Relationships Are Hard, But Why?

This content come from Stan Tatkin on Relationships Are Hard, But Why? In TEDxKC. I found that many highlights that we can learn. I know that tons of study about relationships with different take away points. But, in this session Stan talks about the basic reflexes of relationships based in our brain responses. Hence, we know what and why, when the things come up.

Here’s below the highlights or it’s more like a transcript, but hopefully it can be useful;

• We all come to each new relationships wanting easy, but we also come with fair share of unresolved painful experience with our past relationships
• Love is more complex and challenging. Reason is based in our automatic neurobiological reflexes
• Neocortex, the high cortical areas. “Ambassadors”: Very smart, deliberate, but slow; expensive to run. Really good at planning, predicting, organizing, languaging. Logic and reason is the Ambassadors
• Subcortical areas of our brain. “Primitives”. Very fast, memory-based, automatic, cheap to run. Involved in love, sex and threat detection by scanning for dangerous faces, voices, gestures, movements, words and phrases. Fight or flight is the Primitives
• 99% of our day ruled by Primitives automatically. It’s running out resources if we have to run Ambassadors do simultaneously
• In Primitives use Procedural Memories or Body Memory. Example is learn to ride a bike. Our Primitives and Ambassador work simultaneously to learn new skill. After we able to ride a bike. It would run by your Primitives automatically
• Love is on the air. We want to know about everything, touch, smell and crazy about our partner. Our dopamine wanting more, noradrenaline for focus and attention. Distinct drop in serotonin so you can persevere and obsess. We’re neurochemical addicted
• After we have the relationships by time, we’re going automate our partner. Because it’s brain nature to handle things. Because we think know each other hence we stop paying attention, fully present
• Our relationships based on our Procedural Memories that includes with everything emotional. Our brain read our partner thoughts, feelings, and intentions through that memory lens
• There’s no relationships without conflict. In fact, if you’re a conflict avoider, you will appear a threat to your partner. The problem isn’t a fight, it’s when one of or both threatens to leave the relationships. Relationship can survive fights, but it can’t survive is loss of safety and security
• When we feel good, we don’t care that much. When we don’t feel good, we care a lot
• When stress up, human communication gets a whole lot worse. Memory is unreliable due to our Primitives
• If you’re in abusive relationships; fight alot even for small things. You must get out
• Why we fight out of control? Because real time is so fast. Our Primitives up when we feel threatened. Ambassadors just stood there do nothing 😑. That’s when shit up!
• I’m right dammit! And here’s my prove points”. That’s an example when primitives comes up and Ambassador makes shit up. And we don’t know what we’re talking about
• Experiment: When relationships moment turns tense, change your position. Go eye-to-eye and face-to-face to notice what happens. Because we are visual
• If you’re fighting in a car while driving, side-to-side and glance. Glance is a threat trigger. That’s why you should never fight in the car, on the phone, texting. We’re visual animals, and we need our eyes in order to regulate each other’s nervous systems
• Our major job is to protect each other and make each other feel safe and secure. We need each other back. That’s the relationships for