33: Silence, Anger & Desire: Emotional Patterns that Can Undermine Your Relationship—With Performance Coach Kylie Ryan

Ellen Dorian:
00:00:00

Hey there. Welcome to Make More Love. This is the show for driven entrepreneurial men who want their life to be about more than just business success. They also want a passionate, aligned, and fun relationship with their spouse that lasts a lifetime. I'm your host Ellen Dorian, and this is your space for straight-up, judgment-free conversations about creating a life where you handle the demands of business, relationships and everything else in a holistic and fulfilling way. We're all about helping you be extraordinary in every way that matters. If you're new to the show, be sure to hit that "Follow" or "Subscribe" button right now so you never miss an episode. If you're serious about transforming your relationship and your life, staying connected here is your first step. And, if you find today's conversation helpful, please share it with a friend who could use some new ideas for their own relationship. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. Because today we're talking to Kylie Ryan, one of the most thoughtful, provocative and engaging coaches I know. She is a charismatic supernova and we're diving into everything from emotions to rage to sex. So let's get into it. Kylie Ryan, I cannot tell you how excited I was when you said that you would come on the show. I was Really over the moon. I want to talk with you about so many things. And to our listeners, believe me when I tell you this is going to be more than one episode.

Kylie Ryan:
00:01:37

We got lots to say.

Ellen Dorian:
00:01:39

What I love to do is just have a broad conversation about a lot of topics and then we'll organize it all later.

Kylie Ryan:
00:01:47

Yeah. Perfect.

Ellen Dorian:
00:01:49

so Kylie, why don't you start just by introducing yourself, letting people know what it is that you do and how you got to where you are.

Kylie Ryan:
00:01:57

Lovely. I'll give you the short version. So I am a performance coach. I work with entrepreneurs and CEOs and people in the personal growth space so, fitness businesses or other coaching businesses. I give a lot of talks for entrepreneurs in all sorts of different industries for people from all walks of life around mindset and overcoming self sabotage and getting into a high performance state and to unlock emotional blocks and ways that we can hold ourselves back. I've been doing this now for 20 years. Started coaching when I was just 23. I was very lucky to come across coaching and NLP when I was pretty young and had just finished my university degree, and it definitely set me on a particular trajectory of life. I grew up in the country with horses and animals. So I have that earthy grounded childhood, which was a blessing and also had its challenges, which, which is what it is. But yeah, I'm, I'm really excited to, to help people live their best lives. When I first discovered mindset coaching and went through some belief shift processes, my life in the year following that really transformed dramatically. Early 20s, I was partying a lot, I was taking drugs, I was sleeping around and, in credit card debt, and making instant gratification choices that you make when you're in your

Ellen Dorian:
00:03:24

that's what your 20s are for

Kylie Ryan:
00:03:25

about the future. That's what your 20s are for, exactly! But I went through this coaching process and and shifted some really core beliefs about myself and about my relationship with men, and after that I lost a bunch of weight. I got really fit and healthy. Got myself out of debt, stopped partying so much, found the man that I'm now married to, and started singing professionally in a band. So, a lot of things turned around for me when I shifted my mindset, and I got hooked. And now I specialize in helping entrepreneurs who want to make a positive difference to the world in a significant way, whether that's healing, or social activism or helping people grow their businesses and have financial freedom.

Ellen Dorian:
00:04:09

And we should say you are a business owner yourself. Besides your coaching practice, you own this business.

Kylie Ryan:
00:04:15

I yes, I actually have two, because I created my own coaching certification business, and then In 2018 I found this method called The Spiral, which utilizes muscle testing to help hone in on Unconscious beliefs and help clients to figure out what's actually holding them back. Because oftentimes we don't know, like we might feel stuck or I want to do this thing, but I can't seem to get into action. What's going on. And so we can laser in on what the core issue is that the client might not even think to bring to the session, because it's in the back, back, back of their mind. And that process really shifted my life and improved my practice. We work with people at the spiritual, energetic, mental, emotional, and physical level. So all these five different levels where you would want to optimize your life. What I really love about that method is how holistic it is. And so, we've got 350 practitioners. So yes, I also run my own businesses and, and the private practice and all of those things. So yes, I'm an entrepreneur myself.

Ellen Dorian:
00:05:26

Well, many of our listeners are high performance entrepreneurs and business owners. And my background is working with owners of construction companies. So I work with people who are driven by logic and strategy and getting results. And sometimes They are resistant to the ideas around emotional intelligence or deep personal growth or anything that they think of as woo woo, right? And I know you work with the same kinds of people and I'm just curious, how do you navigate that and how do you help people move beyond what they might not know about and understand?

Kylie Ryan:
00:06:02

Yeah, that's such a great question and it's so interesting because there's billions of us on this planet and we're all absolutely unique in how we think and how we feel and how we process and strategize of course. But when we look at the vast uniqueness of ways humans can understand things, we have our five senses, there's the things that we see and the things that we feel and the things that we can taste and touch. And then inside our minds. With Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy that gives us some information about how we process things. So, certain types of people are more logical and more data driven and certain type of people are more feeling based or kinesthetic. Certain people make pictures in their minds and other people talk to themselves a lot. And we all have the capacity to do all of these things, but some of us prefer and are more skilled at one than the others. So, people that tend to be good at entrepreneurship and business tend to be quite logical, strategic, analytical and data driven particularly in engineering or construction or computing science or, those types of industries. And so to start with, it's just a whole bunch of compassion and acceptance that, hey, we're all different and nobody's wrong. The way that you do it is perfectly fine and that's the way that you've grown up or just the way that you're naturally wired. There's some interesting research that relates different thinking styles to the neurotransmitters that flood your body when you're a fetus in your mother. And so, some of us tend to be more analytical because our nervous system was the thing that got the most energy in gestation. And then other people have oxytocin or prolactin dominance, and that tends to be the person that has a lot of empathy, that is more likely to be self sacrificing and the nurturer, looking after others. And this can be in men or women. So, it's not just for women. And, I'm putting people into very general buckets, of course, We all have all of them to to differing degrees. I think that's an important data point to actually speak to for people who are analytical to just understand that, hey, A part of it is just the way that you're wired in your body. And a part of it is how you're conditioned as well. Cause if you grew up in a family where maybe there's not that much emotional awareness then you can learn as a child that it's not okay to express emotions and you should just shut it down, put a lid on it, stiff upper lip. There's a lot of cultural conditioning and and then also just the male-female biases of, don't be a sissy, that type of thing so that's one influencing factor. But the challenge in relationships, we all do have emotions. It's not like people who are more analytical don't have emotions. Everybody has emotions. It just depends on whether you're actually aware of the emotions that are going on inside. And if you've never been taught that, it's like a language that you just don't know how to speak yet, so the first piece is that permission of Hey, it's okay to have emotions. Because generally speaking Men do tend to have a more logical or single minded focus and be more likely to be stoic and repress their emotions or not express them. And, that again goes to, biological differences between men and women. The left and right hemispheres of the brain and that women actually have a stronger bridging piece in between the left and right hemispheres called the corpus callosum, which allows us to language our feelings. So, A lot of times for men, they struggle because there's less connections there. So it takes a bit longer for them to go in and search for what do I actually feel? If a woman just goes, how do you feel? Then another woman might be like, Oh, I feel a bit angry. I feel a bit upset about this and a bit frightened about that and a bit anxious about this. Can list off five different emotions off the top of your head, but a man might be more like how do I feel? I don't even know.

Ellen Dorian:
00:10:26

We need to be able to ask our partner for more time to process our emotions when we're not sure. I happen to fall more into that category. For a long time, I never really knew what my emotions were. I had to think first, and, and as I started to date my husband and we started to get more serious, he brought that out in me. You seem upset. And at first I would say, no, no, no, I'm not upset.

Kylie Ryan:
00:10:50

No, I'm fine. What? Me? Who? Me?

Ellen Dorian:
00:10:52

But then because of him over time, I learned to say, Yes, And as soon as I figure out why I'll let you know. And it could take a while. It could take a day even for me to process that. But now we've been together 16 years, I am much more in tune with my emotions. So now when he says you seem upset, I can usually say, Oh, yeah, because pretty easily. But I think it only comes when you and your partner work on that as a team. Otherwise you just fall back on your training and conditioning, which is don't feel the emotions. Whatever you do feel, stuff it down. It's nobody else's business, right? Et cetera, et cetera. And we're going to continue this conversation. But before that, I want to let you know about something special I offer to my listeners: A lot of you've been reaching out with questions about your own relationships and I want to help. So, I'm offering this free Relationship Reset Call. It's a quick 15 or so minutes. Just you and me, where we get the lay of the land and we sketch out a plan to get you moving in the right direction. If you're thinking about scheduling a call, here are a few questions to ask yourself: Would you like to be sure that you're focusing on the most urgent and important issues in your relationship? Would it be valuable for you to learn how to apply skills you've already mastered in your work to increase the passion in your relationship? And. Would having an experienced guide help you stay on track as you implement new strategies? If you answered "Yes," then let's connect. Just head over to relationshipresetcall.com, grab your spot, and we'll jump on a call and figure everything out. Because honestly, ...and you know this as well as I do ...if you let your relationship slide, the cost to you financially, socially, emotionally, and in every other way is just enormous. It will truly put a dent in your armor. So let's not let that happen. Let's get you on a trajectory to Make More Love in Your Life and With Your Wife. And we're back. This leads directly into one of the other things I wanted to talk with you about. For a long time now, I've noticed this increasing wave of generalized rage and anger in society. It appears to stem from people feeling isolated and unappreciated and misunderstood. And I think that's particularly true of men because of the things we were just talking about. And that leads into some of the stuff we'll talk about later about how men feel loved and accepted. And how that often comes through physical and sexual contact. And if that's not on the table for so many reasons, then sometimes

Kylie Ryan:
00:13:39

Yes.

Ellen Dorian:
00:13:40

they just don't get that positive feedback and so the, the rage builds up. You have a lot of experience and knowledge around this. So I wanted to get your ideas about what do you think is behind this rage and what can we do

Kylie Ryan:
00:13:54

Yeah.

Ellen Dorian:
00:13:55

to ratchet that back?

Kylie Ryan:
00:13:57

Yeah, well, it's such an interesting topic because even just speaking to emotions in general, a lot of it is people don't share their emotions because no one's making the space for those emotions to be accepted. And when there's so many confusing and conflicting feelings inside that often don't feel good, right? We're not repressing happiness and joy and pleasure. We're repressing anger and shame and jealousy and betrayal and hurt and, all of those things. And so to actually feel those feelings is like, why would I want to do that? Why, of course, I'm going to just shove it down and put a lid on it that's nuts.

Ellen Dorian:
00:14:37

And I think that a lot of times women don't understand that men Really don't have easy access to these emotions. They don't understand how hard it to identify and articulate them. Cause it comes so naturally to women that if a man isn't sharing, it's cause he doesn't want to share, he's doing it on purpose.

Kylie Ryan:
00:14:56

And that's not the case 999 percent of the time, it's more that, if you've been shoving down emotions for a long time then there is this kind of chronic built up stress inside the body that feels like a volcano. Just there bubbling below the surface But there's so much emotion that can feel overwhelming. And then it doesn't go away. It just gets triggered by certain things in the environment that remind you of something from the past. Like to give you a personal example, there was one time my sister said something to me with a with a bit of a tone, a bit of an attitude. And it just sent me into a rage that was a complete overreaction to what had happened in that moment. But the whole point of an overreaction, the reason why we even say overreaction, is that we're not just responding to the present moment. We're responding to the present moment and all of the things that are possibly related to that and it activates that one trigger event that sends down almost like a depth charge into our unconscious. So in that moment I was feeling the rage of all of the fights that I've ever had with my sister and so I acted like a ridiculous teenager because that emotion was coming out in that way. So why would you want to do emotional management? Because when we're in those triggered overreactive states, we make bad decisions. We say things that we don't mean. Things sometimes can't be unsaid and, we can hurt someone so deeply that it can change a relationship forever. And so I think taking responsibility for our own emotions is a key to being a happier, healthier, more productive and successful human.

Ellen Dorian:
00:16:47

So the way that I see this is that feeling emotions is a process. First, you need to actually identify what it is. And then you get to really feel it. But there's a difference between feeling it and expressing it. And that's where the management really comes in. You want to be able to feel your emotions

Kylie Ryan:
00:17:06

a hundred percent.

Ellen Dorian:
00:17:07

and then take responsibility for them, not forcing other people to take responsibility for your emotions. I always say men, but it's not only men, because again, I tend to be more like this than the other way, but, understanding and channeling that emotional control between the feeling and the expressing as opposed to between the impetus and the feeling.

Kylie Ryan:
00:17:28

A hundred percent. It's having permission to have the emotions in the first place and not making them wrong. Cause we have this natural tendency say, the positive, pleasurable emotions are good and the uncomfortable, challenging emotions are bad and that can set up a whole bunch of problems just in itself. I think about emotions more like the colors of the rainbow. Blue is not better than red and red is not better than blue and orange is not better than brown and, they're just all different colors, and you need all of the colors to make a beautiful picture. And so when you think about emotions think about, how can I actually accept that sometimes humans are sad. Sometimes we're jealous. We feel ashamed. We feel guilty. We feel ecstatic. We feel joyful and happy and loving and accepting. And all of these are part of the human experience. And I don't need to be ashamed of any of the emotions. I think that makes a huge difference to being able to accept without feeling like you need to hide it, or protect people from it. It only takes about 90 seconds for an emotion to actually move through your body if you take the time to actually just be with it.

Ellen Dorian:
00:18:45

That's fascinating

Kylie Ryan:
00:18:47

I think of it like a wave, I've grown up here in Australia, but I Grew up inland and so I wasn't a very good swimmer in the ocean waves and my partner is a surfer. And so he's been teaching me how to manage the big ocean waves that are near where we live. And with a big set of waves, you want to position yourself in the right spot and if you dive down underneath the wave, It can roll over the top of you and you can pop up out the other side after it's gone over you. And I think about emotions like this, right?

Ellen Dorian:
00:19:21

Such a great analogy. Yeah. Mm

Kylie Ryan:
00:19:24

isn't it? Cause the more we avoid the feeling, the more we scramble on the surface, the more we get beaten to a pulp sometimes. But if you go, okay, there's an emotional wave coming and dive into it, take a minute to breathe, and let it roll through, it happens so much smoother and you get the insight on the other side. Emotions are signals from your own unconscious. They're trying to tell you something. They're trying to alert you to something that's going on in your life that might need some adjustment. And so it's the postman knocking at your door and he's got a parcel for you, but you won't open the door. And so he's just knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. I've got a message for you. If you ignore it, it's just going to keep knocking at your door. But if you actually just open the door and see what it is, then you get the message.

Ellen Dorian:
00:20:14

Very true.

Kylie Ryan:
00:20:15

You can't make sense of it and have the logical understanding until you've actually felt it. And so that willingness to feel it. even when you don't know what it's about, is a critical piece of getting to the realization or insight on the other side of it. And that helps us to relate to others and feel connected. And so circling back to your question about rage, I think there's a lot of rage coming up because of the pressure, isolation, and trauma of COVID and the lockdowns around the globe. People lost their businesses, their homes, their loved ones, there was a lot of stress for a long period of time. And, over this last 20 year period, a lot of people are realizing things about how society has been structured and people are not willing to just stand by. And 20 years ago, social media didn't exist. You read the newspaper or you watch the free TV. And, and there was only a few channels that could tell the story of what's happened. Now, everybody has a platform and all of these divergent and diverse views are coming out, and everyone has the ability to express their opinions so there's a lot of chaos that comes with that. So I think people are feeling a lot of conflicting and confusing emotions and I think that's actually healthy, even though there's good and bad in it. There's more opportunity for people to express but then the polarization I think that's hugely damaging, and it's pitting people against each other

Ellen Dorian:
00:21:59

Absolutely! And I think there are some social aspects of this too. We've become more and more insular, right down to the household. For instance, I don't really know my neighbors, but growing up, I knew all my neighbors all the way up and down the street, right? We're keeping more to ourselves And our communication is primarily via social media or by internet, and I do think that that is having I won't say a negative impact, but it certainly is having an impact. And it can lead us to believe that we're all alone. A lot of this isolation we feel is because families are smaller. Communities are more insular and also just more spread out. Our circle of friends, they're all over the place. Like I see my friends in the UK once or twice a year. I see my friends in Colorado once or twice a year. My friends in Australia I haven't seen in years now because of COVID. And so the community is virtual, but we also need the in- person connection. And I think that's, what's missing. A lot of people that I talk to, clients especially, feel a lack of support and appreciation, and that's enraging to them because they feel like they're doing everything. Nobody ever did anything for them. They're doing everything for everyone else.

Kylie Ryan:
00:23:15

Of course!

Ellen Dorian:
00:23:16

um, and And they're not getting back what they want. And that's in their relationships, but also in their work and in their social life. I think relationships generally are unbalanced right now.

Kylie Ryan:
00:23:27

I totally agree. And it's, it's really interesting that you say that because it's feeling the lack of connection and the intangible information that we get from someone when we shake a hand or give them a hug or look them in their eye and we can, size them up physically and oh how do you behave when we're off this interview and we go of tea or lunch or all of the incidental interactions around intimacy and feeling we're a part of something together and we're a part of humanity. One thing that I've been exploring with one of my collaborators, Gav, is this idea of nourishment thresholds. You think about how babies came into the world, the standard procedure years ago was to put all the babies in a room together away from the mothers which was thought to be the civilized thing to give the mother a rest. But a newborn baby then learns I don't expect to be held or supported or comforted when I cry. That old school way then raises adults that don't expect their needs to be taken care of, that have learned to be hyper independent as a coping strategy. And it comes with this hyper individualistic sense of I don't want to burden anybody, I'll just do it myself, but also, If someone does show attention or affection, that can be really uncomfortable like, what do they want from me? There must be some ulterior motive. So it can be hard to trust.

Ellen Dorian:
00:24:50

We build a mythology almost around this, the stoic person, right? Something I railed against several times now on the show, is the myths of manhood about men being pursuers, protectors providers. We built that mythology as a way of justifying this, I would say low ability to accept love, and the feeling that it's always going to be rationed. And behind all that is a lot of limiting beliefs and negative inner voices saying we're somehow not worthy of, don't deserve, or we'll get in trouble, or we'll hurt people if we actually express our emotions. We build up these societal cultural structures to perpetuate that

Kylie Ryan:
00:25:30

dysfunctional coping mechanism,

Ellen Dorian:
00:25:32

And, I will continue to talk more about these, outdated, masculine stereotypes that both men and women buy into

Kylie Ryan:
00:25:42

Suffer for Yeah.

Ellen Dorian:
00:25:43

And talk about how to transform those into something more healthy. This has been so much fun. I can't believe we're going to have even more fun, but we are because. Because we're going to talk about sex next.

Kylie Ryan:
00:25:55

I'm so excited

Ellen Dorian:
00:25:56

but for you listeners, that is going to be the next episode. So you'll have to tune in next time to hear what Kylie Ryan has to say about sex. As we wrap up here are three points that I hope you'll take away from today's episode: The first one is that managing and expressing emotions is a sign of strength. It's the key to stronger relationships and better connections. The second one is that societal conditioning and personal upbringing may shape our emotional landscape, but you can control how you express your feelings and break free of those old patterns. And number three is real connection and intimacy comes from letting go of perceptions and showing up authentically with your partner. Alright. I hope today's episode added some real value to your life. If you are ready for more support, ideas, or just someone to brainstorm with here are three ways to get that. One is to join our private and free Passionate Partners, Insider Community on Facebook for exclusive content and resources. Number two is to visit our website and our social channels to learn more about our programs, workshops, and private coaching options. That's passionatepartnersproject.com And number three, if you want to dive into your specific situation, book a free Relationship Reset Call with me. Whether it's a minor tune-up or a major overhaul, we'll make a plan to get you back on track. Just head over to relationshipresetcall.com to set that up. You'll find everything you need, including the links to everything I've mentioned and my personal email right in the show notes. Ellen@passionatepartnersproject.com I'll be here whenever you're ready. And now I've got a request. I could really use your help to get the word out about Make More Love. First, if you haven't already, please hit follow and subscribe on whatever platform you prefer when you do that. It helps more people find the show and it makes sure you don't miss anything. And second, even more important, leaving a review will really help me grow our community so we can reach even more people. And finally, if you know someone who's struggling in their relationship, please share the show with them. A simple share from you could be life-changing for them. So, thank you so much for spreading the word. I believe you had good reasons for choosing the partner you have. My mission is to help you reconnect with those reasons and discover new ways to Make More Love in Your Life and With Your Wife. I'm Ellen Dorian, and that's what I've got for you today.