BEYOND
BEYOND
Ep 20 BEYOND: The more successful I become, the more distant he becomes.
What happens when personal growth creates distance and tension in your relationship?
Join me,Katie Lynn, for a heart-centered discussion on transforming transactional relationships into peaceful, supportive partnerships.
In this milestone 20th episode of Beyond, I unravel the complexities of relational strain when one partner's growth creates distance or makes the other feel left behind. Discover how understanding and respecting the unique physiological and biological experiences of men and women can foster a balanced and nurturing environment.
For all the ambitious women out there navigating the dynamics with their partners, this episode is a treasure trove of insights.
Katie emphasizes the significance of nurturing joy, supporting one another, and steering clear of comparisons. Learn the vital role of emotional provision and open, honest communication in building a successful partnership.
If you're dealing with financial comparisons or a partner who seems to be shrinking back, Katie offers practical advice and mindset coaching tips to create a harmonious and growth-oriented relationship. Don't miss this empowering conversation aimed at enhancing both personal and relational growth.
For inquiries email: katie@katielynnrojano.com
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Hello, my friend, and welcome to Beyond, the personal growth podcast for the people who are healing beyond their conditioning and beyond the cycles that played out before them. My name is Katie Lynn and, with 20 years of experience in the field of psychology and human behavior, I am bringing my natural curiosity, expertise and personal life experiences here for discussions that are guaranteed to be informative, inspiring and entertaining. I'm glad you're here. Let's get started. Welcome to episode 20 of Beyond. I am so grateful you are here. Please take a moment with me to celebrate that we have made it to episode 20. This is such a huge milestone for me, for you, and I am so grateful that you are listening, that you have been sharing this podcast with the people that you love, that you've been leaving reviews and giving me feedback on episodes and my stories and messaging me directly and saying how it's impacted you. This is not a solo journey. This journey is made possible by you and with you, so I am grateful to have you here. Last week, on my Instagram stories, I asked what topics you wanted me to cover on episode 20, because I want to dedicate this episode to you, and most of my listeners are women who are very ambitious. They have a purpose. They have a purpose, they have a mission. They were born for something bigger than them and they know it. They've known it ever since they were young and little, and they also really value quality of life. They want to live a life that means something right. They want to know that they mattered, that they made a difference, and they have the biggest hearts in the world. They deeply, deeply care about the lives of other people and how they show up in the world, and they really go for mastery.
Speaker 1:I want to read you the question that stood out for me the most. Here it is, katie. The closer I get to meeting my goals and the more I notice my prayers being answered, the more growth I'm experiencing. I'm also noticing the more that some of the people closest to me are shrinking back, including my husband. What is that and how do we handle that? I want to keep going, but I want a peaceful house and I want quality relationships too. Ooh, doesn't that question just land right in the feels? I mean, I deeply relate to this and I feel like this is going to be some of the deepest work that we do as women and men over the course of the next couple of generations, because we're noticing a paradigm shift in how we relate to each other, especially as the landscape changes around business and more women starting businesses, more women pursuing their passions and their purpose, more women pursuing their passions and their purpose, more women coming in and wanting to generate money and wanting to play the business game. And more men in jobs that have fixed incomes or in careers that maybe aren't as lucrative financially as a business could be right.
Speaker 1:So when I hear this question of what is that and how do we handle that, the first thing I want to say is there's a couple of things in relationships that we get to be very aware of and we get to have the conscious intention of working through them If we are going to have really peaceful, healthy, beautiful relationships. The first thing is we are on the precipice of the collapse of transactional relating, and what I mean by transactional relating is you give me your loyalty in exchange for my resources. That's one example. You do what I want and then I give you my love. Right, this is transactional relating and in so many dynamics whether it's family dynamics, whether it was with your parents, your caregivers, your teachers so much of our society is set up this way for transactional relating If you have good behavior, you get a cookie. If you have bad behavior, your name goes on the board and you get a detention at the end of school. Right, this is very transactional relating. This is not necessarily a bad thing, right? Transactional relating is very good when it comes to business, when it comes to deals, when it comes to agreements, when it comes to you're going to babysit my dog and I'm going to exchange $200 to you for that right. This is important because these transactions help the world to go around, help to make sure that we are clear on our agreements, that we're clear on our decisions.
Speaker 1:However, within the context of relationships and personal relationships and romantic relationships, it can become a very, very slippery slope because transactional relating requires measuring and the measuring will get exhausting If you are a woman who is consistently measuring a man, and if you, you are a woman who is consistently measuring a man, and if you are with a man who is consistently trying to measure you as a woman. Because it's like measuring apples versus oranges You're both fruits, but different kind of fruits, different kind of fruits. So if the apple is trying to measure the orange in accordance to how crispy it is, there's going to be a problem. If the apple says, is that orange as crispy as me? That orange doesn't stand a chance. If that orange says I'm looking for an apple that's as juicy as me, that apple doesn't really stand a chance. You see what I mean.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to relating, the first thing we do is we drop the transaction because my husband will never be able to do what I can do as a woman. He won't. There are organs that I have that he doesn't have. There's hormones that I have that he doesn't have. There are spidey senses I have that he doesn't have, and the same is true for him. There are a different set of biological and physiological circumstances that he deals with every single day that are going to make it so that I cannot do what he does. And that right there is not a reason for problems. That right there is an opportunity for leverage. Here is how we transcend transactional relating, because if you go, well, he pays the bills and then I take care of the house. No, that's not how it works over here for us, and I'm going to be honest with you. Okay, that's not how it works.
Speaker 1:At the beginning of our relationship. We decided that we were going to do the best that we could to put an end to transactional relating because, number one, it's rooted in judgment and criticism and assessment. Number two, most people who are engaging in transactional relating have not made it explicitly clear what their expectations are of themselves and their partner when they are in this style of relationship. So it is extremely disempowering, because what partner A is measuring partner B, but partner A hasn't communicated what the expectations are to partner B, so partnerB is really striving for an invisible goal line. That's exhausting.
Speaker 1:So when my husband and I came together and we said we are going to release transactional relating and we're going to adopt something different, we looked at each other and said what is that? Something different? And that something different is number one I trust that me and my husband are only, ever, always working in the best interest of the other. Now, this was an explicit agreement. Okay, this was not a assumption. We said this is what we agree upon. I am only, ever, always working to support you and to help you and to be your biggest cheerleader and to empower you, and you are only, ever, always doing the same for me. So that's one. If you don't have a person in your life, including yourself, that you can be this way with, then that's one. If you don't have a person in your life, including yourself, that you can be this way with, then that's where your healing work starts. That's number one. Number two is our intention every single morning is to make a difference, make a effective difference, make a positive difference. So when I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking about how do I make an effective difference in my life, how do I make a positive difference in my life, and then how do I let that ripple out into everyone that I come into contact with, especially my husband and my children? If you can enact these two things, transactional relating doesn't stand a very strong chance to survive, because when you are one only ever, always working to support and empower and encourage and love on you and whoever you are with, and vice versa from your partner, you really don't have time to be criticizing and doing the tit for tat thing. Number two is when your goal and your intention that day is to make a difference, make an effective difference, make a positive difference in your life first and the lives of others around you. I promise you you will not have the bandwidth to come up with all the criticisms and the judgments that run through your head about your partner and where he or she is at and what he or she is doing or what he or she is not doing.
Speaker 1:I hear and really empathize with the sentiment from women that they want a partner who will meet them. I want a partner who will meet me. I want a partner who will meet me. I want a partner who will grow with me. I want a partner that will be as passionate, right as I am, about my purpose and my mission, and I think that that's really beautiful. You know, I really do, and I think there's a subtle distinction that gets to be made here. I think that's that what happens is meeting me gets confused with matching me. Meeting me means my partner sees me If I am having a wonderful day. He sees me in my wonder and he says I love you and I see you in your wonder. Congratulations. That's amazing. I love you so much, I'm so proud of you. That's meeting me where I'm at, no matter how his day has gone, no matter what's happening in his life. Right, that's meeting me. I see you, I hear you, I love you, I'm with you.
Speaker 1:I think what a lot of women are expecting, though ever so subtly, ever so subconsciously, is that their partner will match them, and matching is he's going to be just as ambitious as me. He's going to be just as driven as me. He he's going to be just as ambitious as me. He's going to be just as driven as me. He's going to be just as successful, if not more, than me. He's going to be just as powerful and lit up and productive as me.
Speaker 1:It might happen in moments, it might happen in seasons, but the thing that is critical for us to remember as we step into ourselves and as we step into relationships, particularly romantic relationships, is that every single one of us had a purpose before we ever got into a relationship. Every single one of us was placed here for a reason that has nothing really to do with our relationship status with our parents, with our friends. That purpose is between us and our creator. That purpose is between me and our creator. That purpose is between me and God. The thing that is so important for me to remember is that I am on my journey, and my journey, in this really beautiful, divine way, is informing my husband's journey, and it's informing his journey, because however I show up is influencing his experience as well, and vice versa.
Speaker 1:And if those are matching all the time, there's really no point in us relating, because you can't have growth without contrast. In romantic partnership, your partner is showing up to be a contrast so he can meet you or she can meet you, but if that partner is matching you all the time, then there is no real opportunity for growth there, because there's no opportunity for you to see accurate reflection in terms of gaps, like oh, this is where my passion is versus where his passion is, this is where my energy is versus where his energy is. How do I want to adjust that? Who do I be in that scenario? And I'll tell you that the way that growth moves through a woman is very different than the way that growth moves through a man.
Speaker 1:And so, as a woman, I feel like our growth is very similar to the journey of pregnancy, where it's like once you're pregnant, your body works on that baby 24, seven. Our whole world wraps around the fact that we have a baby and we are creating life, and the mamas that are listening, y'all know as soon as you find out you're pregnant. Right? There's this like wash of all the feelings that come through you, and then all of a sudden, your brain shifts into a different mode and it's like that baby becomes the center of your universe. And so at night you think about it. In the morning you think about it Like it's really hard to forget that you're pregnant Once you know that you're pregnant. As women, that's really how we grow. We literally nurture that creation consistently over time, over the course of 10 months, 40 weeks.
Speaker 1:Right, men don't grow that way. They don't need to. It's not a part of how they're designed to create. You see, okay, you could literally I'm not going to get graphic here, but you can literally think about the process of creating life, how quick that could go for a man. That really is how they grow. It's like a little bit of movement, little bit of movement, little bit of movement. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they explode and you're like where did that come from? That's the growth I've been praying for. Where did it come from? And that's how they grow. So I will tell you and I talked to my husband about this before I recorded this episode, because it's such a big topic, right, there's no way I could answer this question in one episode.
Speaker 1:There have been so many times where I have maybe been the one that has more life force, energy flowing through me and I've been more inspired and I've been more expressive about my ideas and I've been working on things and I've been more inspired and I've been more expressive about my ideas and I've been working on things and I've been creating things and I've been in my mode. And it seems like, from my perspective, he is kind of still and going at his pace. Right. I see it like a rhythm of a drum, like he's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I'm like is he going to come dance with me? You know, is he going to come dance with me? Because he's just at this rhythm that's Boom, boom, boom, and I'm like can he hear that? There's music here? Like I'm dancing, does he want to join me? And really the resolve here is he'll join me when he's ready. And not only does he join me when he's ready, he surpasses me, he surpasses me.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you how many times I have worked with women and they are like Katie, I want my husband to do this one thing. Or he's not doing this one thing and I say leave him alone. Leave him alone, let him be. You focus on you, you nurture your joy, you nurture your creations. You keep loving on him. You keep telling him honestly how much you love him, how much you care about him, how much you made such a good choice that you trust yourself and you trust who you picked as a partner and you believe in him. And this needs to be true. This must be true for you. You keep reflecting that honestly back to him and you leave him alone, watch him blow your mind because he's going to surpass you, your mind because he's going to surpass you. And then, once he surpasses you, you better be preparing and you better be doing your own work so that your insecurities don't bubble up to the surface and cause an argument that sabotages everything. Because that's what can happen, because, I will tell you, my husband has always grown in ways that far exceed my expectations and, quite honestly, he surpasses me. And that leads me into the final point that I'm going to make for this episode. And then, if you like this topic and you want to hear more about it, message me, because this could be literally a series.
Speaker 1:The final thing that I will say is, in a dynamic where you, as a woman, are with somebody and you're in business, or you are ambitious, or you have goals and your prayers are being answered and you're pursuing your goals and you are creating and you are generating money and all those things. It cannot be a competition. There is no comparison because you and your husband are a team. So how do we team together? How do we play this game as a team? And this can be really tricky because a lot of us weren't raised by parents who were teams. It was like dad did one thing, mom did the other. If we had two parents present, some of us had one, some of us had one that was in the home primarily, and the other one was away for work most of the time. So we didn't see a whole lot of actual interaction between our parents. We didn't see a whole lot of modeling of how you navigate this from your caretakers. So this is new territory for us. This is us learning on the fly, in real time, redesigning this.
Speaker 1:So if you notice yourself comparing or being like I did this much today and he did this much, that goes back to transactional, relating right, don't play with that. That's playing with fire. Bring it back down to. This is what I really crave in our dynamic. Maybe the resolution for that is coming really clean about what it is that you expect, what you really want, what that looks like, what that feels like for you in very honest, transparent ways, very heart-centered ways and if you would like support with that, message me, because that's where coaching comes into play. The final thing I know I said that was the final thing, but I'm going to put one more thing in here.
Speaker 1:If you find yourself getting caught up on the money stuff, it's time for mindset coaching. If you find yourself getting caught up in a narrative of I make more money than he does, or I'm generating more and he's not, or he's underperforming and I'm overperforming, it's time to get a coach and it's time to work on your mindset, because the trajectory that we're on is very much going to look different than what relationships previously look like, and there will be plenty of women who own businesses, who run businesses, who out-earn their partners, and they will have a fantastic relationship still, and it has nothing to do with money. As women, we have historically sourced our safety from financial resources, and that's problematic because those can fall away at any given time, whether we're the ones providing them or our partners, the one who is providing them. So that is a false sense of safety, and if that comes up for you as a dialogue, it is time to invest in coaching, and I'm saying that for your highest good and the highest good of everyone in your universe. That way of thinking is important to consider. In terms of resources, right, like, how are we going to generate resources? And, yes, I want a partner who can bring in resources, and I'm also aware that if I am a business owner and he is not, the earning looks different.
Speaker 1:Really, considering that there is a style of relating that exists beyond the traditional idea that the man will be the provider and that providing means wealth, because it doesn't and we will have a new era of women who are incredible, who love the work that they do, who really want to have it all and they bring in great money, and they find wonderful men who maybe don't make as much money as they do, but these men love their careers, they love to be providers and they provide more than just financial provision, which is really what we want as women anyways. Honestly, like if a man is only able to provide for you financially, but he's not showing up with emotional provision and he's not showing up with provision as a father and he's not showing up with provision as a husband, beyond money, as a woman. We're going to be very empty, very, very empty, and we've seen examples of that right. So what is it when he's shrinking back? It could be a variety of things, and I think it's a really great idea to ask from a very heart-centered, curious space, like hey, I've noticed a little less light coming through you lately. I wanted to check in on you. How are you? Is there anything you'd like from me? I love you and I love your light and I miss it because it inspires me. I love to see it. That's one way I would approach it.
Speaker 1:How do we navigate being ambitious women and allowing other people to experience us that way and have fruitful relationships? I think the primary answer to this question is we don't hold an expectation that people are going to match our ambition. We give ourselves the freedom to be us and we give other people the freedom to be them. We don't hold an expectation that we'll be matched. We simply hold an expectation that we'll be met with love, with embrace, with joy, with peace. And if somebody can't meet you there, then a different decision gets to be made. And if somebody can't meet you there, then a different decision gets to be made. And if you can't meet somebody else there, then it's important to be honest about that and consider doing the work around that. So that's what I will leave you with today as we wrap up episode 20.
Speaker 1:Again, if you want more on this topic, please message me or email me. It's katie at katielinrojanocom. If you are not in a position to hire a coach, go to the link in my bio on Instagram and get the power process and start working there With that. It's $47. If you write a five-star review and send me a screenshot of that review to katie at katielinrojanocom, I will give you a discount code for the power process and you'll get it for free. But either way, I want to make sure you're resourced and equipped, because over the next decades, we are going to see a radical shift in how we navigate romantic relationships, especially as the culture shifts and the economic landscape shifts. It's a super exciting time because for the first time in our lives as women, we have the opportunity to have it all, and it will be totally possible for us if we're willing to do the healing work. I love you.
Speaker 1:Have a wonderful day, share this episode with somebody you love, and I will see you on Friday. As we complete this episode, I would love to know your insights, takeaways and feedback. You can message me on Instagram at katielinrojano, or send them via email to katie at katielinrojanocom. Any products or digital downloads I mentioned can be found via the link in my Instagram bio. If you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to share it with at least one friend and leave a five-star review so we can get these impactful dialogues into the lives of even more people. I would also like to thank my guests for their vulnerability and generosity in allowing us to learn from them and grow alongside them. Until next time, friends, let's go beyond.