Love and dating gurus with Dr Dan podcast- S8 Ep 1: Special Guest and master relationship mentor, Valerie Greene

Oh everyone and welcome to our podcast, The Love and Dating gurus with up to then and industry experts. I'm very excited about this show as it will bring you insight to our many listeners about the dating challenges in the 21st century and the dues and don't when seeking your soulmate. Everything you need or want to learn about the how to's updating a relationship will be discussed here, how to avoid being put into a friend zone after the first date, being catfish, conned or getting scammed and so much more will be covered in this podcast. Toxic relationship can cut strife breakups or divorces. In fidelity, trust issues, troubled finances can contribute to these challenges. Guests appearing on our show are expert in this industry, sharing their insight about what you can encounter in any stage of dating, getting into relationship and whatever else come next. My name is Dr. Dan and I'm your host for today's episode. I'm about Langel cognitive behavior and psychotherapist specializing in relationship, marriage coaching using the EFT method and post divorce strategies when transitioning back into a single life. I provide individual one on one session in both French or English and also do group settings. If you need any assistance, reach out to DMV therapy and coaching services at 301-3251550 and our website is lifecoachdanabsliked.com. Today, I'm very excited to have our first episode of season 8 of very special guest, coach Valerie Green as a master relationship mentor known for her powerful ability to help couples stop fighting and fall in love again and powering women to inspire deeper intimacy and guiding singles and attracting their ideal partner, which can be considered a very difficult challenge, especially in today's dating scene. So without further ado, I just like every of my past episodes, I will leave it up to the guest to probably introduce herself as no one else can do better job. Valerie de Flores yours. Thank you, Dan and I'm so excited to be here. I just love it. You know, at this point in my career, I've been coaching for about 25 years. Throw me any question. I have an answer. It's just my passion. So I help people in a nutshell attract, reignite and sustain lasting love. And so what that looks like for singles is I help them date intentionally avoid situations, avoid those mistakes that you so eloquently mentioned in the intro for the show. I also help pre-committed couples decide whether their relationship is really right for them to take the next step into marriage, like pre-marital coaching and commitment coaching. I wrote a whole book about that called the Commitment Roadmap, which you can learn about on my website. It's written for women, but because most of my clients are women, but I also love working with couples. And I usually have a man in my practice too. I don't discriminate. It's just that that's usually who's attracted to me as a woman from their 30s to 50s who are either dating and stuck in situationships or couples that are stuck fighting and recurring cycles of conflict. I love that you mentioned EFT. I believe you mean emotionally focused therapy. I was changing that too. Yeah, I know because there's like two EFTs. The other is the emotional freedom technique. I think it's like confusing for people. I mean, I am actually trained in both, but my focus when I work with couples is the emotionally focused therapy paradigm. Although I integrate a lot of other paradigms like from Gottman's method and from nonviolent communication, as well as a lot of emotional healing modalities and psycho education for how to help couples transform conflict into deeper intimacy. And I also have an online course about that also for women, but it's a six week deep dive in if you are in a relationship and your husband or partner is acting distant or he was sort of hot and cold or you're disconnected and fighting, how to really inspire him to step up again to meet your deepest needs and desires. And so that is my jam. Like I said, I've been doing it for about 25 years. It's just like my, the water I swim in at this point. That's why I just love being interviewed because ask me a question. I have an answer and you know, not that I think I know everything right. I'm always learning, but this will be fun. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you're here today, especially now with what's going on in the dating scene, dating mobile apps and all the massacred that we hear about the cat's fishing, ghosting, breadcrumbing, the scamming with the Roman scam that are happening. They're very rampant in today's dating challenges. So of course, we cannot really cover everything, Valerie. So we're going to have to really focus on what you are most passionate about and basically reviving intimacy in relationship, especially when there's a lot of conflict between couples. So now I see in my practice as well. There's a lot of pre-marital coaching that is happening where people want to be able to really understand each other in every aspect. Financial, money, who's the big spender, who is not. Are we really going into this based on love, based on logic, based on a contingency of this relationship? What is really the core factor that will keep this relationship alive instead of dying, like 52% of the marriages out there? So when it comes to the divorce rate in this country, Valerie, and now they usually say, "Oh, well, hey, everybody, we're very happy to say that the divorce rate has dropped considerably." Yes, because less and less people are getting married. Right. Of course, I didn't talk. But the reality is that people now with what's going on online, they get so many reason to just seek this instant gratification method or, I would say, perpetual desire to always find excitement. So how can now, when people fight in relationship, what is really their true intent to keep this relationship alive? Yes, I love that question. And I kind of look at it from two standpoints, right? Because first of all, I love the emotionally focused approach with the lens through attachment. Because I think if we don't look at our attachment styles and you don't have to necessarily take the quiz and know your attachment style, because as you know, they're fluid. But I kind of look at it as secure and insecure. And there's three types of insecure, probably more. But people like to categorize things. So secure attachment is a belief system and a skill set. And so I equally do psychoeducation as well as coach people in terms of building the skills of secure attachment, which is learning how to be a secure base and a safe haven for each other. And I'll explain what that means. So what I mean by two things is, first of all, those beliefs and behaviors need to be implemented on a regular basis in order to avoid recurring conflict. But then obviously, if you're in your cycle of recurring conflict, then you need to address it with interventions in the moment, like identifying the cycle and learning how to step out of it. And on a daily basis, you have to build the skills of secure attachment. So it's both. That's both things that you do on a daily basis. And then there's crisis intervention when you're in the middle of your cycle, right? That those are kind of like the two frameworks that I use. And it kind of combined, like I say, the the Gottman paradigm with the EFT paradigm. So what I mean and just the general attachment lens. So what I mean by the general attachment lens, I want to look at what is the most important is secure attachment from, you know, in a nutshell. So it's the way I look at it is, like I said, it's a belief system in a skill set. So the beliefs of secure attachment and I'm a coach, right? So I help people implement these beliefs and find ways of them being authentic for them. So first of all, it's that feelings and needs are legitimate because people who are avoidance, usually dismissive avoidance, but fearful avoidance have this like to some degree, it's just disorganized, right? Is that needs like everyone's responsible for themselves and needs are really, you know, as legitimate as thoughts and understanding. And so, you know, that's not wrong. It makes sense given one's upbringing that it wasn't emphasized growing up. So I help people really make sense of the beliefs they already have, but then learn if you want secure attachment needs are not needy. Being needy is being demanding that you have to do this in this particular way for me right now or also I'm going to lose it, right? That's not for people who do not fear abandonment, so they not fear rejection. They accept the relationship as is and they control vulnerability in a much more secure way. Exactly. Which is the skill. So I teach people the skills for how to legitimize feelings and needs, which is just a little bit more of the belief work for avoidance and a little bit more of the skill work for anxious because anxiously attached people share those beliefs that feelings and needs are legitimate. They just need to learn the skills of regulating their nervous system and being able to, I like the gotman term, the soft startup because that's what his research shows is that the soft startup makes all the difference as to whether or not somebody, you know, it turns into an argument versus they actually get heard. And so there's a whole art. This is what I teach mostly women because most of my clients are women and I would say in my practice the majority of the anxious, people, anxiously attached people are women, but It is not according to to gender. I've also coached, I mean, my husband actually is anxious. And I mean, you know, we're kind of earned secure at this point. But, you know, sometimes we fall back into old patterns and then I have to use all these tools myself. So obviously I want to say that I'm not perfect. And you know, the skill is repairing, but sorry to interrupt. But do you think that someone can be a little bit of all of them? Like either disorganize attachment or avoid it or anxious or it's like, you know, the love languages you could have, not just one love language, you could have secondary one, but do you think that some of them can have a little bit of all? Oh, definitely. You know, humans are complicated. And I think like one of the things that is important to understand about attachment is that you can be avoided in one relationship and anxious in another and secure in another depending on your connection with that particular person. But I would say that one's attachment style lives within a belief system and a skill set. Like because if I'm secure in a particular relationship, but I don't have the skill set, it's because the other person is bringing it, but I don't have that on my own. Right. So I kind of look at it as two categories. They're secure and insecure. And inside the insecure paradigm, there's anxious, avoid it, disorganized, fearful avoid it. Right. Those can all be fluid depending on like if I'm with somebody who's more anxious, I'm going to be avoid it. If I'm with someone who's more, you know, because I'm going to feel like, ah, like it away, you're being too needy and demanding, right? And if I'm with someone who's more avoid it, then I'm going to be anxious because I'm not going to feel like they care about the connection. Right. If I'm insecure, if I'm secure, that means that I have the belief system, I have the skill set for, you know, to bring it back to the soft startup. I know how, because this is the skill that the anxious person needs to learn that I know how to self-soothe, to regulate my nervous system, and to speak my feelings and needs in a way that honors the other person's feelings and needs, that is collaborative. That's not saying you need to address this right now. It's saying, hey, I know you have your own needs. And let's find a win-win solution. And I'm inherently, so that's the belief system of secure attachment is I understand that if I express myself, I'm going to be heard. And if I have that belief, I'm going to express myself in a way that's not demanding because I trust that it'll be heard. So I have the bandwidth to then be able to deal with if he's not hearing me, oh, well, that's temporary. It means there's something going on with him and I could then have the bandwidth to be like, oh, there's something going on with you. What's going on with you? I trust that you'll address my needs once your needs are addressed. I have more, so that's the skill of regulating your nervous system so that you can exist in the space of my needs are important and your needs are important. And you know, if we argue, then it'll actually bring us closer by going deeper into our feelings and needs. And there's always a win-win solution. I'm not going to be engulfed. I'm not going to be abandoned. I'm not going to be rejected. I can trust the partners at right. Like that's the belief system. And then the skill set is regulating your nervous system and learning how to, you know, so the behaviors of a safe haven, because the two behaviors that the attachment researcher's really categorized that create to care functioning and relationship are a safe haven, meaning that if I'm bringing my feelings and needs to you, I trust that you'll respond with empathy and with care and with attunement and with collaboration. And I know how to do that for you when you're bringing your feelings and needs, right? Like that's the safe haven. So I teach people the skills. You think this is a lot to do with nature versus the nurture when one is born with those four attachments versus the environmental aspect of it, where if the other person is more likely to kind of be chilled and then you adapt like what neuro-linguistic programming does, you mirror their effect, you mirror their behavior. That's such a good question. I mean, obviously, I think that it's impossible to tell what nature and nurture because I mean, that's the realm of like spirituality is what's in human nature. But so the way I look at attachment and the way the researchers look at attachment is that the, you know, human beings learn everything by modeling. The only skills that we come into the world with are survival skills of crying when our needs are in getting met, you know, eating, digesting our food, learning how to crawl, walking is actually a learned behavior because, you know, the research with children that, you know, I mean, this hasn't been very many, right? But children, I think in like the 1800s or 1900s when children were discovered to be raised in, you know, fairly by animals in the woods, they never learn to walk. They crawl like the animals, you know, it's like even walking is a learn, everything is learned. And so the way I look at it is that we might have nature to be more empathic and to be more sensitive and to be more relationally oriented. Like I know that I did. I came into the world with, you know, for my earliest memories with this desire to empathically connect emotionally. So I think that can be something that we're born with, that's our nature, but the beliefs and the skills that we learn on top of it for how to express our sensitivity and how to feel safe with it. Those are all learned from our environment. You mean, that's what I think. What do you think? Well, you know, it's interesting that you say that because you know what, you're right that, you know, depending on the relationship that you enter, it depends the other person because as you talked about the mirroring and we want to be able to kind of create some kind of rapport with the person that we're with. And if the other person know how to communicate properly, we kind of open up as well. Even though we're really kind of like we're drawn from communication because when we were children, we, you know, we went through like child, child trauma, we didn't know how to communicate properly because our parents are sibling didn't communicate. So when we fall into relationship that the other person knows how to communicate and how to express themselves in a vulnerable way, we tend to adapt. We tend to find some of that and that can help us to be able to adapt to certain type of attachment. You know, if you're like either avoiding the attachment or disorganize one. So again, but then if you're very meeting, okay, for example, if you like, you know, in an anxious attachment, you need that constant communication with the other person, but the other person just doesn't like to communicate, then there's strife happening. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, talking about singles, it's part of what I do with singles as I help them look at their attachment style and the attachment style of their partner that they're dating or the people that they're dating and ask how much work is it going to be to be with this person? Right? Like if this person has an avoidant attachment style and you have an anxious attachment style, it's not like it can't work, but the amount of work that you're going to have to do to learn these new behaviors and skills is a lot more work that because I love what you're saying that attachment and this is the main thing that I want to communicate is that attachment styles are not fixed. And that's why I look at them as a belief system and a skill set that you learned in childhood based on what was modeled to you and how you interacted with your parents or caretakers and siblings, but and you know, teachers or whatever, you know, I believe that it's influenced by a variety of sources, but attachment wiring happens in the brain between zero to two, right? Yes, that is so true. But then again, when it comes to what you call that, when it comes to communicating with your significant other and especially women, you and I, you have to agree or maybe agree to disagree, but if let's say a woman is not intimate or she's not, she's asexual. Unfortunately, the guy is going to have to adapt to her sexual needs or her intimacy or how to express intimacy. So unfortunately, there's a disbalance there where sometime I read a lot of articles where the guy is always saying, well, you know, me and my wife, we haven't been intimate for years and I've learned to accept it. It's not, you know, it's not something that they both agree upon. So it's the leader and how their intimacy would be. So when you introduce yourself as, you know, like teaching women how to be intimate, is it emotional intimacy? Is it physical intimacy? Is it, I mean, what comes first? Because woman is more emotional, guy is more physical. So how do you kind of like bring them back into the physical desire? Yeah, I love that question. It's a nuanced question. So I want to finish answering what I was saying before before we move on because I feel like that's a new topic, which is deserves the attention that it deserves. So what I was saying is that there's two behaviors that develop secure attachment, the safe haven, which is basically how you transform conflict into intimacy is, you know, identifying the cycle and then dropping in to learning how to be a safe haven for each other, to empathize and collaborate around each other's feelings and needs, right? But then the second behavior is the secure base, which means, and, you know, this is part of what creates both emotional and physical intimacy. So it's a segue to answering that question, which is that we have our finger on the pulse of what we're co-creating together. Like what are we creating together that is more robust and inspiring than when I can create on my own and what you can create on your own because that is the key factor that determines long-term compatibility. And that's also sexual energy as creative energy. So if we're not creating more together than I could create on my own, I'm not going to be turned on. Sure, in the honeymoon phase, turn on is just created by the hormones and that lasts between two weeks to two years. But then after that, if a couple is not creating more together than they could on their own, usually the woman will lose turn on because she doesn't respect the direction that the relationship is going, which is the masculine partner's job to choose the direction and the feminine's partner's job to say, "Here's what I'm bringing. Here's what I want. Let's collaborate. Let's co-create it." And masculine feminine energy is not unique to gender. Sometimes it's the feminine partner who is in a male body and the masculine partner who's in a female body. The energy is like masculine energy is the direction and the structure, creating the structure and the logistics, whereas the feminine energy is bringing the desire and the intuition and the feeling component to and the collaborative component to it. So if we look at what creates turn on, in my opinion, that's the first thing is like, what are we both creating together? Like, what's our mission and our purpose? And I have my finger on the pulse of what you're doing because the attachment research shows that for people with secure functioning relationships, that they actually become more independent out in the world as opposed to meeting each other's needs, making them become more dependent. Because if I am like living my purpose and creating my dreams and it's held by my partner, I'm more likely to have the courage to take risks because I know that he'll be a safe haven if I make a mistake and need to externally process in order to deal with it. So then overall when it comes to building this intimacy, you know, you talked about the two weeks to two years when it comes to this honeymoon stage. And after that, obviously, you know, you've heard about the seven year age, which really get to learn that person at the level and then realized how big of a mistake they made. But then again, when we pass a seven year and then they say, okay, then the next one, if you pass the 15 year, then you're building something more more solid, more meaningful. And then after the 21 year, then it's even better. But then when you look at Bill Gates and Melinda, they divorced after 26 years. So anytime you can start saying to yourself, am I here for comfort? Am I right? For convenience? Am I here for what exactly? And then some people wait impatiently for the kids to graduate from high school or college for them to leave the relationship. But then again, what's really left of their lives at that point? So what would you think about what should most people do before they decide if this is definitely a good relationship or not? But then again, someone can really predict, if let's say after five, 10 years, it's going to be as loving as it is now. So does pre-marital counseling really work? Yeah, I think that's an amazing question too. You're asking some very good questions. I mean, I want to finish answering the last one again, because part of what creates intimacy, both physical and emotional, is what you're creating together that you can't create on your own as well, which is part of the secure base. But it also relates to the question you just asked, that what creates physical and emotional intimacy, especially for the woman, is that the behaviors of the safe haven, like that I know that if I'm bringing my feelings and needs to my husband, that he's going to respond with empathy and care and collaboration, and he's not going to judge me or dismiss me or tell me not to feel that way or argue with my thoughts of. And because for most women, we need the emotional connection in order to be turned on physically. But we also need to know that what we're creating together is more than I can create on my own. And then there's the aspect of love languages, because women or the feminine partner needs to feel loved where the masculine energy partner needs to feel respected. That's according to David Data and all of the masculine, feminine energy teachers. So learning to speak each other's love language is a big part of it. I don't think we have time to really go into that, but it's easily findable and searchable. In a nutshell, it's either acts of service or quality time or gifts or words of affirmation or touch, really learning how to speak each other's love language. And then there's also what Gottman calls bidding, which he says is the science of trust, which is like not just trusting you that you're going to do what you say or whatever, which is important. Of course, trust is broken and then there usually can't be turned on right until you repair. But the little moment he calls bidding, like if I say something, like, hey, it's a nice day outside that my attachment system is scanning for is my partner going to respond, even just saying, oh, yeah, like any kind of response builds that felt sense of trust versus him ignoring me, which is turning away, according to Gottman, a turning away bid or turning against bid would be like, oh, you're always focused on the weather. You should just feel good without it, right? Sorry. Yeah, I said that's so true. Go on. Yeah. So it's like if that's going on in the dynamic, if there's a lot of turning away or turning against bids, then usually the woman can't get turned on because her nervous system doesn't feel safe that she's actually going to be held. Because if we want to look at it from masculine and feminine energy and like I said, it's not focused on gender, it's not focused on sexual orientation. I'm using the word woman, but it doesn't have to be cis woman. So the feminine energy partner is like the river just needs to flow with her feelings and needs and expression. And the masculine energy partner is the river bank, like he's holding her and sort of focusing the direction of their relationship so that the energy of the river can flow smoothly. And obviously, like I said, the river doesn't just flow in a submissive way according to the river bank. As you know, the Grand Canyon was carved out of the Colorado River, right? Rivers have a powerful direction to be able to create things. So that's kind of the metaphor that I like to use around masculine, feminine energy. And so I think that's the question around, you know, turn on. But in a nutshell, there's many, many, many more aspects because I've done entire interviews on what creates turn on. So, you know, that deserves the whole hour. But I want to get to your question about premarital coaching because I think that's incredibly important too. And because yes, when I've coached couples in premarital coaching, they tell me that their marriage starts off on the right foot and that they have the skills to be able to resolve conflict and to come back into connection and stay connected and argue less and feel more love for each other. So the essence of it is the, you know, and of course, I know you do it too. So feel free to add. But what I do with couples is I help them determine, first of all, I actually love the book eight dates. I don't know if you are familiar with that too. Not yet. I haven't read it yet. Oh, yeah, it's written by John Gottman and Julie Gottman and plus a couple other authors. And it's basically conversations to have to co-create how you relate to eight areas on the wheel of life. You know, there's finances, there's money, there's resolving conflict, there's quality time, there's, you know, planning for how to deal with in-laws and other relationships in the family. There's lifestyle. I forgot what all of the categories are in that book. But I mean, those are some of the categories that I coach people on. It's not like I just follow that book. But I give my premarital clients that book to read because the conversations in it, I then ask them to bring their discrepancies to coaching with me so that we can work through them. Because first of all, you need to be on the same page with how you relate to all those areas, especially with your views on conflict and your views on attachment. So I help couples primarily determine what are your beliefs and skills around secure attachment and resolving conflict when it comes up. And then I make sure that they have skills that work for them because it's not whether conflict is going to come up. It's when it's going to come up because, you know, as Godman's research shows, you know, with the couples that stay together for 40 plus years, all of them have unresolvable issues. but what brings them closer is not whether they have the issues. It's how they fight feeling like they're on the same team and they have an attitude that we can create these win-win compromises where we're not compromising like you can't always find a win-win solution but you can give each other care and sensitivity and collaborate. He has this whole model with the yoke of the egg is what I won't compromise on and the white of the egg is what I will compromise on and you only compromise with what you're flexible on both of you. I like to help couples come up with those win-win solutions where people feel like they're not resentful. They're not throwing themselves under the bus for the other person. We look at that too and what agreements they need to make so that they both feel like they're secure. Then I actually really like Stan Tatkin's paradigm of the couple bubble. Are you familiar with that? That's him. Yeah, so it's like these agreements, especially around how you're going to relate to in-laws because that's a huge thing that people don't talk about primarily that is the elephant in the room, right? Especially based on culture when you have Indian families where they're always or Philippine family, they always have their family, their mother, brother, their all come, live together. You have to also adapt, especially if you have to marry into a different culture. Exactly. I really have those discussions beforehand because if you don't then you don't know what you're in for and then you don't have a plan to address it and then everything seems to be all right. I help them really do psycho-education on what it takes to make marriage work. The skills and the compatibility coordinate, the skills of building secure attachment, the skills of having, making sure that you're compatible on all of the areas of the wheel of life. And if you're not, then it doesn't necessarily mean you need to break up, but you need to create a plan that you'll honor each other's differences. Because I like that saying in the coaching world that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. That's all so true. But then again, you cannot really anticipate too much of what's going to happen in the future because again, you create yourself a very anxious environment and because you know the way that you anticipated or that you predicted, then you say that's it. We're doing for failure. It's going to add. Then you bring more tension to the relationship and so on and so forth. But also before we end this podcast because we have like maybe four minute left, I want everyone to be able to kind of know if they are experiencing issue, where can they find you? I know you said something about writing a book. It should just give us a little bit more details, like no more than a couple minutes. Oh, yes, absolutely. And I mean, first of all, to address what you just said, of course, the plan is not what's going to happen, but it's how you're going to address the inevitabilities that show up, not that you're planning for challenges. But what are your values and your vision and your agreements and the practices that you do to keep yourself connected and how are you going to address anything that comes off right? So anyway, that's what I'm talking about. But yes, so like I said, I work with both singles and couples and my website is coachvaloregreen.com. So that's C-O-A-C-H-V-A-L-E-R-I-E-G-R-E-N-E. There's an E at the end of green. Coachvaloregreen.com. And so basically everything is on my website. I have four free gifts, three ebooks and one video training depending on whether you're single, whether you're a woman who is in a relationship that doesn't feel fulfilling to you, or whether you're a couple who is experiencing conflict. And then my fourth free gift is just general healing. It's basically two chapters out of my book, The Commitment Roadmap, and you get those for free. And it's the two chapters that are about healing. It's about healing your patterns, recurring patterns that come up for you, regardless of who you're in relationship with, for either singles or couples. And then it's really learning how to meet your own needs so that you learn how to self-sue so that you can express your feelings and needs with your partner in a way that draws them closer rather than pushes them away. And my ebook for women in relationship is also about that, but it's just the outer work of expression. The healing is the inner work of self-sue thing. So the books kind of complement each other. I just didn't want to put them all in one free gift, so because each one is about 20 pages. And then of course my book and my online course are available on my website too. You can, and I also host a podcast called Soul Shaking Love. All of those links are on my website. If you go there, you can look at them and download them and there's a lot that you can access for free. You'll also have a blog on there. So. Beautiful, beautiful, well-vallery. That is all the time that we have for today's podcast. And again, I appreciate you taking the time out of your BC schedule to join us and share your strategies on how to manage challenging arguments between couples and help them find love again and help women initiate more when it comes to emotional and physical intimacy. Of the many recommendations you share to our loyal listeners will help them better navigate through the challenges of finding and attracting their ideal match. So we hope that you've all enjoyed today's episode as much as we did and I'm very excited by the many upcoming industry experts that we have scheduled for season 8 of the love and dating group with Octodend Podcast filled with very valuable tips and advice just like the one that you listen today. My name is Octodend Amzalag and you may all stay safe, sane and smart when searching for that special someone. Stay tuned for our next episode.