Building Trust in Relationships | Journey to Success - Episode 3

thank you everyone for joining um and this is going to be um the third of our series but the first uh for uh mrs paymar to be joining us on our monthly meet uh it's it's a pleasure always um just to introduce um mrs pamar is uh one of the mentors uh in the rabbit since uh shotgun program and as also a licensed clinical social worker and she joined our team uh just a little bit ago and already borrowed hashem in full blast uh here we go with uh with you know with starting the series about um you know about such a special topic the topic of uh listening and sharing and and how to handle um you know your dating communication and how to take your communication to the next level um so um yeah i'll give you over at the stage mrs bamar thank you so much rabbi mushaiv and i want to thank as well represent sara browski who uh has been so helpful in uh bringing me on with aura and really in the truly outstanding programming that you have for aura singles i'm just uh it's wonderful to have the opportunity to participate with you i also want to give a thank you to mrs frady darabanner who gave the first two presentations in the series because she laid down such a clear foundation for the step-by-step process in dating for marriage so i'm going to be really referring back to what she said and i think what we're going to be discussing today is going to be a very nice additional dimension to that foundation which she provided for us a special thank you to the rabona olam for enabling each of us to be here and say hashem to learn some helpful skills and ideas together so what i'd like to share with you this evening is two themes i'm going to weave them together the first is power listen power share it's an approach to interactions in dating that really can take conversations to the next level regardless of the topic it helps dating couples to have meaningful exchanges and to build trust and again this is building to see are we becoming friends are we building toward that special friendship and potentially toward marriage the second theme that i'm going to weave in is the media the beautiful habit of appreciation so i'm going to share with you the steps for powerless and power share and include appreciation expressing appreciation and what i want to mention here is that ideally it's really important to find a way to express genuine appreciation at least twice in every date starting with starting with even phone calls to prepare for a date they should be appropriate to the phase of dating obviously but we all are nurtured by appreciation it is such a beautiful habit to develop in ourselves to build into our dating and then on into marriage and relationships with children and every other important relationship it really can't be stated too much i think we all do it and we can all do it more so just to give a very simple example a young lady i i was mentoring said to me she was out on a date and she was so impressed the restaurant closed was closing and the waiter came over they you know they had finished and they were talking and very politely said i'm so sorry but we're closing and she said her date handled it just with humor he was so sweet he was so nice about it and i said to her afterwards when when she and i were talking well did you let him know that how much you appreciated the way you handled that it was potentially awkward you guys had just started dating no she hadn't so just to say there's small things that happen many times in in a single evening or a single date and just for us to really be paying attention what are those moments when we're feeling that appreciation to go ahead and put that into words so the approach that i'd like to share with you i draw from author and therapist shaya ostrov he's written several books including two one chirokum and i also draw on really the best clinical research and wisdom on couples communication so power listen power share there are four steps to this communication process and my goal this evening is to leave you with these four steps in a way that you can implement them on your next date what we need to do first is i'm going to invite you to take a quarter turn with me a quarter turn from really a typical approach to going out on a date let's say with someone new or someone that you have just recently started dating i'm going to invite you to drop your list drop that list of requirements and make the assumption if this is a reasonable person the assumption is i'm going to have several dates with this person let's say about four so what we're dropping is i can tell on a first impression i can tell in one video chat i'm just not getting the right vibe for from this person he's not for me so i actually spoke with a young lady and had a conversation that went very much like that her her mom had asked me to talk with her and see if she was interested in mentoring and we had a nice video chat lovely young lady very accomplished and she was absolutely certain that she could tell from one video chat if she wanted to go forward with someone well she was an older single and still single so that approach i think is not realistic is not helpful and really misses the whole point it's meaningless to say that oh i hope that i'm the guy that i'm dating is going to be at a nine the only thing that's meaningful is is our relationship building toward a nine are we building something together in each interaction in many interactions step by step that is building our relationship in a beautiful way so that's what what i'm inviting you to make that shift with me as we talk about power listen and power share so i hope to answer the question how do i invite conversations that build trust and a foundation for friendship okay and what i'm going to be doing during the steps that we're going to go over i'm also going to be inviting you pay close attention pay attention to your own experience in the conversation so pay attention to your date his emotional tone what he is willing to share and comfortable sharing is it enjoyable does it feel safe and what is my comfort level in this conversation these are all extremely important and really go to the heart of powerlisten and powershare i want to get a sense and to really ask myself am i building that foundation of trust in these interactions am i feeling bad are we becoming a good friend i'd like to take an example from something that would be a sort of a typical topic of conversation for an early date something that we would consider kind of one of the safer topics i'm going to mention a few and if you want to add something in the chat to rabbi mushaif that's just fine but the ones that i'm thinking of are things like talking about work talking about other interests outside of work recreation hobbies vacations tested projects so i hope that sounds like sort of a reasonable those are the kinds of things that would come up typically i think in an early date and what i'm going to do is i'm going to actually share a conversation that i had with a young man that i was coaching so in the process of coaching him i was asking him one of these questions so that we could he and i could practice together the powerless and power share so what i've done is i've changed all the identifying information but i've kept the actual true essence of this conversation that i had with someone quite recently i'm going to just state briefly the four steps to powerless and power share then we're going to go through this dialogue i'm gonna call the the young man avi and in the dialogue that i'm gonna share with you i'm avi's date and then we're gonna break it down so the four steps and i'll be reviewing them one is i'm going to open a safe topic of conversation with an open-ended question i'm choosing my topic carefully and i'm going to make sure that i'm inviting i'm asking an open-ended question not a yes no question that's step one the next part of step one is i'm actually going to repeat back to avi remember i'm obvious date what he said in response to me in my own words and i'm going to share on a feeling level if i move to do that if it is appropriate to this stage of the date i'm going to be open to sharing from a genuine place to what he shares with me that's step one step two is i'm going to ask avi for more details so he shared with me the topic i'm gonna pick is something that he does for recreation and i'm gonna ask him he shared he shared what he does i'm gonna ask him for to share more information i'm interested i'd like to know more i'd like to know about this make space for him to share and then again i'm going to repeat back in my own words with genuine feeling what his response is the third step is what i call the gentle power question the question is is there more so i'm opening the door if there has been sharing of something that is potentially meaningful this may be a place where someone really opens themselves again in an appropriate way even in an early date to something of real meaning to them which i can then respond to and it's fine if they don't it's surprising how often it does happen so once i ask the gentle power question is there more i'm again going to repeat that in my own words back to avi and again if if i am moved or touched or really interested whatever my genuine feelings are i'm going to include those in my as i repeat back to him the fourth step is the appreciation so i'm going to express just thanks thank you for sharing this with me and then i'm going to add i'm paying attention to my own feelings was this meaningful to me in some way do i feel like i've really learned something important about him has this helped me understand him in a different way and if so i can share that as part of my appreciation okay so now i'm going to go back and i'm going to do the example with um the dialogue with avi so remember i'm obvious date and this is a real conversation with the identifying information changed okay so um if you happen to have pen and paper handy there may be times when i'm that i may just ask you make a note in one or two words of your internal experience okay because i'm going to ask you to pay attention on a feeling level to your experience of this dialogue okay you can remember it in your head i like to write things down whatever works for you is great so in this case i asked avi what he likes to do for recreation and uh open-ended questions so so avi i would love to know you know we talked about your work your learning i'd love to know what you do just to unwind what do you do kind of for free down time and what avi said is well i'm i'm in a ping pong league i actually i play ping pong twice a week with the guys and i'm really regular and [Music] i enjoy it and that's really kind of one of my big downtime activities okay so sidebar i'm gonna repeat back in my own words so avi wow so you have a pretty serious ping-pong hobby you're in a league and it sounds like it's something you really enjoy doing in your downtime okay sidebar if you want to jot a word or two how my response might have fell to avi right when i repeat it in my own words okay second step is i'm going to ask for more information back to the dialogue so so avi i would love to learn more about your your your ping pong how you got that started and just more about how how you you're involved in ping pong so avi says to me so well actually you know i started in elementary school my parents went to the jcc they liked to work out they had a kid care program and so i got to stay in the kid care program while they worked out and the kid care program had ping pong so i started playing ping pong i was probably you know fourth grade or so and then i just really liked it and i kept it up through middle school and then in high school i i joined this league and i just i really enjoy it i have a nice group of friends and i'm still doing it just the greatest relaxation for me okay sidebar now i'm to repeat that in my own words and i'm going to include my feelings so avi wow this is something you've been doing for a long time since since grade school so you have really been involved with this and you put a lot of time into it and you obviously got really good because you're in a league i mean i know that leagues compete so you've been competing and you you've been with us it sounds like it's an important part of your life that's wonderful and make a note any what is your inner experience to my response to avi i asked him for more details and then i repeated back in my own words okay so now number three the gentle power question so abby is there more you'd like to tell me about your experience playing ping-pong for all these years so avi says well actually it turned out to be a lifesaver because when i got to high school i was terrible at team sports i went to a public high school we had to do team sports they were i know they were required for physical education and and i was bullied i was teased i just it was awful and ping pong was really just uh it was it was such um it was great i excelled i had my group of friends it was um just a saving grace for me through high school and i honestly feel like like i was a good student but i i think i could have just like withdrawn and really withdrawn even from my academic interests like ping pong really kept me on an even keel because it gave me that success and that great social outlet good friends and really helped me through the high school years and i enjoyed it so much i'm doing it to this day excuse me one second i have something going on here i just need to take care of now i'm gonna i'm gonna repeat back what i heard from him so avi it really sounds like ping pong has been an important part of your life and really helped you through those difficult team years and kind of [Music] kept you feeling successful when the problems in school and the problems with team sports and being bullied could have been so demoralizing it was so important for you i'm so i'm so glad for you that you had this and i so appreciate your sharing with me i really feel like i've gotten to understand you better through talking about what ping pong has meant to you okay sidebar just make a little note of your inner experience the last step after the power question i'm weaving in both my saying back to avi what i heard him say in my own words and including that appreciation which you can see would flow very naturally from the conversation so because of the four steps the conversation has very organically moved to a deeper meaningful level than it otherwise might and so by the time i've asked the power question and if avi no if avi chooses to respond in this case he did it's a very natural place for me to express appreciation and share some of my own but it's meant to me to have this exchange with him okay again through this process i'm noticing how he's interacting his body language his tone is you could tell from the content that avi in this case was really quite open with me and uh so i'm noticing i'm really liking the fact that he was open i feel like this is someone i can talk to and have meaningful conversations with and i'm paying attention to my own comfort level and i'm feeling wonderful that he felt that he could there's already enough trust where he could share something quite personal you know appropriate to a third or fourth date but quite personal and meaningful and it felt it felt wonderful it felt really good so i'm going to be asking myself those questions are we building trust is this really moving to a solid friendship and with this kind of conversation i would probably come away with a feeling yes as mrs dara banner would say uh avi and i have probably taken a step up the ladder of the relationship toward potentially toward marriage so what i'd like to do um we could do a couple of different things what i'd really love to do is pick a topic and do a live role play with one of you if someone feels willing to do that i'd like to pick a topic that should be pretty easy and comfortable for someone to to just to respond to my questions you're just going to be response responding to my questions as is comfortable for you and i thought what i would the topic i would pick would be let's say a headset project okay so and when i say responding at a comfortable level i want to take the opportunity to mention you know it's possible in any conversation someone let's say even early in dating someone might touch on a topic that is extremely personal for me i'm going to give you an example i was working with a young lady and she was not yet at her mother's yard site was just a few months after her mother passed away she met someone they were dating and of course she shared that her mother had passed away and this gentleman was concerned and interested and was asking her for a lot of details as it turned out it was a very difficult situation with a long and difficult illness and she said to me elisheva i don't really feel like i want to talk with him about this yet and my response was absolutely respect your feelings in other words share something share whatever you feel comfortable sharing at this point and say i can i can let you know more maybe later on after we've known each other a bit longer please respect your comfort level and keep yourselves emotionally safe throughout the dating process so that will apply here as well if it has said project if something in our conversation happens to touch on something highly personal please do not share that just stay i like to think about the 1 to 10 scale from totally surface to my most personal topic as a 10. so please stay in like a three to five range as we do the role play and please keep this in mind in your early dating also the same thing would apply so um we can do this if you would like to and i'm just going to going to ask if there is anyone who [Music] will would would be interested in in going through just the the four steps for just one more review i'm just going to repeat this is what i'm hoping that you will take away from our discussion this evening the four steps to power listen power share first open a topic of conversation appropriate for where you are in dating so early in dating that's going to be one of those safe topics and open the conversation with an open-ended question not a yes no question then i'm going to repeat in my own words what the person answered second step i'm going to ask for more information i'm interested i'd love to hear more about this and invite the person to share more and then again i'm going to repeat what i heard them say with genuine emotion as that is appropriate third step is the gentle power question is there more is there more you'd like to share with me about this and if he if he says yes then i'm gonna again follow that same process i'm going to repeat back in my own words what i heard him say i'm going to engage my own feelings to share those with him and i'm going to be really tuning in to his responses both the verbal and the nonverbal my own emotions in the process and asking myself the question so am i building trust with this person am i building a foundation for a relationship where i feel like this has potential this is someone i can share with in a meaningful way and we can potentially move forward move the relationship forward toward marriage so those are the four steps i thank you so much it's really been a pleasure to see everyone here and um i look forward to hearing your questions i'm not sure i completely understand the question um i'm going to read it and i'm going to do my best to the best of my understanding there's one word i'm not exactly sure what it what it totally means uh here it is how would a neurotypical dater relate to someone who's not as open or in touch with their feelings if one person is very open and the other is not is there a way to level the playing field so that neither party becomes resentful of the other i'm going to take that to mean neurotypical i'm going to take to mean someone who's pretty emotionally connected and open about their feelings dating someone who may be more cerebral and less emotionally connected so what i'm going to say is the powerless and power share is actually a wonderful way to move past that barrier of the guys always in his head and i think again it's a decision i think that most often we do want to connect with someone for marriage where we can have conversations on a meaningful emotional level doesn't have to be all the time someone could be a scientist someone could be an engineer someone could be this really great smart guy who's in his head a lot but it's very important to know that you can have these conversations as you need to and we can always nurture the relationship with appreciation that really does shift things i think in any relationship if i'm just generous expressing a genuine appreciation that also does over time i think help shift and create a little bit more openness and a little bit more emotional awareness on the part of the other person so i hope that answers the question um i'm very happy to hear if there are any others i have a question can you hear me yes um okay so the power um like the gentle power thing um i feel like it's very i don't know i guess like it just feels like very a little bit vulnerable to ask like is there anything else not vulnerable the word is like maybe just like too deep to act like the question like is there anything else you want to share with me like on a first or second date like i just feel like it sounds um i don't know do you get what i'm saying like it sounds a little bit too like so like that's such a deep question i don't know okay i think i do and what i'm gonna say is first stay with your comfort level i think it depends on the guy and i think it depends on the topic if you're on a really safe topic it may be more that you're genuinely curious and interested and is there more that you want to share really could be totally totally fine if you're feeling that you know again depending on how the first two the first two interactions have gone where you're already building you're sharing information you're sharing some emotions you're sharing some details that i would trust you if you feel like that's just kind of as far as i want to go because it's an early day stop there and if you feel like you know you know is there more you'd like to share is actually you can see how it could be the feedback that i get for the most part is it feels like a pretty safe question again if you're not feeling it please go with your comfort level okay thank you okay hi i'm not sure if you saw my question i sent it into uh who was um i i i like what you're saying about the step-by-step process i think it makes sense logically but i feel like it's a bit stilted and drawn out like it doesn't feel so natural to me that's actually a great question so what i'm going to say is that it is definitely not the usual way that we have conversations and so it feels awkward i can pretty much guarantee that as you start if you decide you want to try this it feels awkward initially even though the steps the steps as you see are very simple they're not the way we usually have conversations the interesting thing is if you feel like experimenting a little bit and trying the results are actually very surprising so it does feel uncomfortable to say because we're talking we're expressing ourselves differently and we have it planned out it's generally received very very well so yeah i would just say it gets more comfortable over time it is absolutely awkward and stilted when a person starts doing it because it's not how we usually talk 100 and i would still suggest that it works wonderfully i guess it just kind of feels like pretty robotic like if i i'm more i guess just i talk pretty quickly i don't i guess i don't think as much um so deeply into how i'm phrasing my sentences um yeah and i wrote it down sound it's i'll i can try it next time i want to date okay so what i'm going to say is here's what i think is a good analogy kind of a good analogy um you know we talk about uh we don't want our dates to be like job interviews right we don't want to be questioning the guy like you know do you meet the qualifications in one respect i think preparing for a date is a little bit like preparing for a job interview don't we want to have some good questions to ask don't we want to think carefully about some questions we want to ask the person who's interviewing us so i think to really be thoughtful and planful for a date is very appropriate i think it is not necessarily usual doesn't mean to say that every day and every minute of every date is going to be like this and planned out but to have as part of a date some of the time to be open to having this kind of dialogue as i say i think it just it moves things to it to another level i'll give you another example we get feedback couples going out they've had several dates they you know seem to be pretty compatible and and then it's like well i'm just not feeling excited like this person seems to be a nice person but i'm kind of feeling stuck right like i'm not feeling fireworks i'm not feeling like you know stepped off my feet like you know so i don't know if i should go on so i feel like the powerless and powershare really addresses that because it gives an opportunity to have focused conversations on meaningful topics that will really give you a sense there's nothing more exciting than feeling that someone is listening deeply or someone is responding from a genuine emotional place to something that's meaningful to me so this is the real excitement the real excitement is coming to a place where i'm listening i'm understanding i'm expressing caring and when that goes two ways that's the excitement that can really build that that beautiful foundation build that trust and build a sense of yes i think i want to spend more time with this person thank you okay you're welcome great question thank you for the question we have another question over here um if how do you deal with a situation where um your date is you know more outgoing more open and you might be a little bit more on the reserve side or vice versa that you know you're more outgoing and you know they are more reserved how do you level it out that it should be you know that it shouldn't be awkward or whatever so that's also a great question um and you know i think we probably all know great couples where one's the outgoing one and the other is more reserved right doesn't mean you can't be a great couple i think the power listen power share is let's say if the young lady if the girl is more reserved that to have a chance to give some thought beforehand okay so maybe i'm going to ask him about a great vacation he had or what he likes to do in his downtime or has said having some idea about what i want to talk about and also knowing how i want to approach the conversation i think can also give a little bit more confidence i know i'm going to be focused i'm taking a little bit of charge here i'm not just waiting i'm not just going to expect him to entertain me i'm going to i have some things that i know i want to bring up and discuss again kind of like i think i'm going to feel a little more confident going into a job interview le have deal if i have some really thought out questions that i want to ask some really things that i want to talk about to figure out if i actually want this job so i think it can help give the confidence we're not going to change the basic personality someone's more outgoing and someone is more reserved but either person can engage in these kinds of meaningful exchanges i would just say if you want to experiment try it and give us feedback okay so one question if it's a later date and you still don't feel comfortable sharing the deeper things with the guy so what what i'm going to say it sounds like there are a couple of possibilities here is the guy simply not responding do you feel not invited to share not quite safe to share is he does he talk over you all the time does he is he dismissive does he listen to you and then change the subject well that's not very inviting so if someone has if if a guy has that pattern i would say that that's a question is that someone that you really feel like you want to build a relationship with or is that the kind of thing where again by date four or five you may say you know what i'm seeing this over and over again i don't really feel invited or safe to share with him because he doesn't he doesn't seem to listen very well and he doesn't seem to care very much okay so that's one scenario so this could be a really good sort of test of maybe this is someone i don't want to go forward with if i'm still not feeling it feeling comfortable sharing the other possibility is we all have our vulnerabilities is there something that is getting do i have a vulnerability that maybe i need to could be something that has happened to me something i've gone through something that i haven't quite processed an area where maybe i need to grow because i'm feeling vulnerable in this area i would say explore with a mentor it may be something a mentor can help with it may be something that a therapist can help with um you know again people grow tremendously with the right guidance and can really grow to a different place of feeling that confidence and security and ability to share those more personal things if you're noticing a barrier good for you for noticing and i would just say pay attention and take care of yourself get some advice from someone you trust in how to take care of yourself if that vulnerability is holding you back and you're dating okay thank you for that anyone else um before we before we finish i just see a couple of other questions here let me look at them quickly so if i ask a question says what about when someone you ask they're not ready to share so much what's a good way to kind of change the topic of conversation i guess i guess if it if if i asked a question about what someone does for recreation and then i said so i'd be really interested to to hear more about it and and the person seems to be super uncomfortable so what i would say is if this is really a safe topic of conversation and the person gets super uncomfortable with my saying this sounds really interesting i'd love to know more about it that's going to be potentially a red flag for me if it's really a safe topic i hope you understand what i'm saying and the person really really kind of overreacts am i just being curious and interested i i kind of wonder what you know what would that be about if it's a personal topic so for example mrs dara banner talked about sharing a vulnerability so i might potentially let's say if i've shared something about myself and let's say the guy listened pretty nicely and i felt like you know he he cared he was interested and then let's say the next day he doesn't offer to share anything with me and i just say you know i shared this about myself last time and i just wondered you know what what's something that you're working on about yourself i shared something with you that i'm working on do you would you want to share with me something that you're working on and if he just kind of doesn't want to if that seems very uncomfortable for him again i would want to gauge if this is very early in the dating maybe my question was premature you know how was my timing with talking about the vulnerability but if it's farther on in the dating and again from the last lectures we're looking for a growing person if someone gets super uncomfortable with the question like i've already shared here's something that is a challenge for me a personal challenge that i'm not totally happy about and i'm here's how i'm working on growing and improving myself and then i invite the guy to share well how where is an area where you're growing and he kind of doesn't want to go there well that would raise the question wouldn't it is this a growing person is this someone who can look at himself and have some insight we're all flawed we all need to be growing so if i get a very strong reaction again all of these reactions that you're writing about they're such great questions because these are the responses that help us check in with ourselves is this someone i feel like i can have meaningful interactions with or is this someone where there's a roadblock and i really feel like i'm doing my part to share and be genuine and the other person really can't meet me there so would that possibly be a red flag about is this someone i can really build that friendship with or are there going to be pretty severe limitations so i would say use all of these observations use them to help to help them inform you about what do i want to do with this relationship and again i so encourage anyone who would like to avail yourselves of the the mentorship program because it's so helpful just to have someone who's experienced with these kinds of questions just to run it by is this a great guy and i'm expecting too much or is this kind of a red flag that could really be a barrier don't try to figure it out by yourself it's too hard it's just too hard um get get input okay thank you very much for that