Welcome to Therapists Uncencer. We are here together in the studio, Patty

Allwell and Kelly Sue Marriott. And let's get to it.

The three words can we talk?

Oh, it sends shivers down your phone.

Yes.

That, the most threatening words in the English language.

So we're going to talk about how to make those three words less threatening.

But when somebody says says can we talk and you're there and you're going to listen,

recognize even what your body just did when I said that. And there's actually a paper on this.

I want to say Stephen Mitchell, but I'm not positive out of the Stone Center, wrote in particular about male relational dread that men in particular when their significant other come to them and have that, you know, honey, we need to talk.

That it's deer in the headlights frozen.

I roll. Oh my God now wet. Yes. So he specifically articulated that but certainly it's not gender-bound.

No.

Definitely not.

We've all experienced it.

And then how do you make it go well, right?

Because if your body goes into dread and going oh my god how do you make

it go well and then let's just add in that whoever's saying this you have also this

long history with them that those words have not gone so well, they lead down some rabbit hole, then you've already

got a response where your body's not so ready to be open.

So one of the things I want to talk about is how to connect those three words to something that actually becomes worthwhile. Like, ah, okay, this is not bad, I can do this.

And you know, actually I'm thinking about the can we talk, it seems like it almost, it's a V. It's like either it I can also imagine it opening my heart and being like of course we can talk right it almost depends on

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