Episode 215: How Authenticity Allows for Deeper Connection with Dr. Amber Price
/This week, Dr. Laura Froyen sits down with relationship expert Dr. Amber Price to discuss how embracing authenticity fosters deeper connections. Dr. Price is a relationship researcher dedicated to helping moms reconnect with themselves and their families. Together, they unpack practical strategies for fostering genuine connections with partners and children.
Here’s a summary of what we discussed:
The transition from a parent-child bond to a peer-like bond in young adulthood
How mothers can rediscover their identities after years of prioritizing their families
Reclaiming personal preferences and identity while maintaining relationships
Balancing autonomy and connection in relationships for healthy attachment
Recognizing and reclaiming autonomy by identifying reliance on external validation over self-acceptance
Recognizing where external expectations influence our choices and setting boundaries to reclaim autonomy
How self-abandonment and loss of autonomy negatively impact relationships
How cultivating individual growth and self-expanding activities strengthens relationships
If you found Amber Price’s insights valuable, don’t forget to check out her website amberaprice.com, and follow her on Instagram @dramberprice, Youtube @DrAmberAPrice and listen to her podcast Relata-Able.
Join us for an insightful conversation on how being true to yourself leads to richer, more fulfilling relationships.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be diving into the tension between belonging to ourselves and belonging to others. This is something that I think a lot of us face in, in our lives, in our relationships, but both with our kiddos and with our partners. And I'm so excited to be talking about this topic and learn how we sometimes we abandon ourselves in order to seek more closeness with others and how that ends up being, we end up kind of stabbing ourselves in the foot with that and um hampering our own ability to connect. When we do that. So we're going to be exploring how to show up more as our authentic selves and how in doing so, we can foster deeper connections with the people who are truly important to us. To help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a relationship expert, Dr. Amber Price. She's going to tell you a little bit more about who she is and what she does. Amber, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you.
Amber: Thanks. I'm so excited to be here and to chat. I love how you summed up what we're going to talk about too.
Laura: Good. Good. I'm so excited. We're going to geek out a little bit about Amber's dissertation too. So first of all, let's just start with Amber. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and then, and we'll just be our nerdy selves as we talk about belonging in relationships.
Amber: Yeah, so I'm Amber. I am a I'm first and foremost a mom of 4 boys. They are ages now, their age is 21 down to 13, so every couple of years between those ages.
Laura: Yeah.
Amber: It's, it's a lot to have teenagers and young adult kids. I'm learning that in the very moment, you know.
Laura: Have you hit that young adult stage where they shift from being like your child to being your kind of like friend, have you made that switch?
Amber: Oh yeah, for sure. I would even say that with my older, like my 16-year-old. I just have a blast with him. Like that there definitely is that part for sure.
Laura: Yeah, I loved reaching that stage with my own mom. Like, when I stopped, kind of, I started really just being her friend versus being her child. I think I'm still just my dad's child, you know, so I don't think that that transition happens for everyone. But, I feel lucky to have that with my mom, and your kids are lucky to have that with you. Sorry, I interrupted you. Okay.
Amber: So, I really do. I really do love. It's so incredibly challenging to have them at these ages, but it's also so much fun to, you know, get to know them on a deeper level, you know.
Laura: Like they get to know themselves, right? What a privilege to be. A witness to the unveiling process as these kids come into who they are, you know? Yeah, it's humbling.
Amber: Yeah, scary and fun.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Amber: So yeah, I am a mom to them and I love that. I When I found myself, when I think my youngest was in 2nd grade, I decided to go back to school and get my master's degree. And this was 20 years after I had been in my bachelor's program, which was a leap for sure to do that. I had to relearn some things, you know, to in order to pass the GED and things like that. But yeah, went back to get my master's degree and ended up loving it so much that I stayed on for a PhD which I did not, did not see coming. But, so I finished my PhD just about a year ago, and I absolutely love what I studied. My degree was in marriage and family, but um My specific emphasis was on how, how the self shows up in those relationships. Why my own sense of self, how that impacts the relationships in my life, that marriage relationship, the family relationships, things like that. So really fun things to learn, very applicable in my own life, but also like fun to see that the science backs the things that feel right too, you know.
Laura: Absolutely. So I think that most parents experience almost a sense of being untethered when they transition from being just themselves as an adult to then being, either whether it's becoming a partner, you're getting married, or becoming a parent, there's this kind of clipping of some strings and I need to re-order things. And I, I've heard from so many of the moms who are listening right now around just needing to realign, to re-identify, to kind of get to know who they are, but I feel very curious about what you've seen in your work, like how can we go about doing that in a way that allows us to grow together as a couple, that allows us to, you know, get to know ourselves again in the midst of raising a family cause I, I think it's hard. I think none of us want to wake up when our last kid goes to college and realize we have no idea who we are, right?
Amber: And I think that's a very real thing for a lot of women, and maybe not even when their kids go to college. I feel like, I mean, I said I went back to school when my youngest was in 2nd grade because it was that moment where it was like, I have been, because I had been a full-time stay at home mom. Well, I worked from home, but, and I was like, well, what now? You know, like, I've always been like so hands on in the parenting world, and it takes some work to rediscover who I am as a person. And I think a lot of moms struggle with that because we're used to putting everybody else first, a lot of the time and we have to kind of take a moment to say, who am I? What, what is it that I want? Who, like, what's going on underneath the surface in my life? And then be brave enough to take those steps when we discover what they are.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, so like, gosh, even there, there is an aspect of bravery to it. And then there's also this piece that I feel like girls. grow up being told who who we are and what's available to us. I think so many of the wonderful, amazing women I work with, maybe have never asked themselves those questions. Have never given themselves the opportunity to really explore those things. They've kind of just done what's expected of them, you know, and, and they don't want that for their own kids, and they have to kind of claim that for themselves in order to be able to support their kids and doing something different. What are some of the things, so let's say, we're in that place. We, we realized, gosh, I have no, I don't really know who I am anymore. I know I'm different, I, but I don't really know who that is. And, and maybe I never really knew, you know? Where would a mom start with that? And then maybe afterwards, or a person, but then maybe afterwards we can talk about like why that is important for us to do.
Amber: Yeah. I think to start with that, it could even be really, really simple things. Like you could even just start to ask yourself, what, like what do I want for lunch today? Like, are you used to just eating whatever the kids had left over or whatever, or, you know, we always joke about women don't know where they want to go out to dinner on date night. What if you decided where you wanted to go to dinner? Like, what if you spoke up and said, this is what I really want tonight? Or, you know, what's my favorite color? What's my favorite show? Just kind of really Reminding yourself who you are on just very basic things could be a good starting point. And then you can kind of move into deeper things. I like to think about, you know, If I, and you could sit down and write this out and it would actually be a lot of fun. What would I do if I had an entire day to myself or maybe dream big and think an entire week to myself? And I wasn't worried about other people's expectations or taking care of other people or things like that. What would I do? What would I fill my time with? What would my dreams really be? Like that. It could be a lot of fun.
Laura: With that like exercise, I would, I feel like I would and like so no one's expectations and I'm not, I'm not capable of feeling guilty, right? So like, let's just imagine that the emotion of guilty isn't it's not possible for that to arise in my body.
Amber: Yeah, it can just be a dream world, but live in that world because that unearth what it is that you really love. So you're not actually going to have that week all to yourself probably, but it's gonna help you figure out. What the things are that you love, that you can fit into your week right now around some of the other things that you're doing.
Laura: Yeah, oh, I really like that, and I, I like this idea of having small opportunities of choosing yourself, right? So like, just as an example, I have been feeling a little burdened and resentful around meal preparation for my family. The meals that we tend to, you know, I have two kids with sensory stuff. Some different levels of pickiness. And I very rarely get to make the meals that like I would find delightful, nourishing, enticing. I usually just have to make the things that I know they'll eat, right? Last night, I was like, nope, I'm not doing that. I really want a warm, cozy chicken and wild rice soup. That's what I'm making. And You know what? Everyone loved it and ate it. But I, I also came from the place of, if they don't like it, they are old enough now. So I have 12 and a 9 year old. They're old enough for now to go figure it out, you know? Figure out what they're going to eat. And so I mean, and that felt a little radical for me. And at the same time, like that's what you're talking about, right? Those little kind of in the moment like actually, like, this is my life. My life is not a waiting room. I get to make choices that are right for me right now, you know?
Amber: And isn't it funny that that feels radical? I like how you said that. I mean, it's sad that it feels that way, but it does to us. It shouldn't feel radical to eat what we want to eat, you know, that should be a normal part, but it's nor like, it's common. It's I don't want to say it's normal. It's common for us to feel that way.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. One thing I was thinking about too, you know, so there's, there's definitely decision fatigue that moms and that parents deal with. So I totally understand that, like, I want to go out to dinner and sit at a table and have a menu and have someone start like bring me food, but I don't want to make a decision around like, what restaurant that is. But I also like I think that having practice with tuning into your yes and your no is also really helpful. This is an exercise I take the people who are in my membership through. To just start honing your full body yes versus your full body no, cause we've been pushing aside those things for so long as moms but as women too, you know, just like even just like taking your, this is a wonderful time to do this, like going to home goods or to a little local shop. Because there's so much out right now with like decor and gifts and stuff. Like, so we're recording this in the season before, like right during the holiday season. This is a perfect time to go into a store and to just take yourself on a yes or no date. Like, you're not gonna buy anything. Leave your wallet in the car, right? So, like, because we're not, we're not dopamine mining right now, right? But just even just taking yourself on this.
On this exploration of what do I like? Is that, you know, do I have a full bodied like visceral no reaction to something that I see on the shelf? Or visceral, yes. You know, like reconnecting is good too. Okay. So what I was really excited to talk with you about amber is two questions. Why do we do this in relationships? Why do we put ourselves last? Why do we abandon ourselves? And maybe some of us have been doing this for since we were children, right? With, with our parents. And when we do it, we think it's going to bring us closer to the people we want, right? So, you've been thinking about it from like a children's perspective, a child might suppress their desire for the biggest piece of the birthday cake because they want to be generous and they don't want people to think that they're selfish or self-interested, right? They're hoping to be more seen, accepted, and worthy of love by suppressing that, right? So it starts, you can start very young. So why do we think that's gonna work? And how does it What's the actual outcome?
Amber: Yeah, Okay, let's dig in. I mean, I like what you said because I think that the why behind all of it is so well-intentioned. We really, really want good relationships with other people. We are born wanting those good relationships, right? The attachment, the whatever we want to call it. We want connection with other people. And so we think, I will do all of these good things for other people, and that will give me really good relationships. And so we kind of have this wrestle with belonging to ourselves. And belonging to other people. And we sometimes tell ourselves that it can be one or the other. Like we kind of don't really believe that we can have both.
Laura: If I want to belong to others, I can't belong to myself.
Amber: Yeah, I think maybe on paper we sort of know that we need to like belong to ourselves too, but I don't think we put that into practice very well. So we think I really, really want good relationships. So I will, you know, like what you said with the birthday cake, like, I'll sacrifice my own, you know, my own desires. I really want that big slice, but I won't take it. I'll sacrifice for that, or I, and you also said, because I want people to see me as, I, I don't remember exactly how you word it a bit like they'll see me as so good. And so then they'll love me and they'll appreciate me if I sacrifice that. So we're doing these things thinking now everybody will love me and I'll have great relationships. But in the meantime, we're forsaking that ownership of ourselves, what I like to call autonomy. And we are, anyway, let's just say straight out that autonomy is a word that I feel like can be a little bit triggering in some ways people think it means like isolation, like I'm pushing other people away. I don't, you know, so they're like, well, I don't want that. I want relationships. But autonomy really just means being able to make choices for yourself, being able to be the person you really want to be, having ownership of who you are.
Laura: Right. With in like when we're talking about relationships, being able to do that within the relationship, right, as opposed to losing yourself in the relationship.
Amber: Right. So what we really need is both of those things. We need the and then we need what from a science perspective they call relatedness.
Laura: That's what, so listener, that's what the study of attachment is, is the study of autonomy and relatedness. Like that is the, that's what people who are studying attachment are studying.
Amber: Right? Although often I think the study of attachment leans really heavily into that relatedness. I've, I've read a paper that says, like, where did autonomy go in this? We forgot.
Laura: I think so too. I think, I think because the way that attachment theory has been co-opted and put Into the popular literature. It definitely has that piece of autonomy has been been lost. But so what we're talking about is that we, you, in order to have a healthy relationship, you have to have a healthy sense of yourself, a healthy commitment to yourself, and yourself, who you are authentically needs to be held and seen. Within the relationship, right?
Amber: Right, yep, yep. Yeah, I mean, if we want to get really researchy or sciencey or nerdy or whatever you want to call it, another theory differentiation of self is essentially the same theory as attachment, because it really is about balancing autonomy and relatedness and yet maybe the emphasis is a little bit more on developing the autonomy piece in order to enjoy the relatedness piece. But those two theories tend to go head to head.
Laura: I agree.
Amber: You fight about them and I'm like they're saying the same thing.
Laura: I, oh my gosh, Amber, so fun to talk to you because I've been saying the same thing too. They, they, they do, they, they clash in the literature, they're like presented as Not necessarily conflicting, but as separate things. But ultimately, I think all of these theories at the very base of them are all saying the same thing. They're all saying the same thing, you know.
Amber: We need both of those things. We need relatedness and we need autonomy.
Laura: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Okay. So, what happens to us when we and to our relationships, when we lose that autonomy, when through, you know, over the years, and, you know, because society tells us to or because we think this is what is going to get us that closeness that we're seeking. What actually happens within relationships?
Amber: Yeah, well, we, and so we said, we go into it. We think we're going to have better relationships because we're really, really leaning into those relationships. But in fact, the relationships decrease to the same level that we've decreased our autonomy. From a statistical standpoint, this is what I did my dissertation research on. Looking at those two things, and really when I was going into it, I was assuming we would find groups that were high on relatedness and low on autonomy. And then groups that were the opposite high on autonomy and low on relatedness, and we were going to look at how those things related to your relationships and things. But what we found is that everybody like it balanced out. If you were high on relatedness, you were also high on autonomy, and if you were low on one, you were low on the other, which really speaks to this idea that if I forsake my autonomy, if I really just shut down who I am, ownership of myself, it's actually really going to damage that sense of belonging and relationships that I want to. I can't really have one without the other. They've got to go hand in hand.
Laura: It's counterproductive. Yeah. So it's all like, it's a maladaptive strategy, right? We're attempting to bring this relationship closer, and in doing so, we're actually planting the seeds for more disconnection.
Amber: Yeah. Which is sad because what we really want is that connection. But maybe it's also hopeful because here's a great solution to move that forward when we Can start to reclaim our autonomy when we can start to develop ourselves a little more, our relationships can get better too.
Laura: I love this. I cannot wait to send your dissertation to a friend of mine. You should totally be on her podcast too. So my friend's name is Jana. She has, she's a sex and relationship coach, and she has a program called Wanting It More. And a big premise of her program is that as you learn to stand more upright on your own, you know, become, she doesn't use the terms differentiated because she's not coming from The Bowen Theory perspective, but as you stand up more on your own, that it will allow more authentic connection to happen, and, and that's more satisfying, like satisfying, deeply invigorating, physical intimacy like as emotional intimacy increases. Anyway, but she, I, you're what you're talking about validates her course.
Amber: That’s a lot of research on that specifically in a sexual relationship too.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, I love it. Great. Cool. Okay, so tell me then. If we are so. The impulse, if we're noticing disconnection in our relationship, if we're wanting to improve our sense of connection and, you know, love and maybe emotional intimacy in our, in our partnership, in our couple relationship. Maybe then that means one of the first questions you ask yourself is, who am I? Like, who am I in this relationship? Who, like, have I been abandoning myself at like, where would you start, I guess, as a, as a parent, a busy parent. You know.
Amber: Yeah, I think what you just said is a good place to start. That's a like we said, like just figuring out kind of who you are and what you like. I think that if you want to take it a step further, and this gets harder, but it's also critical, is paying attention to where you're giving up the autonomy in ways that you don't realize. And that is usually tied to looking for validation from other people, looking for reassurance that you are valuable. And needing that to come from other people. So I'm trying to live up to other people's expectations of what I, what I think that they think.
Laura: So one question would be, what areas of my, in my life currently am I looking for, um, reassurance or looking to live up to others' expectations as opposed to my own, or my own idea, I mean, sometimes there are our own expectations, but they, those expectations have been handed to us by others, right? You know.
Amber: Yeah, we've got these mind, like, voices in our head telling us the way we should be.
Laura: Yeah.
Amber: And it almost feels inherent, but it's not.
Laura: Yeah. and what, so that's the first one. What, and then maybe you kind of also said what, like what areas am I looking for, like validation or reassurance on. Okay. How else can we kind of explore that with ourselves and be like good detectives.
Amber: Yeah, I mean, I just think so much of what we do is stemming from that desire for validation or reassurance that we're good and valuable. So, you know, if we think about comparison, comparison is something that we do a lot of the time. We all know we do it, we all know we shouldn't do it, but it's hard to stop. But if we can look at that and say, wait, when I am comparing myself to others, what am I doing? I'm ultimately trying to see how I measure up to another person. I'm either putting myself above them or below them because I'm trying to get a sense of my own self-worth. And am I not exactly. Like I'm handing over my autonomy. I'm handing over ownership of myself by placing my sense of worth in the hands of somebody else, the person I'm comparing to.
I mean, I'm not obviously physically doing that, but essentially that's what I'm doing, right? I'm saying, you be the judge of how I feel about myself based on, you know, how I rate compared to you. I mean, that's comparison. We do people pleasing, same thing, you know, make me feel good about myself because I'm doing all the things that I think you want me to do. And so now I'll feel good about myself because I think that you think I'm valuable. Body image, big one there too, right? Like if I look the way that I think I'm supposed to look, if I weigh the amount that I think I'm supposed to weigh, any of those things, then I can feel good about myself. In all of these things, we're really saying. Somebody else, go ahead and have ownership of me. Go ahead and have ownership of how I feel about myself. And it doesn't work, it breaks us, and it and it breaks down our relationships.
Laura: Gosh, I feel like this is a struggle, Amber, that is just endemic to our lives right now. Like, even more so than when I, I guess I don't want to make assumptions about your age, but when we were growing up. You know, that's always been there, cause again, human beings wired for connection. Like, that's, that is a part of being human, like learning how to be. Autonomous and connected at the same time in a balanced way, right? But so much harder right now and at this specific period of human history.
Amber: Yeah. It's everywhere around us, the pressure to compare ourselves to try to live up to other people's expectations.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. So, and another great question, just to summarize, to be asking yourself would be, in what areas do I find myself comparing myself to, to others. And then you also said, like, in what areas am I looking for, you know, to live up to other people's expectations and in what areas am I looking for outside reassurance or validation. So those three questions are a really good place to start. And I also wonder if there is a oh gosh, you just lost my question because I, I feel like there's a 4th 1 in there. Are there other specific things that we can be exploring ourselves with?
Amber: Yeah, I mean, that one, that one's a task of a lifetime, right?
Laura: Yes, absolutely.
Amber: But I also think you can come at it similarly. It's a similar idea, but just In what ways am I caring for other people, sacrificing for other people, serving other people, not because I'm genuinely choosing it, but because I think I have to to be considered good and worthy and valuable. Yes, that was the 4th 1 I went for mom.
Laura: Yes, yeah, and that's it's related to. Boundaries, right? So I was totally thinking about, you know, in what areas am I reluctant to set a boundary that I know I should, or that I know is authentic, but I don't want to for whatever, you know, I don't for whatever reason, you know. Yeah, right, because we do. We put our thing, other people in front of us. We say yes to the thing we know we should really say no to that we don't have capacity for.
Amber: Yeah. And I think when we can look at our motivation for that, that's when it can be helpful. If I can look at my motivation for saying yes to something and say, am I doing this because I really want to? I mean, it's that walkthrough that you were saying, the yes and no. But, um, am I doing this because it's a, it's a yes, a big yes for me, or am I doing this because I think this is what good moms do or good women do, or, you know, whatever. And it takes a little digging because that's not surface level for us. We probably are doing things thinking. No, I really want to do this, but if we dig a little, we may find that it's really tied to expectations of other people.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. And I wanna just ask you too, so I think I, I, I'm not asking, but like clarify for, for everyone. We're not saying that, not like, okay, so now we don't care about anyone else and we only care about ourselves, right? Cause that doesn't feel good either.
Amber: No, not at all.
Laura: Can you tell us a little bit about that piece of it, how this kennel dthis can feel selfish and how it's not really true?
Amber: Yeah, well, let me take it back to something you said actually a minute ago. You said balancing the autonomy and connectedness, but I would leave the connectedness out, and I would say relatedness, take it to the relatedness, because it's only when we have both of those pieces that we actually feel connection. And so I, like, this is in no way forsaking the relatedness piece of it. We still want to have good relationships. We still want to do kind things for others. I'm and I'm not saying stop sacrificing for people, stop serving people. I'm saying stop sacrificing and serving people because you think you have to in order to be considered good and start to do it because it's what you genuinely want and crave.
Laura: It's coming from a place, a centered authentic place.
Amber: Yeah. And then you start to feel the real connection, right? Because if you're doing it because you think you have to, It's just going to breed resentment over time and mental health challenges and things like that. You're, you know, it can be okay in the beginning, if you're doing that, you know, you're overly sacrificing, doing all these things because you think you need to. It might start out fine, but years down the road, you're gonna find yourself in a place where there's more resentment than you wish there was. And that can really break down the connection.
Laura: 100%, especially if we're talking about this from a parent-child perspective, because they, with adults. It's a little bit different, but with kids, the kids do not know necessarily that the outcome of the sacrifice we're making is going to be resentment and disconnection within the relationship, right? And they can't know that, and they shouldn't know that, right? Like it should not be a burden that they're carrying because there is a like, there is a power hierarchy within a parent-child relationship. It just is present, you know, just because of age and experience. And so sometimes we like when we don't set a limit with our kids that we know we need to in order to not feel resentful, we're putting a burden on the relationship that is, is unjust, you know, that is not, doesn't need to be there.
Amber: And it, and it limits our ability to really enjoy the relationship. Like we lack the intimacy that we really want when, when the real us isn't even the person that's showing up, you know.
Laura: The real us isn't even the person that's showing up. Yes, so I would love to that perfectly leads me into asking you. How, like, what does a relationship, like, how is a relationship negatively impacted by this kind of self abandonment or losing your sense of autonomy? Like, what, how are those relationships characterized? Like what are the like I, I just I'm very curious about. What it looks like in those like in the to be in those relationships.
Amber: I mean, I, and I guess I feel like this can run a spectrum. It could be a it could be, you know, roommate syndrome is something I like to talk about a lot, where we're just kind of going through the motions of being in a romantic relationship, but we're not, we're living as roommates, essentially. We're, you know, getting the tasks done that need to get done. We're taking care of the kids, we're, you know, getting the laundry done, whatever, but we're not actually having connection and emotional intimacy that we, we really want. We none of us wants to feel disconnected from our partner. We want to feel adored and seen and known. But you can't be adored and seen and known if you aren't the person who's showing up, or if your partner is feeling like they can't really show up.
Laura: Yes. Okay. So we all want to feel seen and known, but we can't if we're not actually showing up as our authentic self. If the parts that we are allowing the other one to see and know aren't real or are an illusion, you know, yeah. And so, what you're saying is that when we are brave and showing up as our authentic and autonomous selves, we allow ourselves to be fully seen and accepted by a partner. And if they're doing that at the same time, then the relationship feels different. And so let's talk a little bit about what a relationship feels like when that is happening. When both partners are kind of standing up on their own, and they are. It's kind of standing in a place of kind of centered autonomy.
Amber: Yeah. I, I feel like my own relationship, I've seen this happen, before I went back to school, like we had a good relationship. I would have said we had a good relationship, but it was sort of that, it was moving into more of that roommate syndrome of just like, just going through the motions and whatever, and I remember date nights, we, we are vigilant about date nights, we always have friday night date night. But I remember friday night date nights where it was like, we were kind of bored, we didn't really know what to talk about. I was kind of sometimes resentful, like, well, why can't you plan a fun date night, you know, like taking it out on him, thinking that in my mind at least if I didn't say it out loud, but, ever since I've started to reclaim myself, both in my personal life and then studying about this all day every day.
And, and just going back to school, for example, that was reclaiming a piece of myself, right? Like this was, I had never felt so alive, as when I went back to school, it was, it just felt so right, so good. And all of a sudden, our date nights got a lot better because I was excited about things that I was doing in my life, and that gave us things to talk about. And it just kind of reawakened things for both of us too. And now our date nights, I mean, again, I've always loved date night, but our date nights now are just hours of just talking endlessly because we both have so much to say, and there's so much give and take, and it's so much fun. As we've both, because, of course, he's worked on it too, we just both worked a lot on reclaiming ourselves, you know, strengthening our sense of self, and it just makes a world of difference, that connection that we feel.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, it sounds lovely. I feel so fortunate that my, my husband is my best friend and that we still That we, we both share the idea that we will, as humans, we are constantly in progress. We're never finished, right? So we're always changing. When we, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, so you and I both have backgrounds in human development, right? And so, well we think a lot about child development. We focus a lot on child development, but actually humans develop across the lifespan, right? And so, Having that idea that, you know, so my husband and I very actively share this idea that we are always growing, we're always changing, and there will always be parts of our of ourselves that are unknown to the other one. And that that's okay, but we'll also spend our lives witnessing each other's growth and get just continually getting to know each other.
Like as each stage of, you know, it's so fun. It's so delightful, and it's so It, you know, there is this. You know, there, I think that we think that security in a relationship is thinking, I know everything I can know about them. But I actually think that for like the longevity of a relationship, you need that curiosity, that understanding that there's always something new to learn because on any given day, my partners has grown, change, has had different experiences that will continue to reveal new facets of them and facets of them. And of myself too. And and that as we grow as individuals, we'll relate differently to each other. You know.
Amber: And there's research that actually shows that when we do research called self-expanding activities, it gives our partners a chance to see us with new ice. So that's like activities even just of my own self. It's not with my partner necessarily, although it can be. But even when I'm just doing something new, and that could be as simple as like taking a class that I, you know, an art class, or cooking class, whatever, it allows my partner. see a new me a little bit. And so I feel like that ties really well to what you're saying. Like, it's fun to get to continue to know each other as we get to know ourselves.
Laura: Yeah. Oh, tell me. Okay, so I want to be like respectful of our time. I feel like we've been, you know, we've covered a lot today and I want to, you know, not overwhelm our listeners too. So I feel like this is a good kind of last little thing to dip into. I love this idea of self-expanding activities. I don't know that I've ever heard it phrased that way. I love that there's research on it. So what are, like, what is the definition of a self-expanding Activity and how can we figure out what those are going to be for ourselves?
Amber: Yeah, I guess I would have to go to the research to see exactly how they define it.
Laura: I mean, we're no one's gonna come and fact check or you know, so yes, give us a, you know, just give us a general.
Amber: I think self expanding activity is, I mean, it is what it sounds like. It's anything that takes you maybe a step out of your comfort zone, right? It can be really easy to settle into our day to day routine and we're just going through the motions of all the things. So anytime you're trying something new and different. That lets you see the world through different eyes, that stretches you a little bit, that, you know, pushes you a little bit out of your comfort zone, maybe a lot out of your comfort zone.
Laura: Like reconnects you to a part of yourself that got left in the past, maybe.
Amber: Yeah, yeah, because we all had people that we were before we had kids and things, ber:and we're like, oh, there's that piece of me again. Anything that's doing that could be considered a self-expanding activity.
Laura: Okay. So activities that help us have a greater understanding of ourselves.
Amber: Yeah. And I think that could be anything. I mean, we said course taking a class or something, but even reading a book, listening to a podcast, things like that that are things that you haven't learned before that you're excited about, you know, and that's something you can do during that time or, you know, after that like we can do these self-expanding activities anytime. And it just brings us a little joy. It refills our soul, and then that brings joy into the relationships that we have with our, with our couple, you know, in the couple relationship or in the parenting relationship.
Laura: Absolutely. I feel like what I really have appreciated about our conversation here, Amber, too, is that we've been talking about things that one person can do on their own, right? I think so often when it comes to feeling dissatisfied in our relationships, and the research tells us that after having, you know, that marital satisfaction plummets after having kids and doesn't really start to recover until kids are older, and maybe not at all, you know, if you're not working at it. But oftentimes we, we think there's nothing that we can do just by ourselves to improve the situation that we have to have buy-in from the other person. But everything you've said today is actually something you can do just within yourself.
Amber: Right. Yeah. That could. Everything I would teach would go to that in any relationship class that I'm gonna teach. It's gonna go to work on yourself. And as you work on yourself, your partner's gonna be pressured to work on themselves too. Like they can't not if you're working on yourself. And, and it's could be challenging because they're gonna watch you doing this and it's gonna be like, wait.
Laura: I'm not gonna come with you. Yeah.
Amber: This is uncomfortable. And so then they're pressured to either do it or don't, you know, make it or break it, kind of. But as they as they come along too, it can really make a big difference because you're both elevating, you know, how you feel about yourself, how you feel about the relationship, the emotional intimacy you enjoy, things like that.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. I love that, Amber. Thank you so much. I want to make sure that our listeners can, my listeners can find you and learn more from you. I know you've got a really cool podcast series with just great topics that I plan to listen to so yeah, tell, tell the listener where they can find you and connect with you.
Amber: Yeah, so I have a website. It's just my name amberaprice.com. And then my podcast is called Relatable. That's relate and then hyphen A. It's the, the idea that, as you become better able to develop yourself, you have better relationships, you become more relatable. So, yeah.
Laura: I love it.
Amber: There, yeah, just my website's got lots of resources.
Laura: So awesome. Amber, thank you so much for for sharing your wisdom and your knowledge, and your, your energy with us. I really appreciate it.
Amber: Yeah, this is really fun. Thank you for having me.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!