Summary

UC Irvine psychologist Peter Ditto and experimental psychologist Eli Finkel agree that the current left right politics in the United States is like a toxic marriage. Finkel’s recent book, The All or Nothing Marriage, focuses on how to make relationships better, and he has applied this to the political system. He believes that we have created the worst possible marriage, full of contempt, nasty behavior, and people who hate each other. Experts say that communication is essential to any healthy relationship, and this applies to political discourse as well. To communicate with someone you disagree with without escalating the situation, people should avoid blaming, judging, or attacking.

David Beckmeyer, host of the Outrage Overload podcast, talks to Tiffany Terry Thomas, a clinical sexologist and relationship coach, about how to bridge the political divide. Thomas explains that active listening is key to understanding someone else’s perspective, even if you don’t agree with it. She emphasizes that it is important to take a break if the conversation becomes too heated, and to be willing to agree to disagree. Thomas believes that the current political divide is similar to a toxic marriage, and that her approach can help to create wholeness within oneself, within relationships, and in the political sphere. The conversation concludes with the idea of having a metaphorically great “sex” with political rivals.

The conversation centered on the comparison of the current political landscape to a toxic marriage. The speakers noted that with the way politicians and parties argue and fight, it can be damaging to children and citizens alike. Research revealed many of the same signs of a toxic marriage, such as lack of communication, jealousy, lack of trust, and depression, were present in the political discourse. In addition, they compared leaving the country without permission to cheating in a marriage. Ultimately, they concluded that the current political landscape is like a toxic marriage and that it needs counseling to be fixed.

The conversation between the two people focused on the difficulties of dealing with different sides of an issue, particularly in politics. They discussed how it seems like nothing gets done in between elections and how both sides can just swing from one extreme to the other. They agreed that it will be difficult to expect leaders to fix this and that it is up to the people to rise up and send a message to their leaders. They compared the situation to a toxic marriage, where nobody points to the positive and nobody remembers the good things that each side has done. They concluded that it is important to focus on the things that align and to find common ground instead of just focusing on what they don’t agree on.

Timestamps

0:00:16 Heading: Exploring the Analogy of a Toxic Marriage in Political Sectarianism +

0:03:23 Heading: Exploring Political Polarization with Clinical Sexologist Tiffany Terry Thomas +

0:04:51 Discussion on the Political Climate and its Impact on Relationships +

0:06:53 Heading: The Impact of Political Polarization on Society +

0:10:05 Heading: Exploring the Lack of Trust in Political Discourse +

0:11:53 Heading: Exploring Common Ground Through Language and Words +

0:14:48 Conversation on Language, Trigger Words, and Trust +

0:18:57 Conversation on Bridging the Gap Between Educated and Ignorant People +

0:21:04 Heading: Reconnecting with People Across the Aisle: Acceptance, Intimacy, and Communication +

0:22:46 Topic: The Impact of Stress on Relationships +

0:26:06 Conversation on Living a Purposeful Life and Legacy Building +

0:29:12 Conversation on Reconnecting with Loved Ones Amidst Political Division +

0:30:40 Interview with Dr. Kiana Reeves, Sexologist and Relationship Expert +

0:32:41 Conversation with Tiffany Terry Thomas: Bringing Awareness to Toxic Relationships +

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions.

Transcript

[0:00:16]  David Beckemeyer: Welcome to Outrage Overload, a science podcast about outrage and lowering the temperature. This is episode some scientists have made the analogy that our left right politics in the United States are like a toxic marriage. In our opening series about political sectarianism, UC Irvine psychologist Peter Ditto told us to buckle up.

[0:01:05]  Ditto: And it’s not one of these things that’s going to resolve itself. It’s just going to be, we’re in it. This is the fight. This is the ugly sort of toxic marriage we’re in, and we can’t really get divorce. And so buckle up.

[0:01:19]  David Beckemeyer: And here’s experimental psychologist Eli Finkel, who has been described as a nation’s preeminent scholar of relationships.

[0:01:26]  Host: Finkel. Your most recent book was titled the all or Nothing Marriage how the Best Marriages Work. That’s really been your specialty in many years, looking at psychology and marriages and relationships. So how did you come to study political sectarianism? Well, I wrote the book. The all or Nothing Marriage is a book that really focuses on how we can make our marriages better. And when I looked around me at what was happening in our political system here in the US.

[0:01:51]  Finkel: I realized that we basically built the most toxic marriage, the most toxic union, if you will, that I can imagine. If you try to set yourself the goal of saying, well, what’s everything we know about how relationships work? What would it look like to build the worst marriage you can think of? Well, you would maximize the amount of contempt you have for your spouse. You would interpret all the behavior from your spouse in the most nasty way that you can. You would surround yourself by people who completely hate your spouse. You can go down the list and, look, we’ve built it.

[0:02:28]  David Beckemeyer: So I thought we could lean into this analogy. Experts tell us communication is an essential part of any healthy relationship, and this is especially true in a toxic marriage. It comes down to a commitment to creating a safe and respectful environment, practicing active listening, using I statements, taking breaks, and seeking professional help if necessary. These practices translate pretty well to political discourse, at least on a one on one level.

[0:02:56]  David Beckemeyer: When communicating with someone you may disagree with, avoid blaming, judging, or attacking. Practice active listening, which means listening to what they have to say without interrupting and trying to understand their perspective, even if you don’t agree with it. If the conversation becomes too heated or difficult, it’s okay to take a break and come back to it or agree to disagree. This all sounds simple, but with the animosity as high as it is, these things are really hard to do in practice.

[0:03:23]  David Beckemeyer: And I’m not sure what the analogy is at the political party level or among our elected representatives or party leadership. And that’s what we’re going to talk about on this episode of the Outrage Overload podcast. I’m your host, David Beckmeyer, and I’m going to ask you to stay with me as we try a mental exercise with a different kind of expert.

[0:03:42]  Tiffynee: Hello. I am Tiffany Terry Thomas. I am a clinical sexologist relationship coach and a spiritual life transformational coach. What I do, basically, is create wholeness within oneself, then wholeness in relationships, and then have mind blowing sex.

[0:04:05]  David: Regular listeners of the podcast might be surprised that we’re talking to a sexologist, but let me explain why a little bit. So we talked a little bit before about that. I talked to many scientists and researchers about a lot of things, but sometimes, often a topic that comes up is kind of the political divide that we find ourselves in, the political polarization situation. And many of the scientists talk about it kind of it’s basically sort of a toxic marriage situation.

[0:04:34]  David: And it’s a toxic marriage we can’t really get out of. Yeah. So that’s kind of where we’re coming from. And I thought that would be an interesting conversation. Get an expert on that, and at the end, maybe we can all have a metaphorically version of great sex with our rivals.

[0:04:51]  Tiffynee: You’re absolutely right, and I love that you put it that way, because I always see memes like, mom and dad are fighting. We have to pick a side when they’re talking about politics. And it does feel like that. And I think that with that, we need to bring attention to it because we don’t realize, even in real relationships, how much damage it does to your children.

[0:05:13]  David: That’s another perspective. Yeah.

[0:05:14]  Tiffynee: And if we the people are the children, it’s damaging us seeing two people fight.

[0:05:20]  David: Right. And if you go down the list of I’m not an expert in anything, but I sort of did some research and kind of go down some of these lists. Right. I mean, the lack of communication. Yep, check. Jealousy. Yep, check. Lack of trust. Yep, yep. Check. You know, it’s like a lot of these a lot of these things that would be signals for you’re in a toxic marriage, you know, are perfectly fit in this kind of the clashes between our parties and our leaders these days.

[0:05:46]  David: You’re feeling depressed, you’re feeling exhausted, and all that stuff applies. I love the idea of my thoughts of cheating are basically yeah. If you had thoughts of getting out of the country, then you’re thinking about cheating kind of thing.

[0:05:59]  Tiffynee: Right. And you have to get permission. That’s the funny thing. So if you leave right, and you don’t get permission, you get in trouble, as, like you said, as a cheater.

[0:06:08]  David: Right.

[0:06:09]  Tiffynee: And it’s funny because then if you go visit another country and you stay a long time, it’s like swinging.

[0:06:15]  David: Yeah.

[0:06:17]  Tiffynee: So there’s a lot of things you can tie into this. But I definitely think that it is a toxic marriage that I do think that needs counseling.

[0:06:26]  David: Right. And then I think some of those same ways that you deal with the toxic marriage are what we’re all going to have to do. I mean, at some point we have to deal with our neighbors, right? We’re going to have to deal with the people on the other side and can’t just forever never talk to everybody. Sure, you can pick your battles, but you can’t never talk to anyone on the other side. That’s a situation we’re now, and nothing gets done because it’s just constantly fighting and you swing one way to the other.

[0:06:53]  David: And during the time between elections, nothing really, not a whole lot happens unless one party happens to get enough power to do a little bit of damage. And then there’s like, the other side comes and reverses half the stuff they did, and it just goes back and forth. And it seems like it’s only going to get worse. Well, that’s what the scientists I’ve talked to have said. It’s like, this isn’t going to magically go away. And I think it’s going to be difficult to expect our leaders to just magically fix this for us. I think we’re going to have to kind of rise up from the bottom and show them examples and show them that we don’t want it to be this way. And I think there was a little bit of that in this most recent election, but I think we’re going to have to be the ones to send that message to our leaders.

[0:07:36]  Tiffynee: I think you’re absolutely right, and I think what people forget is opposites attract. And so in this marriage, you have Republican and Democratic, and they’re opposite, but there’s so many things that can be fulfilled if you fuse them together in the right way. But what I see that’s happening is it’s kind of like a marriage, a toxic marriage, when the other person doesn’t know the other person’s side of the story.

[0:08:03]  Tiffynee: And so we’re not talking to each other. It’s hearsay. It’s, oh, I heard this, I heard you said this, or I heard you said this, or this is what happened to us. So we assumed we put an assumption behind it instead of actually understanding motive and intent. And I think that’s huge, right?

[0:08:23]  David: I mean, it’s a toxic marriage with you got the media kind of poking sticks at both sides, right, trying to get them even more agitated. I guess there are probably a lot of analogies in real life of toxic marriages that have that same dynamic. Like there’s all these people around kind of poking both sides and keeping them agitated even more than they would normally. So I guess that’s I was going to say it’s maybe not how real toxic marriages work, but maybe it is.

[0:08:50]  Tiffynee: It is. It most definitely is. Because think about I don’t know if you ever seen that show bewitched the Next Door neighbor, the nosy next door. That’s the media saying, greg, look who’s outside, and causing something just from perspective.

[0:09:08]  David: Not insight, and kind of dropping these little things like, did you see what so and so did? I think your wife did this or your husband did that. And that’s what the media is doing to us. Right. Look at what Trump did, or look at what so and so did all the time and just feeding us this stuff to get it. Oh, wait, that sounds bad. I’m mad now.

[0:09:28]  Tiffynee: Absolutely. And I think even when you compare it to a toxic marriage, one thing that happens during my counseling with couples and stuff, one thing I noticed is that nobody points to the positive. Nobody remembers the good things that this person did or the other person did. So it’s the same thing with the Republicans and the Democrats. Like, what are the things that actually uphold us? What are the things that you’re actually doing that are good for us? And why can’t we focus on that? Because if we focus on that and see how much that aligns, instead of saying, oh, we don’t agree on this, we don’t agree on this in a marriage and are you married?

[0:10:05]  David: Yeah.

[0:10:06]  Tiffynee: You recognize that we’re not always going to agree on stuff, right? We may not see things that I might not want chicken tonight, and it could because I had a chicken sandwich for lunch and I didn’t tell you. But it’s not because I don’t like chicken. It’s just the fact that I don’t need it right now. And I think that’s the same thing that’s going on with politics. We’re missing the whole story. Right.

[0:10:29]  Tiffynee: No one’s understanding what happened in the beginning of the day as in a marriage, because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t a part of that. So the part that I am part of, I get a little bit of perspective, and it’s a highlight. So now I want to make my whole opinion based on what I seen in that small highlight, right?

[0:10:49]  David: Yeah, exactly. Like you said, it’s hard to find those positive voices. You know, they’re out there, but they don’t have the stage. It seems like they’re just kind of pushed out by the people that want to agitate us. And it’s to the point where I’ve had done some kind of informal kind of science, where I’ve done things with Facebook posts and other things, where I sort of ask somewhat innocent question, like, can we agree on something? And it turns into instantly people just fighting. Like, wait, all I asked is, is there anything we could agree on? And it turns into this giant fight. So it’s like we’re just conditioned that there must be something behind everything.

[0:11:28]  David: He can’t just be asking what we have in common. He must be like, have an agenda. He must have wants to I don’t know, something else. Like what? I don’t know what something. Right? But we seem like we just don’t trust people, and we instantly go into that fight mode, like everything is some kind of an attack. And it’s like, how do you find how do you coach people to try to find and listen to those positive voices and find that common ground?

[0:11:53]  Tiffynee: For me, it’s words. One of the things you just said was I did a poll and I put can we agree? One of the things is people don’t even understand what the word agree means. So when they read your post, all they saw was disagreement. Let me get on here and disagree with anything because agreeing would be submitting. And I think the biggest issue is submission. And what people forget is to submit is to place under.

[0:12:26]  Tiffynee: And so when you place something under something, it’s whatever’s going to umbrella is covering it, right? And protecting it. Just like wives submit to your husband, people think, oh, he ain’t going to be telling me what to do. No, he’s trying to cover you. And if he can cover you, you can still move. But if you’re not covered, you’re not protected. And so it’s the understanding of words, it’s really going down to the basics. And I think we skip that with education because our education system stuff.

[0:12:57]  Tiffynee: And so we’ve gotten to a system where it’s now based on learning. I mean, it’s based on memory and training instead of learning and education. And it’s like remember all these things and write them down and take the test. Right. Instead of saying, what does these things imply to me? What do they mean and how can I apply them to my life? And then for them to be effective and not defective because I don’t know the definition or whatever.

[0:13:22]  Tiffynee: I tell couples it’s the smallest words we’re looking up if then why? Because I’m like, are you going off of your definition? Are you going off of Webster’s? Because Webster’s is not your definition. And then I take it back to the etymology of the word breaking the word down so thinly that you can understand what it means to the core. So then you can then place it there. Because I think that’s the biggest thing. I see people disagreeing, arguing about stuff. And I’m like, did you guys read what it said?

[0:13:53]  Tiffynee: Because everything you guys talking about really is just you venting because you haven’t been able to say anything. But it’s really because lack of participation in the smaller things, like the state things and city things, all the stuff. I disagree when you said, is there anything we can agree on? I guarantee you nobody was like, we can agree that we all are angry.

[0:14:15]  David: Right. Something, yeah, right. Well, I was looking for things like we all want our kids to be happy and have a good life. So it’s like there’s so many things we do want, they don’t come to the surface in our head. Our first reaction is all these things we disagree on and we can’t even talk about the other stuff. But I love that, the way you were describing that and the thing about language and words because it is so true. And this is another disadvantage that social media has, right? I mean, sometimes we’re trying to cram it into whatever the new number is, 280 characters or whatever, and that can be an issue.

[0:14:48]  David: But then also just the fact that you can’t express any extra around it. You sort of just have these words laying there on their own. But you see this even in academia, that people throw words out, scientists throw words out in a research paper. And unless you go talk to that scientist, sometimes you don’t know exactly what that paragraph really meant because you can, you know, give it to ten people and they can all see different things, and especially across disciplines, but even within disciplines, you see that. So yeah, and also, people have appropriated words in language in weird ways that if you accidentally sort of use a word you didn’t even know was kind of a trigger word or something, it’s signaling, like, I’m either leaning left or leaning right or something. And then that will automatically make people react to the post a certain way, even if I didn’t intend to signal that way.

[0:15:35]  Tiffynee: That’s funny because I talk about that in my book, this Is It You. And it’s basically before you have while you’re having a conversation, you’re being triggered by words that you don’t even know, that just have triggered you by experiences, memories or anything. And so most couples, like how you ask, can’t even get through a conversation because of stuff that’s happened in their past. Most people can’t get through a political conversation because of lack of education.

[0:16:02]  Tiffynee: So it’s like, you don’t even know all this, but yet you have an opinion based off of the small little glimpse that you got online. And so for me, it’s like trigger words is kind of like, why are you triggered by that? And I get what you’re saying because there’s so many things you can’t use, and it’s like Dave Chappelle got in a lot of trouble because of the whole trans thing, but it was lack of context that the outside community had. It was more of, we’re looking for someone to pick on right now. And that’s what I feel like we’re more aimed to in this whole political game and in our world, is we’re looking for someone to blame.

[0:16:39]  Tiffynee: We’re looking for someone to say, this is why we’re here. That’s what happens in a marriage. I’m looking for someone to point the finger. That’s why I wrote the book. This is it. You Is it you? Because it’s always back to mirror reflecting on you, because you played a part in all of it.

[0:16:58]  David: That’s that’s awesome. Yeah. And that’s you know, a lot of what I try to say with this podcast is that we need to look internally a lot and look in the mirror, and that’ll ultimately help us with our own because we do these things often with a short term gain, right. We get a little zap of dopamine or whatever and it feels good in the moment, but in the long term, we’re stressed out, we’re angry all the time and it’s not good for us.

[0:17:24]  David: And so taking that step back and looking inwardly, it’s the hardest thing to do, right? It’s hard to get anyone to even think about doing that. But it is actually good for you, too. I mean, you will make better decisions and you’ll be able to take yourself out of that long term stress. Yeah, you may not get as much as that short term shot of whichever neurotransmitter you like, but the longer term benefits are worth it. Plus, you can, I think, think more clearly on these issues and have more productive dialogue.

[0:17:55]  David: But like you say when you’re in it, I think the other thing about this language situation is part of that mistrust thing, too, is that we’re almost looking for certain words. Like if a person uses a combination of words that’ll tell us something about them, like I can figure out whether they’re left or right or blah, blah, blah. And that’ll then I’ll go from there. Like now I’ve decided they’re left, or I put them in whatever bucket I’m going to put them in and now I’m going to interact with them in a totally different way and I’m not going to trust anything they say or whatever. Right? And I think that’s another thing about language is we’re often almost not even hearing the words because we’re almost looking for these trigger words so we can start making these assessments about people we don’t actively listen.

[0:18:35]  Tiffynee: And you said something about the researchers. I’m actually getting ready to get my doctorate in experimental psychology of the brain and sexual health and wellness. And one of the things that I recognize going into this field was what you said. There’s a lot of people out here that are there’s a gap. So we have a lot of educated people and then we have a lot of ignorant people, which means lack of knowledge.

[0:18:57]  Tiffynee: And in this gap, there’s nobody saying, this is what this person is saying and this is what this person is saying. Right. It’s just static in here. There’s so much room for static. And like you said, people are using these big words to sound educated when majority of the people that you’re giving this information to are lack education. So then it’s like, what did we do the research for just to gain acknowledgment or an accomplishment? Because, oh yeah, I wrote a big word out and or is it because I’m trying to change things?

[0:19:35]  Tiffynee: Am I trying to create transition and transformation from where we’re at to where we can go? And so, like you said, it’s just one of those things where language is a thing where we now have become where we all speak the same language but we all don’t speak the same language. It’s like, what did you say? You said we’re listening for stuff. So we’re not even actively listening. We’re biased listening.

[0:20:04]  Tiffynee: We’re sitting there and saying, I’m waiting for you to say something racist. You know what I’m saying? When I’m like, if you did, I would ask you why you said that. I need to figure out the intent first before I make an assumption or anything and then attach that to my feelings and then drag myself along this road that I don’t need to go down all based on something I’m dealing with and lack of information from me.

[0:20:28]  David: Yeah, well, I was taking away a few of that. When you look at some of the things people suggest of how to sort of work your way out of a toxic marriage or move past it, a lot of these things seem like it’s the same kind of thing. That we’re going to have to do to sort of figure out how to almost sort of reconnect with people on other sides of the aisle and particularly people we’re close with. I mean, it breaks my heart that so many families that are breaking up or losing connection with old friends and things like that over politics.

[0:21:04]  David: Some of these things are things like they talk about accepting, which is similar to what you were just talking about, talking about taking responsibility for your actions and letting the past sort of be the past and moving past it. And all those things seem like things that apply completely in this situation. And it sounds really cliche and it kind of is. But at the same time, we know from science that a lot of these cliche things actually work.

[0:21:34]  Tiffynee: I think that word cliche has damaged us. I think the word taboo has damaged us. I think there’s so much stuff that we have taken and we’ve tarnished because, oh, that’s cliche.

[0:21:48]  David: It works, right?

[0:21:51]  Tiffynee: You know what I’m saying? Like, oh, that’s corny. You and your wife go on a date like a Democrat and Republican going out for lunch. That’s corny. You’re a traitor. No, that’s a conversation. That’s communication. That’s intimacy. What we lack is intimacy, even social intimacy, political intimacy, where we know what it is and we can be on opposing side because we do need to focus on different things.

[0:22:19]  Tiffynee: If we had one group, they wouldn’t be able to focus on everything because everybody’s minds are not like that. The two groups could actually merge together and say, here’s what we’re going to focus on, here’s our priorities. But then it’s like, no, who’s better? Who’s whatever. And that’s the same thing in a marriage. I worked today. You did it. Why didn’t you clean the dinner? And I did this. And so you start to go back on who makes more money? Who does this? Who did this for the family?

[0:22:46]  Tiffynee: And it’s not like who brings peace? Who brings cohesion who allows us to see clearly instead of, like you said, being stressed. And I think as a society, we’ve gotten used to micro dosing us with stress. Let me see what happened on the news today. That’s bad. Micro dose cortisol. Let me see cortisol. And now your dopamine cannot fight against that because there’s nothing else positive happening. So there is no party for the dopamine besides the fact that you got an argument with someone and you got a negative rise of dopamine in you just because you got to say how you felt, but then you feel like crap afterwards.

[0:23:27]  David: Right. It goes away really fast.

[0:23:30]  Tiffynee: And I think if we started micro dosing ourselves with happiness instead of substances that tear us down, I think we would be a better place also. And that’s all what we do with our phones. It’s like even on social media, you get to pick who you follow, follow good people, follow things that inform you and that challenge you to look things up that say, oh, he’s telling part of the story, let me figure the rest out.

[0:23:58]  Tiffynee: Because that’s what the internet has given us is history. It’s given us a lot of people saying, here’s what happened, and stuff like that. So you have the information. It’s also laziness, right?

[0:24:09]  David: It’s much easier to just sort of go by kind of who said it, rather than what they’re saying.

[0:24:15]  Tiffynee: And that’s the same in a relationship. Instead of us having a conversation and having an intimate conversation and digging deep and having to go backwards, right. So we can shine on the path because we can forget the past, but we also have to learn from the past. What do we not need to repeat again in this marriage? What harmed us in year two that we won’t allow to harm us in year 22? And talking about that and saying, well, how did you feel and stuff and understanding like, oh, wow, I didn’t even know you felt like that. I didn’t know that when we cut off, when we said that there was going to be no abortion, that you guys felt like you’re right and stuff like you get what I’m saying? And it’s just like more like I’m actually trying to end it so people don’t abuse it. So there’s so many different versions, but it’s like so many different opinions of disagreement.

[0:25:05]  Tiffynee: I think people go into stuff, disagreeing because they feel like me and you are different. Right. Even in couples, two married people, if they’re fighting because me and you are different, I already automatically don’t want to agree with.

[0:25:18]  David: Right, yeah, exactly. And I’m almost like been trained or coached, I’m supposed to disagree with you kind of thing.

[0:25:26]  Tiffynee: Yes, because being right amplifies and gives me validity self. But it’s also because a lot of us are purposeless. We live purposeless lives. We go to work and we come home and then we’re like, what did I do this for. And so when you live a purposeless life, there is nothing that you want to be, right? But for me, I want my kids to have a happy life. I want my legacy to last. So when I come home, it’s like, what brings purpose to that in foresight, right?

[0:26:06]  Tiffynee: Instead of saying, what brings purpose to my past? What’s going to heal little Tiffany? Little Tiffany can get healed as my younger, my oldest, big Tiffany, can get healed as well. So it’s just like looking at legacy, and I think one of the things the United States has not focused on is our legacy.

[0:26:24]  David: Yeah. Right. Well, we do it in moments, right? And we’re all kind of excited for that moment, but it seems to pass and not last.

[0:26:34]  Tiffynee: It’s very quick. It’s very quick because it’s like, now your freedom of speech and all this stuff, but then you’re damaged by social media. If you say they’ll come to your house and try to kill you, they’ll put your address on there and all these things. And so I think that’s the other thing. It’s like, how can we harm you if I don’t make you happy? And I want to make you pay.

[0:26:58]  David: Well, and that’s another aspect of a toxic marriage, right? That payback starts to be more important than anything else.

[0:27:05]  Tiffynee: Yes, I want to make you hurt like I hurt. And so then we start doing things like, oh, I’ve made dinner for everybody, but not you. So I gave all the people free money. But you all it’s just like politics, like you’re saying. It’s just there are certain things that we do to make sure the other one knows you don’t get to benefit from this. And I think that’s how some of us think, too, with politics, that when the Republicans do something, it only benefits for people that voted red.

[0:27:34]  Tiffynee: What? They’re not picking people. I’ll be like, hey, you’re not getting this. You’re not getting this. But it feels like that. And then people will put themselves in that position, so then they’ll exclude themselves from the positive thing that whatever side is trying to give you. So when free health care came out, there were people like, oh, free health care, we can’t afford that. And then there were some people were going without health care all because they believed the other person lost.

[0:28:01]  David: Right. Somehow. Well, isn’t that old thing about, I’ll take poison and hope the other person gets sick? That’s in this book.

[0:28:09]  Tiffynee: That is in this book, literally, it says drinking poison is like expecting you, the other person, to get sick while you’re dying internally.

[0:28:18]  David: Right.

[0:28:19]  Tiffynee: Like, literally. And I think people just get so caught up and don’t even know that they’re dying.

[0:28:28]  David: Yeah. So I guess that would be a good way to kind of maybe close out, like, if you had a couple come in and they’re in this kind of a situation, what are. Three things you tell them right off the bat.

[0:28:39]  Tiffynee: I would say, first of all, we want to remember when we were happy. What does that look like? And then we need to remember what made us mad. What does that look like? And then we need to remember. Then we need to ask ourselves, what do we want to look like? Those are three important questions past, present, and future. I can move you along if you can determine this. I can definitely heal you if you determine the past.

[0:29:12]  Tiffynee: And I can help you with tools if you tell me what happened in the present.

[0:29:18]  David: Yeah, and that’s beautiful. And that’s the kind of thing you can’t do easily over social media. I mean, this is the kind of thing that takes time. And even coming up with what did things look like? We were happy? Is going to require a lot of analysis, like what in thought. Can we even find that time that we both agree on without it being just rose colored nonsense?

[0:29:42]  Tiffynee: And social media has made us lazy in thinking absolutely.

[0:29:46]  David: Yeah. Well, yeah, because we get the little squirts of our neurotransmitter juice without doing that much. Right. So it made us really lazy.

[0:29:55]  Tiffynee: Yes, absolutely. And so, yeah, that is the three things I would tell a couple right off the bat before I then made them put a mirror in their face and say, well, what’d you do?

[0:30:05]  David: So now we have to figure out how if you picked your and I don’t know how much you sort of are into politics or politics or how much this kind of kind of division has affected you personally, but it’s almost like we have to pick a person we love. We don’t want to maybe pick somebody we already don’t care that much about, pick somebody we love that we’ve maybe had a difficult time talking with of late, you know, due to politics, and pick that person and figure out if we can address talk about those three things. I think that’s a great starting point. That’s almost like a starting point for reconnecting with people maybe you’ve lost touch with.

[0:30:40]  Tiffynee: Absolutely. Now, were you asking me a question.

[0:30:44]  David: Or were you well, I was asking and I don’t know if that would relate to you at all. Would you be able to reach out I don’t know if you’ve disconnected from anybody or had that as an issue in your family at all or friends or anything. Is there somebody that you’d go out and reach out like that to and say, let’s absolutely. Yeah.

[0:31:01]  Tiffynee: My grandfather, he passed away. He was totally republican. And I didn’t understand it because I also didn’t have the knowledge and I didn’t have the passion either to want to know the knowledge until stuff started directly affecting communities that I was in. Right. And so for me, yes. If I could go back, yes, I would love to have that conversation because I would want to understand. I think that’s huge.

[0:31:29]  Tiffynee: And being able to say, I can love you through that, I can love you past that because that doesn’t separate us. It’s just you’re different. I’m different. And not everybody wants to talk to a sexologist, but yet everybody has sex. So it’s interesting, but it’s just one of them things where it’s preference and if you can be open and if you are discontent, I think some people get caught in contentment where it’s just like, oh, I’m cool with this, but if you’re content and you’re like, this could be better, I know something can change. I’m the person for you.

[0:32:05]  David: Awesome. All right, well, I really appreciate your insights, and I had a lot of fun with that. I think that’s a really cool way of looking at things.

[0:32:16]  Tiffynee: Thank you so much for having me, too. I was a pleasure meeting you a few weeks ago. And thank you for having me on your show, too. I love this, and I love this conversation because I think what you did was bring awareness and put it in an analogy where people could actually understand. A lot of people are going through toxic relationship, and if they could apply this to themselves, they can then apply it to learning what’s going on.

[0:32:41]  David: Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much for making the time. I enjoyed it. And now I want to stay connected with you, and you’re like, my go to person on this stuff.

[0:32:54]  Tiffynee: Thank you. I really appreciate you. And you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube under Tiffany Terry Thomas or Tiffany Renee. And I have a company called Frisky Femme. Physically affectionate woman, definitely bringing back the being fond of your mind, your body, and your soul. Bye.

[0:33:26]  David Beckemeyer: That is it for this episode of the Outrage Overload podcast. For links to everything we talked about on this episode, go to outrageoverload.net. I’m asking you, good listener, to join our Facebook listeners group. There’s a great place to get actionable, ideas and resources to join. Visit outrageoverload. Net join. The sooner you do it, the sooner your ideas can help make the show better. I hope to see you there on the Facebook Group.[0:33:53]  

David Beckemeyer: Okay. Watch for a new episode in a few weeks.