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[00:00:43] Amanda: Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am Amanda.
[00:00:46] Laura: I'm Laura.
[00:00:47] Kendra: And I'm Kendra.
[00:00:48] Amanda: And today we are so excited because we have a special guest star, Maggie Reyes. Every time we survey our email list on what would help their physician lives the most, improving significant other relationships is always at the top of our list.
[00:01:04] Amanda: Top of our list. That's a Freudian slip because it's the top of my list. It's also the top of our email list, too. So, Maggie Reyes is both a life coach and a sex, love, and relationship coach, with a special niche in helping type A women have better marriages. So, ding, ding, ding. We she does this without waiting for their partners to do something and without adding more to their already jam packed lives She's got training from Esther Perel the Gottman Institute Layla Martin and other big hitters in the relationship arena She has her own podcast called the marriage life coach podcast, and also a book, which I just ordered and, I'm going to start doing.
[00:01:41] Amanda: Also, she has come at the recommendation of some physicians that we know who have worked with her. And they talk about, I mean, they sing her praises nonstop. And so all of these things like check, check, check, we have to have Maggie on. And so thank you so much for joining us, Maggie.
[00:01:59] Maggie Reyes: It is my pleasure and my honor.
[00:02:00] Maggie Reyes: I am so excited.
[00:02:02] Kendra: Awesome. So Maggie, thank you so much for being on. Like we said, relationships is always probably the bulk of the when we put out like name your worst pain point and relationships is probably that. And then, you know, other things follow suit. So tell our listeners about you, tell us how you became a coach, how you became a marriage coach, and all the things.
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[00:02:27] Maggie Reyes: .
[00:02:28] Maggie Reyes: All the things. Okay. I'll tell you the edited version of that story. But when I actually met my husband, I had this incredible sense of rightness. And you might've had it with going into medicine, you might have it when you play with your kids or if you do any creative endeavors like painting or something where you're like in the flow, you have this feeling like there's nowhere else you want to be, there's nothing else you want to do.
[00:02:50] Maggie Reyes: You're just like, this feels right, like this moment feels right. So I had that with him and then I realized all the parts of my life that didn't feel that way. And it was actually both awesome and terrible at the same time. And it was like, Oh. Maybe I need to do something else here. So, at the time I remember that I felt like I was going on a great adventure.
[00:03:13] Maggie Reyes: I took aptitude tests. I went to conferences. I did retreats. I did all these things. I was like, what do I want to be when I grow up? What is the thing that feels that will feel right to me the way that this feels right? And that's literally how I sort of stumbled upon coaching and started working with my very first life coach Her name is Christine Kane.
[00:03:33] Maggie Reyes: She had a guest speaker at one of her events named Brooke Castile. This was before her podcast existed before, like very, at the beginning of what later became the Life Coach School. And so that's how I became a coach. I just was like, this doesn't feel right. What feels right? And I kept looking until I found the thing that felt right.
[00:03:53] Maggie Reyes: And then I'm a total nerd. So I love continuing education, which is why I'm double certified and cognitive. And then in sex, love and relationship coaching and all of these other different trainings and things that we do. So I love using intuition and evidence based interventions when I'm coaching
[00:04:10] Kendra: That is speaking our language because we are all scientists and we love to see the data, but we can't ignore the intuition either.
[00:04:18] Kendra: So we need them both. Yeah. So our audience, speaking of, is mostly physicians, mostly scientists, both male and female, and all three of us are actually dual physician households, which means for all of you out there, we are all physicians married to physicians, not necessarily the same specialty, but definitely the same career.
[00:04:36] Kendra: So what are type A people like us doing wrong in our relationships?
[00:04:41] Maggie Reyes: I would say, oh my gosh, that question feels a little scandalous. I would say this. I think that for all of us, what makes us successful at work or it makes us successful in professional settings or academic settings is often within makes us challenging in personal settings or at home.
[00:05:00] Maggie Reyes: So, for example, when you're a physician and you're in a life or death situation, being right really matters. Because if you're wrong, someone could be injured, someone could suffer, like a life could literally be at stake, depending on your specialty. Or the use of a limb could be at stake, you know, things like that.
[00:05:16] Maggie Reyes: When you go home and you've been having to be right for good reasons, for 15 hours, for 10 hours a day, And then you go home and maybe it's the steak sauce or it's the way the chairs are put away or the way the dishwasher is loaded. It's like our, our body, our brain likes routine. So our brain says we have to be right, we have to be right, we have to be right.
[00:05:39] Maggie Reyes: And then we just take that and it spills over to things where it is not life or death, where the context is different, when the context changes. So very often times that type A. Let me check it off the list. Let me make sure that it's correct that makes us so successful in so many other arenas of our life Becomes challenging at home and then if you have a dual physician a situation you're both now Sort of in that same mindset and it's kind of like we have to break a pattern we have to Remember the context is different.
[00:06:12] Maggie Reyes: It's like If you wear a lab coat, taking off your coat, putting on your like civilian clothing, like having things that mark. Now, something different is happening is so much more important than I think we talk about, which is why I'm so glad to be here and be talking about it now.
[00:06:30] Kendra: Yeah, that's amazing. I, I like how you put that. We kind of take off our code or I think it was really brought to awareness, you know, during COVID when, you know, heroes wear capes or not all heroes wear capes. We wear white coats, whatever. And I think the whole notion of that was inflated, and almost think it was a detriment to us.
[00:06:49] Kendra: But on the other hand, I also think like I was more aware because I would come home and being an emergency medicine physician, you know, I didn't even want to come in the house with the same clothes that I went to work with. And so it was like, it was, I was doing the full change, like in this photo or in the telephone booth for all of you out there at telephone booths.
[00:07:09] Kendra: Google it. But telephone booth, go in there, change, come out, you know, whatever I was going into the garage changing. And then I felt like an awareness, like, okay, I'm turning off that fear. I'm turning off that like uncertainty. I'm turning off all of that. I'm putting on my, you know, whatever comfy clothes for house, but I was able to step into my house and like, leave all that in the garage.
[00:07:32] Kendra: And that for me was a, a little bit of awareness. I didn't have words for it. I don't think at the time, but I'm so glad you said that. Cause that That is definitely a huge, like, just being aware of that.
[00:07:42] Maggie Reyes: And to bring in some of that evidence based part that we all love. So I love the Gottman Institute and they research thousands and thousands of couples over, I don't know, 30 or 40 years.
[00:07:51] Maggie Reyes: And one of the things they find is couples who thrive have rituals of connection. And you can think about that transition from work to home as a ritual and you can, everybody's ritual might look. as to what they do, how they disconnect. My husband comes home and can go straight into the next thing. He is like an energizer buddy.
[00:08:09] Maggie Reyes: He's just, he does this, then he does that. And then he goes, I need like a transitional space. I need like some time to just digest and like do nothing. It's very different what our transitions look like. So I just want to say that to normalize it for everyone. But that idea of having a ritual, which is just something that you do on a regular basis.
[00:08:29] Maggie Reyes: Has some meaning. We get to decide what meaning we assign to it, but that meaning like you mentioned of I'm leaving the day behind and now I'm starting something fresh at home can be so, so powerful. Yeah, that's really
[00:08:42] Kendra: good. Well, you say that you have 12 core values and so we just want to kind of touch on that a little bit.
[00:08:50] Kendra: And could you just make a little comment, give us a little background, help us to have a little bit of application.
[00:08:56] Kendra: first of the 12 core values is how you love is how you live. So learning to love better in your marriage impacts every area of your life.
[00:09:05] Maggie Reyes: Yeah. So what, yeah. So how, what happens is think about the relationship with your partner. Think about what's hard. to talk about. Think about what comes easy. Think about where you get stuck.
[00:09:18] Maggie Reyes: When you're able to overcome your challenges with your partner. For example, let's say it's a hard conversation that you've been hesitating to bring up. And you figure it out, whether it's get coaching, you read a book, you do something, you're like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. This is my plan. So I'm going to approach it.
[00:09:35] Maggie Reyes: And you have that conversation, suddenly having a harder conversation with your boss or with your coworker. or with another person in your life becomes easier and easier. So when I say how you love is how you live, when you think about where you get stuck in your loving relationships, whether it's family, friends, partner, whatever it may be, they always spill over.
[00:09:56] Maggie Reyes: When you make progress in one, I've seen it now so many times, it becomes very predictable. People will be like, Oh, I have a better relationship with my children or I have a better relationship with my adult parents or, Oh, I set a really hard boundary at home and now they asked me to work more hours and I was able to say no and like not feel guilty about it.
[00:10:13] Maggie Reyes: Stuff like that, that we don't think about so much. One of my points of view is any. door that you open leads to more doors that open. So I work with people through their marriages and then we open that door, but that leads to other doors that open. That's kind of the idea behind that. Yeah, that's good.
[00:10:31] Kendra: I think that is a very good point because even us as coaches to and are we were, you know, talking about this a little bit ago is when we when you decide to do something to change like you and you take ownership, it does fill out into other relations.
[00:10:45] Kendra: You start to become aware in other areas. That you might be triggered, but then once you overcome that, you could kind of apply that to all the different areas, not just work, even though we get in there because our work seems to be the biggest pain point. It's actually not. And we're able to tackle that.
[00:11:00] Maggie Reyes: Yeah, exactly. And if you're able to do all that stuff at work, and you're able to have hard conversations and do all that. It can spill in any direction. Yeah, that's good.
[00:11:09] Kendra: Okay, next. A well loved heart does not go to war with itself or others. Improving our marriages is how we change the world. One loving heart at a time.
[00:11:19] Maggie Reyes: So this is where I get a little philosophical. I believe that what we do in the micro and the tiniest moments of our life with the people that we Live with and the most intimate moments is how we change the world So not all of us are meant to be on the world stage and to be like negotiating peace treaties or something like that But all of us have people in our lives that we can love that we can forgive that we can take a stand for including ourself and when we're able to not have internal wars or to find peace within ourselves, within our families, within our departments at work, with that difficult person who's just the thorn in our side.
[00:11:57] Maggie Reyes: We've all had that, whatever scenario we're in. When we're able to find how to have peace and power in those situations, I always think about, especially because I coach doctors often as well, I think about, imagine one doctor coach Who touches, what, maybe, if you're an ER doctor, maybe, I don't know, 50, 100 lives a day, I don't know how many a week.
[00:12:15] Maggie Reyes: And then those 50 people, let's pretend it's 50 people, touch another 100 people, touch another 1, 000 people. The ripple effect of being in the energy of peace and power. And modeling that for everyone. So for everyone listening to this podcast, you are changing the world. Just listening to this podcast, just thinking about who you want to be in the world intentionally.
[00:12:38] Maggie Reyes: There's like 1 percent of the world intentionally thinks about how they want to show up instead of just reacting to whatever's happening in front of you. So that's my philosophical. Parts of that. That's
[00:12:49] Kendra: great. But it's so true, though. And we talk about that to Amanda gave a great lecture recently at a conference.
[00:12:55] Kendra: We were at called the star thrower and it's doing what you can in your sphere and doing what you feel like you were called to do that day. No more. No less because you're impacting it. that those people on that day or we think about it, we apply it obviously to our shift work. And those patients on that day where the patients that you were supposed to take care of.
[00:13:15] Kendra: And you know, we that is so true because then and Amanda mentions in that lecture that We never know what we'll never see the ripple effect. We just have to believe that it's there and you have to have faith that it's that it is there. So we'll never know the impact we made on that one patient that may go out and do something to three or four that may go out to do three or four, you know, and it's always exponential.
[00:13:38] Maggie Reyes: Okay. I have to tell you, Amanda, one of my favorite HR trainings was the star thrower. So you have to, you have to say the, the little, the little bit about the, it's the starfish, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. You have to say, it's so incredible that we just met today doing this podcast interview, but literally it's one of my favorite things from all my years in HR back in the day.
[00:13:59] Maggie Reyes: We used to show that video in our trainings and we have to just share it. Would you do that? Yes, sure.
[00:14:05] Amanda: I mean, the iteration is, you know, the old man goes down to the beach and sees the child there who's picking up starfish and throwing them in one by one. And the old man's like, what kid, what's up? What are you doing?
[00:14:16] Amanda: And the kid's like, well, the sun is coming up and these starfish are out here stranded. And they will dry out and die and the guy's like, okay, great. Except for there's hundreds, if not thousands of starfish along the shoreline, the miles of shorelines. So you can't possibly think that you're making a difference.
[00:14:34] Amanda: The kid turns back around, picks up the next starfish, throws it into the ocean and says, I made a difference for this one.
[00:14:41] Maggie Reyes: So powerful. So powerful. And if I think about all the difference. And, and some of the infrastructural problems that, you know, all of you are facing in medicine and everyone listening to us is facing, it can feel so daunting, it can feel so frustrating that you can't change a whole medical system, but you can change how you interact with your patients that day, with your team in that moment.
[00:15:01] Maggie Reyes: And that makes a difference. And that moment to those people, that's all, those are your starfish.
[00:15:07] Amanda: It made all the difference for that one, for that one patient that you saw, you know, on that day and made all the difference. No, you couldn't fix everything in the entire world, but that was never your job in the first place.
[00:15:20] Amanda: And since you brought up HR, I have to mention, you've mentioned to us that when you were doing HR for Norwegian cruise line, you used to hire all the docs. Yes. So you have. You've been looking at our resumes and everything.
[00:15:33] Maggie Reyes: I have to say, I have a soft spot in my heart because I used to hire ER doctors specifically.
[00:15:40] Maggie Reyes: And my medical director that I worked with for many, many years, he was a pediatrician who became an ER doctor. So if you can imagine someone who has like that personality, he was very sort of warm and cozy kind of person, but he could handle, you know, anything that walked through the door. And it was, it was an amazing to get to know a little bit about the behind the scenes of.
[00:15:59] Maggie Reyes: If you ever go on a cruise ship, the medical center in a cruise ship is like an urgent care for a small town. It has ICU units. It has all the things. It's really fascinating thing behind the scenes. So I'm delighted to now be talking to you all and to be on a different side of of just working with medical professionals.
[00:16:17] Maggie Reyes: And I have some such a Very special place in my heart for everyone in the medical profession.
[00:16:21] Amanda: So you'd like our Laura because she does mostly PEDS. She's emergency medicine, but does mostly PEDS emergency medicine. So there's your girl. I love it.
[00:16:29] Amanda: I
[00:16:29] Maggie Reyes: I always say, and this is something that my medical director taught me, he said, you know, ER doctors specifically have to be very humble because they never know what's gonna walk through the door.
[00:16:39] Maggie Reyes: You like, like you, you just, you just never know what's gonna happen, what, what you're gonna have to deal with that day. And for some reason I always remember that he That he taught me that and I was like, yeah, that makes so much sense. You just never know what you're going to come across. And it really, you have to know so much and at the same time be so creative.
[00:16:55] Maggie Reyes: It's very small amount of time, anyway.
[00:16:57] Amanda: And, and ask for help, which is, you're not going to be a very good ER doc if you don't know how to ask for help.
[00:17:03] Maggie Reyes: So yeah. Beautiful.
[00:17:05] Kendra: Yeah. That's great. I like it. Yeah. We are very humble. And the minute that we think we're not, we get humbled. So we're right back to the beginning.
[00:17:12] Kendra: I'm like, Oh yeah. I really did think I had seen everything. Not so fast. Okay. Moving on. I like this one. Actually personal responsibility and self validation are the keys to loving even more deeply and thriving without attachment.
[00:17:32] Maggie Reyes: I like that. Okay. That's so important. So personal responsibility. Sometimes it's so easy to say, It's not me.
[00:17:42] Maggie Reyes: And whenever we say, it's not me, we lose our power. Because if it's not me, there's nothing I can do about it. And so from the point of view of being the most powerful, the most self expressed, if we think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the most powerful and self expressed version of us, the best thing we can do is say, well, what part of me is contributing to this?
[00:18:02] Maggie Reyes: Is there any part of this that I do have some control over? So I like personal responsibility, not from a perspective of blame or taking on things that don't belong to you, it's from the point of view of how can I Bring back my power, own it more fully, and do what I can with what I have, going back to the starfish.
[00:18:20] Maggie Reyes: How can I, can I do what I can with what I have today? And then what that allows you to do in a marriage or in a long term romantic relationship is to love without attachment. And when I say love without attachment, what I mean by that is so often we hang our happiness on our partner's mood or on whatever is going on for them.
[00:18:39] Maggie Reyes: And then We become like if we're floating in the ocean, sort of a drift, you know, they're having a great day. We're having a great day. If they're having a bad day, we're having a bad day when we're attached in ways that aren't useful. So it's not that we love any less or that we don't aren't deeply committed to the person.
[00:18:56] Maggie Reyes: We're just not attached to what their mood is to determine what our mood is. So when we take personal responsibility, we're able to love from a place of, I call it desire versus dependency. I love you because I want to be with you, not because I depend on you for my happiness. That distinction of desire versus dependency then allows a space to be in pure service to the other person, to be in pure power with yourself.
[00:19:25] Maggie Reyes: And it just. I think allows the relationship to have like the space to breathe and grow and allows both of you to be human and have ups and downs and also not be worried about the other person. Like I can have a bad day and my husband can have a great day and it's okay. It makes it okay to bring more of our humanity to the relationship overall.
[00:19:43] Maggie Reyes: That's how I think about that one.
[00:19:45] Amanda: I love it. Okay. So this next one you're gonna have to explain it to me You can laugh about things other couples fight
[00:19:51] Maggie Reyes: about. Okay, this is one of my favorites So I have been on Christmas Day 18 years ago I met my husband as we record this so 18 years ago I met him on Christmas Day and one of the things that I do in my personal life is I ask myself Why do we get along so well, like what is it about us?
[00:20:09] Maggie Reyes: I could figure out what we do and then teach other people and that one is one of the things we laugh about things that other couples fight over. It's not that we're unique unicorns that don't have stupid, silly, annoying things that we do. And I'll give you an example. From me, one from me, one from him.
[00:20:28] Maggie Reyes: So even as I sit at my desk, I have, I'm showing them on the video. I have like two different cups here. I'll have a cup for each item I use throughout the day. My husband grew up with two brothers and they had like their one assigned cup and that's all that they used. So he'll come home and there'll be five cups.
[00:20:44] Maggie Reyes: And the dishwasher and the sink, then he'll be like, my wife is home. There's the five cups and it can be something that you could easily just be annoyed over, have it be a problem or whatever. And we just laugh about it. We just crack each other up about the whole thing with the cups. Then whenever I'm in the kitchen and I'm like preparing something, let's say I take out a fork and I take out a cup and a bowl or something, if I turn around until I get something else.
[00:21:09] Maggie Reyes: Everything disappears. He just puts it away. He's like super fast. And he's like, I'm like, where's my fork? He's like, Oh, I thought it had to be put away. So this is like all the time, right? As you can see, I find it very amusing and I laugh about it. So we laugh about things that other couples argue over. So if everyone listening, think back to the last argument you have is, or you've had recently.
[00:21:31] Maggie Reyes: For the little things. This is not for like the big, deep thing that we have to resolve. These are like the little house things that we argue at every day or that upset us. Think to how could you make that something you laugh about? Could it be something that you laugh about? Is that even possible or available to you?
[00:21:46] Maggie Reyes: If it is, don't wait. Just start laughing about it now. Make a joke about it the next time it happens. Be like, hey, me and my five cups, here we are. Like whatever, whatever it is. That's how I think about
[00:21:56] Amanda: that one. I just got back from vacation and my my friend that I was with said this. She was like, you will not believe what I got in an argument with her husband about that she didn't realize that the air conditioner turned off whenever you open the thing.
[00:22:08] Amanda: And she kept thinking that he was turning the air conditioner off, not realize she was like, I was about to go to blows. I was so upset about it. Anyway, it's funny now because you know, it's. It's just silly, but yeah, anyway okay. So the next one is now you'll have to clarify for me because to me, this is coming off as kind of avoidant, but maybe not.
[00:22:29] Amanda: It says the fights you don't have is the fight you don't need to recover from. Is this not fighting at all? Is this not addressing any problems or what?
[00:22:39] Maggie Reyes: Love it. So this is not, has nothing to do with suppressing or repressing issues. It's really deciding, wait for it, triage, my friends, triage. You blew me away!
[00:22:54] Maggie Reyes: You did. So, so all of us have those things that we would argue over the littlest things and then make everything a problem, but there is a difference between leaving a cup on the counter and forgetting to pay the mortgage payment. Right. And so many of us will make equal, equal, it'll be like DEF CON 57 for like the fork or the way the dishwashers are the dishes are loaded in the dishwasher.
[00:23:17] Maggie Reyes: So the fight you don't start as a fight, you don't have to recover from is hold on, how upset do I want to be about this? Does this merit? us having an argument. If it does, what do I want to get out of it? What do I think is going to change? It's being more intentional about the things that you bring up to determine what your next course of action is going to be.
[00:23:38] Maggie Reyes: So it's kind of oversimplified in the sense of, of, for people to remember. Right? Because I'll say that all the time. The fight that you don't start is the fight you don't have to recover from. Also, I am Cuban and a Leo and Stubborn is my middle name. So starting a fight is very easy for me to do at any given moment.
[00:23:55] Maggie Reyes: It could just happen immediately, right? And so that idea of being that type A person who wants things done a certain way, a certain way, not any other way, a certain way, right? That's kind of the vibe of do we really need to have a fight? About that. And so often we can minimize so much tension and upsetness when also when we don't address it as a fight, when we make a request instead of a demand, when we talk about, hey the dishwasher actually works better and does it faster and does whatever when we loaded this other way.
[00:24:29] Maggie Reyes: Could we make that happen? Is there a way that we could, you know, do it? So this is the most optimal way or do I want to let it go? Right? It's a different kind of conversation. So even as you're addressing something, You can address it in more than one way that it doesn't have to become a fight. So there's nuance there.
[00:24:45] Maggie Reyes: Okay. As I
[00:24:47] Amanda: suspected, it's wise. I
[00:24:48] Kendra: love the triage. That will, that will resound with all of us. I could definitely. Assign a level of severity. , real quick before I bring it, I think I'll, I'll think about my ESI level before I bring it. Yeah. Next
[00:25:00] Amanda: time This is, yeah, this is more a four, four or a five. Okay.
[00:25:05] Amanda: Alright. Next. This one, I'm, I'm I'm, I'm vibing with this one. Feelings are like water. They need to flow or they become
[00:25:12] Maggie Reyes: deadly. That one is something I just, in my own experience for me in my life. And just talking to people over the years. It's like when we suppress a feeling, when we avoid a feeling, when we Don't deal with a feeling what happens.
[00:25:28] Maggie Reyes: It just gets bigger and it becomes poison in your relationship. So One of my clients recently said I forgot what resentment feels like I was like tell me more She's like because it's not that I don't get angry. I get angry. I deal with it in the moment I just don't simmer in it all day long. So that anger doesn't become resentment that simmered it So that's kind of an idea of of When you let a feeling flow like water, if you think about the ocean, it's a wave, it can get really high, it can get really big, and then we just roll with it like if we're surfing.
[00:25:59] Maggie Reyes: We surf that wave and then we go to the calm waters. If you think about water, when it's flowing, it is healthy and it gives us life in any, in a river, in an ocean, in any capacity. When water is stagnant, when water is stuck, and I live in Miami in a flood zone, so the water thing is like very real to me.
[00:26:16] Maggie Reyes: When water is stuck, right, it literally becomes deadly. It has bacteria and all kinds of different things that grow in it. There can be electricity lines, there could be all kinds of things that any kind of stuck water is just always a problem, it's never a good idea. Same with emotions, it can flow whether it's like a river, whether it's like the ocean, whether it's like a waterfall, however we want it to flow, but whenever it gets stuck in any capacity, it's always a problem it needs to be dealt with.
[00:26:42] Amanda: Plus mosquitoes,
[00:26:43] Maggie Reyes: so there's all the things. Yeah.
[00:26:46] Amanda: Yeah. Who likes stuck water? Not me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This one I think is very encouraging for a lot of us out of, out, out there. One person can change the world and one person can change a marriage.
[00:26:58] Maggie Reyes: Yes. And that person is you, person who's listening to us right now.
[00:27:02] Maggie Reyes: Right. So what happens is you hear, it takes two to tangle. That's the vibe. Oh, if they don't do something, then there's nothing I can do. That whole starfish situation again. And we forget that one person has changed the world for a millennia, right? We forget there's so many examples in the history of the world where one person did one thing that changed the course of history.
[00:27:26] Maggie Reyes: And we sort of like, Ignore all that when it comes to our partners. Like no, they have to do something And it's like wait one person can change the world. Why couldn't one person change in marriage? Let's find out and going back to being evidence based and using different Sort of different mindsets and theories.
[00:27:42] Maggie Reyes: My, my work, this work that I specifically do because I work with the individual human who identifies as a female and I help her change the trajectory of her marriage, it's based on systems theory. So systems theory tells us when one element in a system changes, the other elements in the system respond to that change.
[00:28:03] Maggie Reyes: So what does that mean? How could it be possible that you could get coached? Your partner's not in the room there with you. And the trajectory of your marriage could change because your partner is reacting to the new things you're doing. So let's say you're being kind, you're being generous. You're starting to make jokes about things you used to argue about.
[00:28:20] Maggie Reyes: So instead of your partner responding in a defensive way to an argument, they're now laughing with you because you're cracking a joke. Instead of your partner responding to something that was upsetting. Now you're asking them, how can we collaborate to make this better? Now they're, they're just answering your, your question.
[00:28:35] Maggie Reyes: So that is how literally how one person could get coached, listen to a podcast, read a book, do something different. and change the trajectory of the relationship.
[00:28:46] Amanda: Do you ever get pushback though that it's punitive that it's you know, if you end up deciding that it's best for the marriage to separate, do you have to take the blame for that, or...?
[00:28:57] Maggie Reyes: I don't work with the lens of blame, so I don't. I, I don't personally look, I look at personal responsibility always, right, not a blame. When a relationship needs to end, so this is a great question, you do everything you can to make the relationship better and then you, you decide it's really not for you.
[00:29:14] Maggie Reyes: I always say you want to have that data as soon as possible. The sooner you have it, the better. So if you, let's say, practice gratitude, just start not arguing about the steak sauce, right? Thinking more intentionally, practicing triage, all of these different things that we've talked about. You start doing those things and your partner finds everything wrong with everything you do, then you know, in my opinion, more clearly what you, what decision you need to make.
[00:29:41] Maggie Reyes: The decision you need to make is now, do I want this? If I want this, why? And people stay in relationship for all kinds of reasons that make sense to them. So my philosophy as a coach, my stance is always their highest inner wisdom is what rules and they can have a variety of reasons that may sound illogical or that may not be what I would personally choose for myself.
[00:30:01] Maggie Reyes: That makes sense for them. And I also honor that. So I want to just tell people as they're listening to us, you can have someone who doesn't respond positively, who isn't the most loving, kind person. And for a variety of reasons that are valuable and important to you, you're like, I don't want to get a divorce right now.
[00:30:19] Maggie Reyes: So what I'm going to do is be as happy and fulfilled as I can within this context. That's fine, too. And then the way that I practice and my my point of view.
[00:30:28] Amanda: Okay, perfect. And that segues perfectly into the next principle, which is your higher inner wisdom always knows what's best for you. Removing any limiting beliefs or obstacles between your own inner knowing is what the coaching process is for.
[00:30:43] Maggie Reyes: Yeah, so exactly. So one of the things I have to say, one of my mentors, Lalo Martin always, when she was talking about doing relationship work, she said, you don't know that person's soul's journey. That's how she called it, the soul's journey. We don't know. They could present us a situation that you would find completely unacceptable on the face of it.
[00:31:01] Maggie Reyes: But we don't know their soul's journey. And so she really drilled into us to honor everybody's journey and help them with however they want to be helped. And so one of the things that I constantly tell my clients and that I constantly reinforce is no matter what I'm teaching you, the comments that I'm quoting, this, that, whatever, all of these things, you follow your highest standard of wisdom.
[00:31:23] Maggie Reyes: You make it your own. You decide what resonates for you. I'm going to tell you things that I know work. For example. Gratitude. When you express appreciation to your partner, it's like a glue that helps keep your relationship together. Sometimes I'll tell somebody, okay, let's do a gratitude challenge, 30 days, once a day, find something to thank your partner for, and then we find all the things that are in the way, all the hurts, all the resentments.
[00:31:47] Maggie Reyes: If that person finds gratitude hard to practice, Then it shows us what our work is in coaching. And so their highest inner wisdom may say, I am not doing that. I'm like, okay, but it still reveals to us. What is the work that we want to do together? Do we want to get to a point where you can do that? Do we need to just acknowledge you don't want to do that and move on?
[00:32:08] Maggie Reyes: It's always reveals what's next when we check in with the person's highest inner wisdom.
[00:32:14] Laura: That is so interesting. Wow. So the next one is the quality of a relationship is more important than its
[00:32:23] Laura: length. Tell us more. So we live in a society that says I've been married 50 years. Yeah, right. When people will hear about the length of a relationship, we just auto celebrate.
[00:32:33] Laura: I even do it. I've done it. I will still do it. I'm sure it's ingrained in me. It's sort of internalized, but We don't really question the quality of the relationship, and we judge a relationship's ending. So if somebody's been married for 15 years, and they're like, oh, I'm getting divorced, we judge it as bad, or somehow it was unsuccessful, or we have all kinds of different thoughts about it.
[00:32:56] Laura: What if 14 years of that relationship were amazing and great and beautiful? And maybe you had children, maybe you started a business, maybe you created a hundred jobs together. And then it came time for that to end. Couldn't that be beautiful too? And so the quality of the relationship is more important than its length.
[00:33:14] Laura: It's something that I think we should all talk about all the time so that we change the narrative in our culture about how we measure success in a relationship. Alright. So not
[00:33:24] Laura: every marriage can or should
[00:33:26] Laura: be saved, but every relationship can be improved and brought to its maximum potential for growth and thriving.
[00:33:32] Maggie Reyes: So I don't take a position whether it's good or bad, better or worse, whether you stay together or, or end the relationship. And I think it's important as a person talks about marriage every day, all the time to see some relationships do need to end. Like that is the highest and best outcome for that relationship is it's ending and we can celebrate and honor that and look at that differently.
[00:33:52] Maggie Reyes: So that's why I say not every marriage should be saved. I just want to make that clear. And there's a lot of different schools of thought around that. So I just want to make it clear that my school of thought is let's listen to your highest inner wisdom. And then just because you don't stay together in the format or in the context that you were together once doesn't mean you can't have a better relationship with that human.
[00:34:17] Maggie Reyes: So something that I've seen over the years or we're coaching several, you know, several people over the years is they have a better relationship with their partner separated than they did together and that ends up being better for everybody and especially if there's kids involved. And so it's like, let's not lose sight of that, that ending a relationship can be the thing that also brings you peace.
[00:34:37] Maggie Reyes: It brings you detachment about not having to live with whatever their situation is or whatever. The, the resentment, the resentments that you have, don't have to fester and therefore you have space to be collaborative partners for things. So I think that's just important to acknowledge in a culture that again, values, length over quality.
[00:34:53] Maggie Reyes: We just have to make those things really explicitly clear. And I want to sort of take a stand for some of those things. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:00] Laura: So grounded centered love is the best place from which to make decisions. What do you, what do you mean by that?
[00:35:07] Maggie Reyes: So I have to say that's, after I wrote that, there's nuance. I am the queen of nuance, and that's one of the things that's nuance.
[00:35:14] Maggie Reyes: Most of the time, for most people, grounded, centered love is a really good place to make decisions from. Anger, resentment sort of our heightened emotions. is not most of the time usually the best place to make decisions from. So as I've been talking about that and coaching people and thinking that through with different clients, something that I thought about is how anger has fueled revolutions throughout history.
[00:35:39] Maggie Reyes: And that's an example of when a heightened emotion propelled people in completely new directions and did, created a lot of good. from what we would call a negative emotion. So sometimes, like, anger is what makes you say, I'm done, this is enough. Or anger is what makes you say, I'm no longer gonna live this way, we're either gonna fix it or we're gonna move on.
[00:36:00] Maggie Reyes: So there are times when that heightened emotion propels you in a whole new direction when it's great. But for most of us, Most of the time, we want to see what the anger wants us to know. We want to listen to that emotion, whatever message it has for us, but make decisions when you're calm. Most of the time.
[00:36:19] Maggie Reyes: And a quote that I love to use is from an old minister I used to watch when I was a little girl. He was on TV. His name is Robert Schiller. If anybody used to watch him, who's listening, they'll remember. He used to say, never cut a tree in winter because winter will pass. The cherries will blossom and then you'll be like, Oh, I should have waited for the cherries to blossom.
[00:36:38] Maggie Reyes: Cut it in spring. So when you're calm, when you're collected, if you still want to make that same decision, then go ahead. Absolutely. Once you've had a chance to let the emotion flow through you and now you're thinking strategically about things. So there's all the, the nuance in that one.
[00:36:55] Laura: Yeah. I think that's so wise because then you're, you're using your whole brain.
[00:36:59] Laura: You're using your thinking brain and not only that emotional brain. Yeah. I love that. So coaching tools based in cognitive science, neurobiology, positive psychology, and listening to the wisdom of your body. Can help you have a better life and a better marriage, you can
[00:37:17] Laura: learn and master these tools through practice
[00:37:19] Laura: and incorporate them into your daily life.
[00:37:21] Laura: Just like yoga or meditation. Okay.
[00:37:24] Laura: Tell us about it. Yeah.
[00:37:25] Maggie Reyes: So a lot of people think they're doomed. They're like, this is terrible. It's never going to change. Everything is awful. I mean, just get consumed by the idea that because something has been a particular way, sometimes for a decade, sometimes longer, there's nothing they can do.
[00:37:42] Maggie Reyes: But what we know, what science tells us, we have so much evidence, so many books, so much research, is that there are interventions that can make a difference. How your thoughts impact your behaviors, how listening to your body, understanding your stress cycles is something that I spend a lot of time on.
[00:37:59] Maggie Reyes: Because do we, you know, we don't have a course in school that says, you know, when you feel threatened, you're going to feel sometimes like you want to fight and sometimes like you want to leave. And sometimes you're going to say yes to things you really want to say no to, because you're freaking out if you say no to those things, what could happen?
[00:38:15] Maggie Reyes: Nobody teaches us that. But in relationships, imagine two people feeling threatened, feeling scared, having stress responses for 30 years. Right? Just understanding that your partner's in a stress response can take you in a whole new direction. You can access compassion instead of anger. Can you imagine just, oh my gosh, look, oh my partner's afraid right now.
[00:38:38] Maggie Reyes: I can have compassion for that instead of just being afraid back and then lashing out at them. So these tiny sort of simple things of what thought am I thinking or how am I feeling or where am I in my stress cycle? You know such a huge impact in your relationship just because you don't know how to manage those things now.
[00:38:55] Maggie Reyes: doesn't mean you can't learn. It's like going to the gym, right? You listen to this podcast, you ask questions, you get intentional about it, and you just build a skill over time.
[00:39:06] Amanda: So along those lines, for somebody, you said, there's a lot of people out there that think that they're doomed. And like, you know, we see a lot of examples of, of what not to do and, and how We see a lot of bad examples.
[00:39:19] Amanda: Can you give us hope that if you're not in a great significant other relationship right now, like what are some case studies that you have, like your clients before and after, like, do you have success stories that like might be inspiring
[00:39:33] Amanda: or give people hope?
[00:39:35] Maggie Reyes: Okay. So I have countless success stories on my podcast, the marriage life coach podcast.
[00:39:39] Maggie Reyes: I interview my clients all the time. There's all kinds of things you can listen to. So. I'm not going to go step by step over like 16 different things. Yeah. Yeah. I would say is this, when your mindset changes, you can have nothing change in your circumstantial day to day life and you can experience it differently.
[00:39:57] Maggie Reyes: And that can be true for anybody listening to us right now, no matter what situation they're in. And to give sort of a medical example of that, if you think about when you had your first day, you graduated as a doctor, and you walked into the clinic, or you walked into the medical center, how, what you knew then, how you felt then, I'm assuming some of you were afraid, maybe some of you were not, but some of you were.
[00:40:18] Maggie Reyes: And then you walk in 15 years later, like you own the place, you know exactly what you're doing, you know what's going on. Circumstantially, there were patients. There was a medical situation you addressed it like circumstantially all those things were the same what changed is how you thought about it In this example that I'm giving is because of the experience that you gained over time, right?
[00:40:37] Maggie Reyes: So in your marriage, it's the same idea. If you're repeating the same marriage every year, nothing's going to change. If you start thinking differently, trying new things, then you're going to have new experiences, and then you get to decide if you want to stay, if you want to go, and all those kinds, all those kinds of things.
[00:40:53] Maggie Reyes: So I think that, that's how I would answer that, but yes. A lot of different things from managing different, different like, sex, sexual desire, like the high desire partner, the low desire partner managing different communication styles, managing your money together, all of these different things.
[00:41:09] Maggie Reyes: There's parts where you decide how upset do I want to be about this, right? There's things you let go. There's things you double down on. And that's true for everybody that I've ever worked with. And then you decide together as a team for those who want to be a team with their partner. You decide together, how do we work through this together?
[00:41:25] Maggie Reyes: And then for those who are like, Oh my gosh, I should never be on a team with this person. That is the answer. The answer is to end this thing, right? Then that's still a completely different life than what they had when they thought, Well, this is the only person that is ever going to date me. So I guess I'm stuck with this person.
[00:41:41] Maggie Reyes: Sometimes we build. The confidence to say, what if, first of all, of course, other people would date you, right? And what if it's okay to choose something different in a different chapter of your life?
[00:41:52] Laura: That's so much wisdom, Maggie. Thank you so much for everything that you shared with us today. Can you tell us how people might find you if they're
[00:42:01] Laura: interested in learning more about your work?
[00:42:03] Maggie Reyes: Absolutely. My pleasure. So you can definitely find me on my website, which is Maggie Reyes. com. I'm also on Instagram at the Maggie Reyes.
[00:42:11] Maggie Reyes: And I always joke around that Reyes is like Smith, like there's a million, but I'm the, so apologies to all the other Maggie Reyes is out there. So you can find me on Instagram there. And then the podcast, if you enjoy podcasts. The marriage life coach podcast. I, as I mentioned, I interview my clients on there and I also teach a lot of these concepts.
[00:42:28] Maggie Reyes: I keep it really simple, really doable. I like practicality and application because of the time that I used to work in HR. My pet peeve is when you go to a training and you feel amazing when you leave, but then nothing changes. Like that was my pet peeve when I was in HR. And so I like to make everything that I teach very applicable.
[00:42:45] Maggie Reyes: Like what are you going to do with this tomorrow? And hopefully we shared some things on today's episode that you can pick one thing and practice it tomorrow.
[00:42:54] Laura: So do you have any final thoughts? Like, maybe if there was the one thing, if there was one thing that people might start practicing that might make a huge
[00:43:03] Laura: difference, what would that
[00:43:04] Laura: be?
[00:43:04] Maggie Reyes: I would say if there was one thing to start practicing, it's what do you want? Just ask yourself the question, what do I really want? Sometimes we, especially women, are socialized to prioritize everyone else, especially doctors I I don't know, socialized to be so sacrificial and to, for the betterment of humanity, right?
[00:43:31] Maggie Reyes: Like, not getting any sleep and, you know, have 50 diet cokes to stay awake and like all of these different things. And it's like, if you could take a moment. Even it doesn't have to be in your life. It doesn't have to be for forever. What do I really want? Tomorrow, what do I want for lunch? What do I want for a rest like the tiniest connection to what you want?
[00:43:52] Maggie Reyes: Sometimes it's easier to access than a big lofty dream if it's in your marriage What do you really want? What is one thing that would bring you? Delight in your romantic relationship. What feels easy, what feels doable and, and how can you like for in the next week or two have that one thing, whether it's more time with your partner, whether it's a coffee date, whether it's a conversation, I really like to turn towards what do you want?
[00:44:20] Maggie Reyes: Because we, that's a question we under ask, like you chronically under ask it. And when you start asking yourself that question, your entire life changes.
[00:44:28] Kendra: That is amazing. Thank you, Maggie, so much for. This amazing time where you can share with us, you know, everything that you have in your wisdom and experience, but also just making it so X accessible, so relatable, so authentic.
[00:44:47] Kendra: And so we honor you for the work that you're doing to help create, you know, better lasting marriages or even just any relationship, really. So thank you. Thank you for your work and thank you for being here today.
[00:44:58] Maggie Reyes: Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure and a joy.
[00:45:01] Kendra: And for our listeners out there, if you haven't already received our weekly well check, please click the link in the show notes to get on the list and visit our website, www.
[00:45:12] Kendra: thewholephysician. com to get more information. So until next time, you are whole, you are a gift to medicine and the work you do matters.
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