#28 Let Go of Resentment, with Elana Israel

Love Is Us: Exploring Relationships and How We Connect

Resentment and anger can damage relationships and impact the quality of our lives when we push them down and don't address them. Because those aren't emotions we like to feel, we tend to deny them or wish them away. Most people don't know how to work with those emotions on their own, but help is available.

Elana Israel, former therapist turned relationship coach, is the creator of Partnership Aligned Podcast. In her 1:1 coaching program, she helps women release resentment so that they can relax and enjoy their partner.

Elana learned first hand in her own marriage that you can be the healthiest version of yourself no matter what your partner says or does. Now she uses her professional and personal experience to help women feel happier with their partner through deeper intimacy and better communication.

Learn more about Elana:

www.partnershipaligned.com

Instagram: @partnershipaligned

Karin's website: www.drcalde.com

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Intro:

[00:00] Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love is Us.

Episode Intro:

Karin: Hi, everybody. This episode today goes really well with the one from last week, which was #27, so I encourage you to listen to that one if you haven't already. So last week I talked with Beth Rowles about how when you work on yourself, it will shift your relationship, and often in really profound ways. And this week we talk about something similar, but we go deeper into one of the ways that you can make that shift.

So my guest is Elana Israel, and she helps women let go of the resentment that they might be holding on to. Now, if you're someone that can identify with this, you might know by now that you can't change your partner, try as you might. You can, however, grow and learn to let go of resentment. Now, Elana has really lived this, as she'll tell us in this episode. She and I are similar in the work that we do, but also like me, she started out as a therapist, and then she made the switch to relationship coaching, and I'll let her tell you what inspired her to make that change.

One of the very last things that Elana talks about was probably my favorite part of the interview. She talks about the spiritual side of her work, but I promise she is not preachy at all and only does this kind of work when her clients request it. So thanks for being here. I hope you get a lot out of this episode, and if you like it, I hope you'll leave us a review. Here we go.

Tanscript:

[02:19] Karin: Welcome, Elana.

[02:21] Elana: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

[02:23] Karin: Yeah, thank you for being here. I'm so excited for this conversation.

[02:27] Elana: Me too.

[02:28] Karin: So tell us where you are in the world.

[02:30] Elana: I am in Philadelphia, which is in Pennsylvania, which is in the United States.

[02:36] Karin: We just had a Pittsburgh guest that I published.

[02:40] Elana: I went to oh, did you? Yeah, I went to Pitt. It was like the only way to get really far from home without having to pay out of know college tuition.

[02:51] Karin: Just far enough, right?

[02:52] Elana: Well, it's like five, 6 hours away, so it's pretty far. Yeah, that is pretty far away. Pennsylvania is pretty big.

[03:00] Karin: It's funny, I've been still I think maybe it's because I'm on the West Coast where we have California and stuff and everything is just a little bit more spread out. It seems like everything on the East Coast is smaller, but not that small. And what keeps you?

[03:15] Elana: Um, well, I'm born and raised in then, you know, I've moved to different places and I came back home because I was know, I got married, I got pregnant. I called my mom and told her I was pregnant. And the first thing she said was, so you're moving down the street? And I was like, yes. So that's kind of what's got me here. Now we do have some other plans, but like, for now, we're going to stay here in Philly. And it's really nice because my mom and my stepdad are 5 minutes down the road and my brother and his wife and kids are 10 minutes the other way. So we're right in the middle of a lot of families, so it's really nice for him, especially when you have.

[04:02] Karin: Young kids, it's really nice to have that family around.

[04:05] Elana: Yeah, he's growing up with cousins. He's got a lot of cousins that are very close to his age.

[04:12] Karin: That's so fun.

[04:13] Elana: Yeah.

[04:14] Karin: Good. Well, tell us what you do for work.

[04:18] Elana: So I am a relationship coach. I was a therapist for like 1314, maybe close to 15 years, something like that. And I guess it's almost three years now, maybe two and a half, that I switched over to coaching. It's more fun, less state laws. And when I was a therapist, my two specialties were like, group therapy and addiction. So those were the things that I worked with the most. But I remember that I would just be the most on fire in a session when someone was talking to me about their relationship. That's where my drive was and that's where I shined and I was good at it. So when I decided that I want to switch over to coaching, I was trying to figure out what my niche was. And I went through a couple of different things and I was working with a business coach and she was like, well, what lights you up? And I was like, Honestly, people's romantic relationships light me up. So that's what I do now. I'm a relationship coach, and I help women release resentment so that they can relax and enjoy their partner again.

[05:33] Karin: And we need that. And we have such a similar story.

[05:36] Elana: I love it.

[05:37] Karin: That's great.

[05:38] Elana: Yeah, I remember you saying that.

[05:39] Karin: Yeah. So you told us really how you came to do this work, but is there anything more that you want to say about why you chose the specific focus that you're.

[05:56] Elana: Way juicier than what I just said? So I was in a very difficult marriage, and I came upon coaching from a personal perspective way before professional. Somebody referred me to something that referred me to someone, and I was really struggling. And this coach, within a matter of just maybe five sessions, I felt like a totally different person, and I was able to find total inner peace in the midst of a very chaotic marriage. So my husband was well, he still is, but is no longer. My husband was an addict, and he was relapsing left and right, and I had just had our baby, and later on I found out about an affair. So it was rough, to say the least. And the fact that I was able to be peaceful and healthy and spiritually evolving while in the midst of that was baffling to me. And that experience going through that coaching modality, I just was like, what are you doing? Because I was a therapist. What are you doing right now? So I ended up looking into it professionally, and I went to get certified in the same school of thought, and I was like, not even a month through certification. It was a six month certification. I didn't even get through the first 30 days before I was like, I just can't be a therapist anymore because I would be in sessions as a therapist wanting to conduct this work with people. And unfortunately, the nature of their diagnoses didn't allow them to really be able to do this kind of work. And I was just finding myself in some compassion fatigue, and I was done, and I knew that I was not showing up the way I wanted to show up anymore. So I left and I went and I finished the certification, and so here we are. So I left my husband after I found out about the affair, and there was a lot of healing and a lot of resentment releasing after that. But so much of my work was done while I was with him. That was the part that was so powerful to me. I mean, anybody can heal after the guy's gone, but to be healing and to be well and to feel calm and peace in the midst of that kind of chaos, I was like, well, if I could do that in the midst of that, imagine what I could help people find peace in the midst of when it's a quote unquote normal situation. Mom is tired. She's got young kids. They're fighting about division of labor, the quote unquote, typical things, as opposed to, like, husband is on drugs. You know what I mean? So I was like, well, if I could do it in that, anybody could do it. And I just became really passionate about helping women just really tap into their own relationship with themselves in the midst of that. So that's really what I do.

[09:15] Karin: Yeah, I actually just posted something about this, but I imagine that having done that work before you left your husband probably gave you a lot of clarity about what you needed to do and confidence that you could handle it.

[09:33] Elana: Yeah, well, it's interesting that you use the word clarity because I'm a pretty spiritual person. And I was praying every night for eight months for clarity. Do I stay? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I go? What do I do? But I know that when I don't know what to do, I just do nothing. I know that. So I was praying and praying and praying. And the day that I found out that he was having an affair, it took less than 5 minutes for me to leave. I was done. I was so done. And I walked away. I drove away and threw my wedding ring out the window on the way. And I was done. And it was so clear to me it was so clear to me that not only would I be fine, but that I deserve better.

[10:22] Karin: Yeah. This might sound funny, and I don't want to minimize how difficult that must have been, but you actually had the gift of a sign like, this is the one other thing that's going to push me to make that choice. I think a lot of people get stuck without it being so clear.

[10:46] Elana: Right, totally. Yeah. And I think I probably would have eventually left if he didn't get sober for both me and my son. But I definitely did have this moment where I was like, oh yeah, this is over.

[11:04] Karin: Yeah.

[11:05] Elana: But I actually work with women who want to stay. I work with women who want to be in their relationship, who want to be in their marriage. And so I help them kind of take ownership for how they may be contributing to the situation because there's always two sides and then helping them release some resentment and then really teaching them how to communicate in an effective way. So I sometimes work with the partner as well, depending.

[11:32] Karin: Yeah. And I want to back up just a little bit because you talked about how when you were working with this coach, yet you were a therapist at the same time you're like, what are you doing? And I think it just might be interesting for people to hear what the differences really are because I think a lot of people aren't clear how does coaching and therapy really differ?

[11:54] Elana: Yeah. So there's two main differences. The first one is that therapy is mostly past based, where we are processing trauma, we are processing childhood things. We are going back and delving into things, giving you a safe space to really be able to take a look at some things. And then as therapists, we're trained to kind of patch you up enough that you can leave our office and function. And then coaching is much more present and future focused. It's much more like, okay, so you've processed that now. Let's talk about how that's affecting you now today and where you want to go from here. The other big difference that I find is that in therapy, therapy is really this place where we get to go back into ourselves and what were the messages that we received when we were children that are now running our life? When we really get to take a look at those. And we do that in coaching as well. But the difference is that in therapy, it's for people who are not functioning right now as a result. So when I say functioning, what that means is you're not living your life. You're either not going to work or can never make it there on time, having a hard time getting out of bed or not getting out of bed somewhat neglecting the kids, not going to outings you're not living life.

[13:24] Karin: Yeah. Your life is really impacted.

[13:25] Elana: Yeah. You're really impacted. Yeah, exactly. In more than one area. And in coaching, we're still looking at those messages and the things from your past, but we're focusing much more on up leveling you from a place where you are functioning but maybe just not feeling great to a place where you're feeling great. So in a really basic term, therapy, and this is a generalization, of course, therapy is to go from bad to okay and coaching is to go from okay to great.

[13:57] Karin: Yeah. That resonates with my understanding too, and my experiences doing both. Yeah. Why is resentment such an issue in relationships?

[14:09] Elana: Yeah, well, in my opinion, it's because of our egos. So the way that I view ego, and I know there's a lot of psychology behind ego, but I'm going to come at it from a little bit more of a spiritual perspective. Like ego is this part of us that always feels like we need to protect ourselves, always feels like someone is attacking us. It's this part of us that is just always kind of with the armor up with the shield. And I think the opposite of ego is love. So you've got love on one side and the ego on the other. And I think that for a lot of the women that I work with, they're feeling resentful because they are taking things personally, they are taking what their partner says and does really personally. And in my experience, whatever people say and do, it's actually about them and it's a reflection on where they're at and what their thoughts and feelings are. And it's very rarely actually about the other person, but when you're on the receiving end of it, it feels like it is personal and that's completely understandable. And so it really takes an outside perspective and an out of the box perspective to help you see just because he said that to you doesn't mean it was actually about you.

[15:34] Karin: Right.

[15:34] Elana: And that's kind of the differentiation that helps people start to release.

[15:39] Karin: But we're not born feeling that resentment. It develops along the way. So how does that happen?

[15:47] Elana: I think it happens naturally as we develop and become into our own conscious self. So I don't know exactly what age that would be. Maybe like five or six or seven or something. Because from a very young age, we learn how to get approval, what to not do, so we don't get in trouble or get criticized. I mean, from, from a, from a very young age, we learn how to kind of be, quote unquote, good. And so I think it's probably right around that time that if we at that point care about being approved of, then we probably also care about not being insulted or not being not approved of or not, you know, like, it's two sides of the same coin. So I've never really thought about it or researched it, but that's what my gut is telling me in this moment.

[16:39] Karin: Yeah. I tend to think that everyone's different, everyone has their own story. And so I don't like to over generalize, but I think a lot of times we learn from an early age that we have to put our own needs aside and that can be really hurtful, and then we hang on to that, and then we can become angry, resentful, whatever it is, whatever way we express that. How does holding on to resentment affect people in other areas of their lives?

[17:15] Elana: Well, I think resentment lives in the body. I think our emotions live in the body, and resentment is a fiery one. And if I have a big fight with my partner this morning and I'm really just mulling it over and ruminating and feeling resentful, that's going to come with me. Wherever I go, my body is always with me. So if I have resentment living in my body and my body comes with me to work, comes with me to be a mom, comes with me to do all the things that I do, the resentment is with me. And while I may not, like, let's say I'm going to an office job, okay, I'm not going to walk in there and feel resentful towards the people in the office because I'm resentful at my partner. But I am probably going to have less tolerance, less patience. My baseline is different now. I'm also going to be really in my head because I'm going to be, like, mulling it over and ruminating and spinning about it. So I'm not going to be present. I'm definitely not going to be comforting to others if something happens. I mean, I'm just really kind of stuck in self.

[18:24] Karin: Yeah. I think what so many people don't really realize is that when you don't deal with those emotions, they're going to come out in other ways because they stick totally.

[18:38] Elana: Yeah. You can't just sweep it under the rug. Doesn't work. The only way out is through.

[18:44] Karin: Yeah. Which also speaks to the other question I have is that why is it so hard for people just to let it go? It's like, okay, that makes sense. I should let it go. Why can't they just do that.

[18:58] Elana: I don't think it feels safe for people to let it go. I think that there is a part, like, I'll speak for me, after I found out about the affair and we split up, leaving was really easy. But clearly there were some difficult emotions attached with the affair because it had been a year. And so I had to do a lot of work around releasing my resentment because I had to. And this is what I do with other people, is I had to really own the part of me that wanted to hold onto it. And that part of me was the part that thought that if I released this resentment, I was now susceptible to him hurting me again. So that was my flavor of holding on to it.

[19:47] Karin: Vulnerable.

[19:49] Elana: Yeah. Well, I felt duped. I felt vulnerable. I felt like I had been taken. I felt betrayed. And having the resentment made me feel like I was protecting myself from any of that happening again. As long as I have this wall of resentment up, you're never going to get me again. And I had to work to release that. Like, I really had to work. But that was my flavor of wanting to hold on to it. Other things that I hear are, if I release this resentment, I don't want to look at what's underneath it. Right. Because underneath resentment is really like disappointment, hurt, sadness, shock, betrayal. Those are very vulnerable emotions. Resentment, like anger, feels powerful. Even if it feels horrible, it still feels powerful. And if you've been wronged, whether it's real or fancy doesn't matter. You feel powerless. So to have an emotion that gives you the facade of feeling powerful is a little bit relieving, actually.

[20:52] Karin: And I bet it can be scary for people then to let it go, but also people who say that, but if I let this go, it feels like I'm forgiving them or I'm letting them off the hook.

[21:04] Elana: Yeah, I was just going to say that if I release my resentment, then that means that I'm letting them know it's okay, right? Yeah, I don't think that that's true. I understand where that would come from, but I don't think that that's true. I think that when I forgive, it's for me, because I'm the one that's living with the fieriness inside of me, and I can forgive and still have a conversation with you. I can forgive and still set a boundary with you. It's not an all or nothing thing. I also think releasing resentment is like a gradual process. Once in a while, I do see it kind of drop as somebody has some type of realization, but usually more times than not, it's this ongoing letting go. And there's a lot of things that come up in that, but it's one of those processes that really helps you grow as a person.

[22:01] Karin: Yeah. So how long is it going to take somebody to let go of resentment?

[22:08] Elana: Well, that depends on the person.

[22:10] Karin: Yeah.

[22:10] Elana: I mean, first of all, you have to decide that you want to because some people will say, oh, I really want my marriage to get better. But if you really dig, they don't want to let go of their resentment. So I think so much of this work is just owning your own shit. Do you curse on here?

[22:32] Karin: Oh, sure.

[22:34] Elana: Great. I think it's really about owning your own shit and not owning any of theirs. Right. Because for some people, pleasers, you really got to work through that, too. But just owning your own shit, that like, okay, I am holding on to this because I want to. I'm holding on to this because it makes me feel safe. I'm holding on to this because I'm afraid of the message that it will give if I don't hold on to it. We have to own that part. And so the quicker somebody owns that, I think the quicker they start the process. For the people who don't want to take a look at that, they're pretty stuck, I think. So my job as a coach is to lovingly help them see that lovingly and straightforward, because that's my style, to help them see it. And so first you have to decide you want to. Then you have to really take a look at what's under the resentment, like, which of those primary emotions are you really struggling with and not allowing to come to the surface. And then I help them process those emotions. And then a lot of times, because it's in the body, I really like to use body work, I like to use breath work, I like to use meditation, I like to use journaling, which I know that's like more thought work, but I think there's such a body release that happens when you write. I've even had people go and scream into a pillow and it's helped. Just something to get out. Exercise. Just something to get it out. Yeah. So I think that how fast it's going to happen is directly correlated to how honest you're willing to be with yourself. That's great.

[24:14] Karin: Yeah. And I want to go back to a couple of things you said. So I tend to see a lot of people who are people pleasers have a lot of resentment. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that connection.

[24:26] Elana: Oh, yeah, I've got a whole podcast episode on that one. It's called the price of people pleasing your partner. I couldn't come up with any more peas to stick in there, but anyway, yes. So people pleasers feel resentful all the time because they are constantly saying yes when they don't want to. So I'm not a people pleaser across the board, but in my marriage I was, because I think I was just trying to save it. And there were many times where I said yes when I wanted to scream no. And that was this bubbling of a resentment that wasn't like, oh, he did something to me. Now I'm pissed. That was like a slow, gradual because what you don't realize is you think you're resentful at the other person, but you're actually resentful towards yourself. People pleasers are resentful towards themselves because they don't have their own back. And I shouldn't say they, I should say we, because I've totally been there, but people pleasers often think that they are being gracious and altruistic and helpful and kind and all of that, but actually and people don't like this, but I say it anyway. People pleasing is lying. I mean, it's just straight up dishonesty. It's me telling you that I'm okay with something when I'm not. It's me telling you that I want to go do that for you. When I don't. It's me telling you that I love that when I don't. It's me portraying myself differently than who I am. So now I've robbed you of being able to love me for who I am. And I've robbed myself of that, too.

[26:05] Karin: Yeah. I see people pleasing as something that really gets in the way of genuine connection.

[26:11] Elana: Of course. How can you connect with the facade version of you right.

[26:15] Karin: Not being authentic, and there's a good reason for it.

[26:19] Elana: Totally.

[26:19] Karin: Really trying to protect your relationships and yeah, that can be a scary thing to think of, doing anything else, but yeah, there really are a lot of consequences.

[26:31] Elana: Yeah. Well, people pleasing is one of those things that I see really starting back in childhood.

[26:36] Karin: Yeah.

[26:38] Elana: It's a learned behavior, for sure.

[26:39] Karin: Yeah. They had to learn how to take care of usually their caregivers in order to get yeah.

[26:46] Elana: And there's all kinds like adult children of alcoholics are big people pleasers. They felt like they had to say yes to protect themselves. Children who had parents who were mentally ill, children who had parents who were perfectionists, strict parents. My mom is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She is a huge people pleaser because she always thought, no matter what's going on with me, it's never going to be as bad as what my mom went through. So she grew up to be a really big people pleaser. And she's done a lot of work on that. When we grow up feeling like it is our duty to be good, to be submissive, to be the person who takes care of everything, when we actually do have to take care of everything, because we might be the only one that's able to, depending on the family, then of course you're going to grow up and that's what you do. Of course.

[27:36] Karin: Yeah. And that takes some deep work to really work.

[27:40] Elana: Oh, yeah, that's a big one.

[27:42] Karin: But it's absolutely doable if people want to.

[27:46] Elana: Yeah, I think everything is doable, really. I mean, in the coaching realm.

[27:52] Karin: So you said that you do breath work, and I think that there's probably a lot of people out there that don't really know what that is.

[28:01] Elana: Yeah, well, I'll start off by saying I'm not, like, a certified breath work facilitator or anything like that, but I have been doing breath work for about five years now, and I do take clients through, like, short breath work sessions whenever we start our session. And breath work, basically, is different ways of breathing. Sometimes you're breathing in a way that wakes up your system. Sometimes you're breathing in a way that calms your system. Sometimes you're tapping into sympathetic, sometimes parasympathetic. It depends what your goal is.

[28:34] Karin: So you're talking about the nervous system?

[28:36] Elana: Yes. I'm sorry about that. The central nervous system. So it depends what your goal is. But the point is that you can actually change your energy level and your mood through breath. What I love most about breath is that your breath and your body are the only two things that are always in the present moment. So resentment is in the past, right? Anxiety is in the future. Thoughts are in the past or future. A lot of emotions are over. A lot of the stuff that we suffer with really isn't about the current moment. But when I practice being with my breath every single day, I practice, you know, the big question in the United States of, like, well, how do you tap into being? How that's? How? By practicing being present by either tuning into your body or tuning into your breath. And there's a lot of different ways to do so. I think the most basic one would be a box breath, where you inhale for four, hold for the count of four, exhale for the count of four, hold for the count of four. Navy Seals use that before they go into high pressure situations. It is that effective.

[29:54] Karin: What does the box breath actually help you do?

[29:58] Elana: Help you shift? Yeah, it helps make you okay? Yeah, it helps make you calmer. And for me, it helps with my neck pain. I have chronic neck pain, and if I'm in a position, like if I'm at a lecture or something and I'm stuck in the same seat for a long period of time, I have to do a box breath every once in a while to relieve some of my neck pain, and it helps.

[30:19] Karin: So are there times when letting go of resentment isn't enough to save a relationship?

[30:26] Elana: Sure, it really just depends if you want to save the relationship. You know what I mean? That's your decision. You could release the resentment and then decide, okay, I'm in a really good place. I've released this resentment, and I'm looking around, and I don't really want to be with this person. And then there are other times where releasing the resentment is all that needed to happen, and now we feel so much closer. So I think it's like a case by case basis, but you get to decide. There's no rules. You get to decide if this is the place that you want to be or not. I know that one of my mentors always says, get yourself into the best version of you and then make the decision.

[31:12] Karin: Yes.

[31:12] Elana: Then you'll have no regrets.

[31:15] Karin: I couldn't agree more. Resentment is not always all of the work to be done, of course, but it's such a big piece of making sure that you are clear enough to make a good choice. And if you can be the best version of yourself, then you're in a much better position to either give your relationship all you have or make a better life for yourself outside the relationship.

[31:42] Elana: Yeah, absolutely. I don't think there's anything if you have non negotiables, then you have non negotiables. But if you decide that you want to work through something as much as the next person would never work through that, that's okay. If that's true for you, whatever's authentic for you.

[32:01] Karin: And how does this work when you let go of resentment and or anger? How does that tend to affect a person's partner?

[32:14] Elana: Oh, God, so much. Because if I release my resentment towards you now, I've cleared my channel. I think of resentment and anger as like this ball of fire in my chest. And so if that's gone now, I feel like I can get curious about you and what's going on with you, and I can love you, and I can hold space for you, and I can connect with you. And if I am the partner and my significant other has been resentful at me for a long time, whether I know it or not, because you'd be surprised. And all of a sudden they release that resentment. And so now they are wanting to spend more time with me, making more eye contact, not avoiding me, not having outbursts. All the things that resentment leads you to do, I am going to want to be around them more too. And guess what happens when two people want to be around each other? Connection. Yeah, it's huge. Resentment is like poison to relationships. Not that it never has a place, not that I think that it's part of life, it's part of the human experience. But I think that it's really hard to maintain a strong connection with a lot of resentment going on.

[33:36] Karin: And I just think that speaks to the power of individual coaching and how even if only just one of you engages in that work, how powerful it can be for your relationship.

[33:49] Elana: I actually don't do sessions with couples. I won't do sessions with couples. I've done it before, back when I was a therapist. And it felt a lot like breaking up two kids from a fight. Like, say you're sorry. What happened? Who started it? What are you going to say next time? It just felt very surface level, like as if we were just talking about the last incident that happened. When I have somebody in front of me by themselves, that's when I can really go deep with you into your thoughts, which then create your feelings, which then drive your actions. What's really going on for you? And how does that link to the experiences you've had before and why would that have triggered you? And those are things that you're not just going to talk about in that vulnerable way next to your partner who you're feeling resentful at. So to be able to kind of get you to a place where you're being vulnerable with me and you feel safe now, I can start to help you if you want to, to release some of it. But yeah, I see so much more progress when I just work with one person. But I do offer in my program, optional coaching for the partner. So you can gift some of your sessions to your partner if they're willing. So some people take me up on it and some don't. And that either way you'll make progress, but I won't put them together.

[35:14] Karin: How do you help people learn a new way to be with their thoughts and their feelings?

[35:19] Elana: First through awareness and then through deciding how they'd like to think or feel instead, and then by helping them bridge that, you know, incremental like thought ladders. So essentially, a simplified version of CBT. CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy. And essentially it helps you learn how to change your thoughts in order to change your behaviors and sometimes vice versa. And so basically, the first step that I do with people is just getting really aware of the difference between what just happened and your thought about it. That is the most important differentiation that you can make. Right? Someone said X, Y and Z to me. That is the fact. What I made that mean about me, that's my thought. What I made that mean about our relationship, that's my thought. And that's the part that's optional. That's the part that we can play with. And so often, people don't even know that there's a difference.

[36:20] Karin: Right? Because they're so often telling a story about what happened. Right?

[36:24] Elana: Yeah, exactly. Story, narrative, thought, it's all the same thing. Yeah, totally. So just helping people really gain some awareness, sometimes that's enough. I've had a couple of clients that once they got the awareness, they just shifted everything. They had no idea. But for most people, then it takes identifying, well, how would I like to think about this? Who do I want to be in these situations? And then kind of helping them bridge that gap through doing some thought work and coaching and a whole long process that I probably couldn't explain just right here.

[36:57] Karin: So for all the people who are listening and recognizing themselves in this conversation who are saying, oh yeah, resentment, I think I do have a lot of resentment. What's a piece of advice that you might be able to offer to them so that they can start on this road.

[37:16] Elana: I would say the very first thing that you could just kind of do right now in your head is to just ask yourself, number 01:00 A.m., I ready to release this resentment. Do I want to? And then to ask yourself what's really underneath it? What are the emotions that are underneath it? And then another way that I like to ask people is if I was to zap this resentment from you right now, what are you afraid might happen? It's just like another way of asking that same question. So to do a little bit of, like, I would say, sit down and journal about it and really write down what your fears are about starting that process, and do you even want to, and are you ready? And if not, that's okay. But why? I think that's a great place to start.

[38:09] Karin: Great. So what role does love play in the work that you do?

[38:17] Elana: Oh, well, like I said in the beginning, love is like the opposite of ego, right? Love is wanting to see where your partner is coming from, even if you don't agree with it. Love is curiosity. Love is compassion. Love is not taking it personally. Love is really wanting to get to know the other side. I think that you can love someone but not show them love. And I think a lot of times, showing someone love can actually help bring the resentment down because you're kind of counteracting it in your body.

[39:04] Karin: You're doing the opposite.

[39:06] Elana: Yeah, absolutely. And I like to ask people when they just say, like, oh, my God, I just want to stop doing this reaction that I always have when he says whatever. I like to ask them, well, if you were to act purely out of love, what would that look like? What does love look like here? And you'd be amazed at some of the answers that people give you. And then it's like, well, do that. That sounds way better than what you're doing. But even just identifying what it would look like is powerful for people, and.

[39:42] Karin: That seems to me to touch a lot on our spiritual side too. So you said that you help people do spiritual work. How does this tie into that? How do people get to a more spiritual place?

[39:58] Elana: Well, I don't do it with everybody. I only do it with the people who want to. Sure. And I get excited when they do because that's a big part of my story. But for people who are spiritual and believe in something bigger than themselves, I don't care what it is, but nature, Mother Earth, God, higher power, whatever, if you believe that there is something bigger than you, more powerful than you, that knows more than you, it insinuates that you don't know it all. It insinuates that you might be mistaken about the message that you received. Message given is not. Message received. So I like to help people connect with their partner on a spiritual level. Meaning, like, I want to really understand what's going on for you. I want to understand where you're coming from. I want to understand where you've been that would cause you to act in this way, and I want to connect with that part of you. And to me, I think that that's spiritual work. And then for people who believe in God, or even for people who just believe in some kind of spirituality, the evolution that happens spiritually when we work on releasing a major resentment is huge.

[41:23] Karin: Yeah.

[41:24] Elana: The journey itself, the process itself, we evolve. And so if spirituality is something that you prioritize in your life, something that's important to you, I think releasing the parts that make your heart hard, I think that that's a big part of spiritual work.

[41:44] Karin: So how do people learn more about you and about working with you?

[41:49] Elana: Yeah. Well, everything is under partnership aligned. So I have a podcast called partnership aligned. I have an instagram at Partnership Aligned, which is where you can find a whole bunch of free help every day, including some freebies you can download all kinds of free. Goodies. My website is partnershipaligned.com. So you search Partnership Aligned, and you will find me.

[42:14] Karin: Great.

[42:15] Elana: Yeah.

[42:16] Karin: I love this conversation today. Ilana, thank you so much. I think that this is really an area that a lot of people need some help with. So I really appreciate all you had to share today.

[42:29] Elana: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. It was a pleasure.

[42:32] Karin: Wonderful.

Outro:

Karin: Thanks for joining us today on Love Is Us. If you liked the show, I would so appreciate it if you left me a review. If you have questions and would like to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram, where I'm theloveandconnectioncoach. Special thanks to Tim Gorman for my

music, Aly Shaw for my artwork, and Ross Burdick for tech and editing assistance. Again, I'm so glad you joined us today because the best way to bring more love into your life and into the world is to be loved. The best way to be loved is to love yourself and those around you. Let's learn and be inspired together.