to believe or to see or to act out. And so red flags are something that's kind of naturally present for each and every one of us. And we have to decide which of those red flags are true red flags, dangerous situations that we actually need to walk away from a relationship because of, and which are the ones that are likely not actually anywhere close to that extent, but rather are something that just requires more effort, a different approach. a little bit of work to be able to navigate, heal, and release fully. So, in my relationship, this is very much what the last 14 years have looked like. But specifically in this last like six months, since we kind of noticed that we weren't in the best of place, has resulted in us coming back to. In what ways are we maybe letting each other down? In what ways are we maybe ignoring each other or not being our best selves, right? We can say that doom scrolling or ignoring somebody when they're talking is a red flag, but is something maybe going on that's just causing you in that state of stress to be addicted to your phone and not hearing the environment around you? And in what way can we break that habit that has now construed To remove that pattern from our lives and now create a healthier, sustaining relationship. There's a lot of different things that we can look at in terms of each relationship and each person that we come into contact with. But what I'm trying to encourage you here is not just this willingness to throw in a red flag and just surrender and walk away and determine that the relationship's no good, before you've even had an opportunity to try and work on some of these particular avenues. A great book, total side swipe here. If you have not yet read or listened to The Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong, Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong, highly recommend you do so. I have previously recommended this on the podcast when we were doing some live streams way back when with Tanya and Corey. On the podcast. And I just I really want to loop this in here as something that you really consider for a resource has been a phenomenal tool for me in my tool bucket of understanding the ways in which men specifically think, how they operate very differently than what we as women do. And it has changed how I've shown up in my relationship and therefore changed the energy of my relationship as a whole. in very dynamic ways. And outside of these little like, you know, road bumps, speed bumps that we've had throughout the last little bit, my husband and I have always had a really incredible, deep relationship, a very connected experience with one another. And we are best friends and we love each other so much. But there definitely have been times where disagreements or arguments or challenges have arose. And this resource, this book, has been a really big tool in me recognizing how to overcome that and how to heal some of the things about myself. So I'm showing up better too. And so this red flag versus green flag analogy as a whole, I think really is something that we just need to kick to the curb and no longer Utilize within the spaces of trying to welcome ourselves to other individuals in relationships of all kinds, whether that's again friendships, romantic relationships, etc. But I recently did hear this analogy presented in a different way, which I think is such an incredible unfuckery for the mind, if you will. To help you understand this in a deeper perspective. And this is what I want to leave you with today as a way of thinking about this from a totally different perspective. So in relationships, instead of thinking about this as a green flag versus a red flag type of analogy, I want you to start thinking about this instead as a traffic light. And I want you to picture that you're driving on a road anytime that you're in a new relationship with that person beside you in the vehicle. When you're driving, you start to pass roads or detours or turnoffs or certain milestones that indicate that the relationship is going to a new depth. You're getting further and further along. So maybe when you first start driving the car, you first pass the initial, like acquaintance, milestone. Then you hit the one that is in the friend's area, and then you begin to advance to the romantic. Level, and then perhaps you get to the official, you know, we are officially calling this a relationship and we're committed to one another, or are going to, now be monogamous in terms of just choosing each other. And now you continue down this road. And every time you pass the new milestone, or every time things are going well, the lights are green for you, and you're continuing to go further into this relationship. To a place that feels really good. And then maybe something happens where a red light pops up and you stop because perhaps that person in the relationship raised their voice or they showed, a level of anger maybe that you haven't seen before. Or maybe they didn't text you back right away. Or maybe there was something really awkward or goofy that popped up in that relationship and it felt very uncomfortable to you. And so what do you do at a traffic light? You stop. Now, does that mean that you're getting out of your car and you're abandoning your car and the person that you're with on the side of the road and you're just now taking off? Or does it just kind of mean that you're pausing temporarily? And that's essentially the goal of what looking at this from a traffic light analogy is to do. It's to decide in this moment, okay, wait a minute, something here didn't feel quite right. What's the next step for me to do here? What do I need in order to move forward? Now, if this was a true quote unquote red flag, something that is abusive, something that is very toxic in its nature, this would be an opportunity for you to abandon that relationship, leave it, and continue on on your own. But in other cases where this is not something to that level, this is an opportunity for you to decide. Is there a boundary that needs to be reinforced here? Is a conversation need to happen? Is there a communication piece that was missing? What exactly do I need in order to heal this, to resolve it, and to move forward in a positive way and feel safe within this relationship? So that is what a red light truly indicates. It's an opportunity for you to pause and reflect and decide. What needs to happen in order for me to move forward. And this is where that mutual effort, that that maintenance is required for a relationship, because there have been many red lights throughout the course of my relationship. Things that have caused me to pause and for both of us to say, whoa, wait a minute, something here didn't feel right. This is what bothered me, or this is what bothered him, and this is how we're going to talk about this and be able to move forward. That's what a true relationship. looks like and means. It's about analyzing and reflecting upon the moments where things didn't sit quite right and deciding what's the best way of proceeding forward for both of us. And so this is what a red light truly means. And similarly, if you want to factor in a yellow light then for a relationship in terms of a traffic light, you can think of a yellow light as kind of like a warning sign, right? Slow down, well maybe something doesn't quite feel right here. Or maybe I'm noticing a little bit of a pattern start to pop up, or maybe it's something just to be cautious of. Again, not a reason to come to a halting stop, but something just to analyze for yourself and determine am I slowing down here? Are we maybe going to take things slower in the relationship as a whole? Do I maybe need to reflect upon my actions a little bit more deeply? Or do I need to have a conversation with the Person I'm in this relationship with about the things that I'm seeing and what I'm witnessing. These are all ways in which paying attention to your relationship and allowing it to grow and expand with time rather than just throwing in the towel the first time that this gets challenging or difficult, rather than just walking away and determining that it's no good. Us actually spending some time cultivating what relationships are really founded upon, right? This foundation of trust, safety, and security, and making sure that both parties in that relationship feel seen and heard and are getting what they need out of that partnership. And so this analogy has really helped me to open my eyes to a different way of looking at. This red flag versus green flag analogy that we're seeing online. I love when you're in the comment section of something and somebody's posted, you know, a 15-second clip and everybody on the internet thinks that they know that person based on what they've seen, and they're putting little red flags in the comment section because they've decided that that person is no good based on that interaction. It's always hilarious to me to think about these things that we see on social media and the ways in which that we are. Determining opinions on the very small snippets of information that we see. Because again, I can promise you, if you were to have little clips of me at some of my worst moments, you would absolutely be filling those motherfucking comments section with red flags. Each of us have them. This is not a very good way of looking at ourselves or looking at the people that we are in partnerships with or even random strangers on the internet for that matter. Flip it around to the traffic light analogy. Practice this within your relationships and come back to me and let me know how this has shifted things for you because I do think that this is going to change the way that you see a lot of things within your relationship itself. I hope that this episode helped you today. I am so happy to connect with you. And the next time you're watching an episode, even though it's gonna be recorded in this exact same place, I will be on a beach somewhere, and I cannot wait to share with you on social media. all of the things about that. So sending you so much love. I will catch you in the next episode. And remember to go regulate yourself. Mmm.