Dr. Pamela Kreiser
speaker
938 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 11 Aug
Dr. Pamela Kreiser’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
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has a lot of relationship termination qualities. But when we're talking about criticism, we find that women do that more. So let's pair them together and say we have one flashing, now the other one might be flashing, and you might have both of them flashing at the same time. I don't know that they're the same thing, but I don't think it would be helpful to criticize someone who's flooded
Hmm. Right. And you could totally see that happening. It's sort of like the dashboard's blinking. Oh, let's pop the tires. Right? Such a good visual.
Because it's like, wait, you already have another problem. Why are you criticizing in there? Here's what I hear women say. They'll say something like, why don't you ever talk to me? Why are you shutting down? Why can't we have a conversation? How come when it's important to me, you don't have anything to say? Those are all very punishing comments.
That's right, because this is not something this is not avoidance. I guess we should talk about that. This is not I don't like the topic I'm going over here. This is I'm flooded and unable to have the conversation, even if I wanted to. I'm I'm simply not rational or in a good place to do that. So I am absolutely with you that I my former self.
because I have a husband that sometimes gets flooded, my former self would demand a conversation. The very thing that the other person's not capable of doing. You could think about like the other party has a broken leg and you're like, you have to get up and run. It's not a real thing. And so as much as I have always preferred to have the conversation, wanted to get into it, all those things, basically you can want those things as long as you want them. You're not getting them.
So what does research say you can do to move through this, whether as the stonewalling person or as the receiver of someone stonewalling? Well, let's stick with the person stonewalling you. So the first thing to get through it is for all of us who are receiving stonewalling to get way more feet on the ground and say, the research is yelling something at us.
stop hounding people who are incapable of having a conversation. You might have a very strong preference. You might think you are right. You might think you want lots of different things, totally unrealistic. You're going to have to not have that conversation. And we've all been there where we've tried to have it and it doesn't actually happen. You still have to have it at a different time because the person is not capable of doing it, but we try.
And so I think the first thing is if you're the person being stonewalled, you say, absolutely not. I'm no longer going to be demanding, but I am going to be strategic. So I am going to hold space for this and we'll talk about what that means, but I'm not going to give up on the topic entirely. So that means that I will not be demanding in the moment, but I will be scheduling. We have to come back and have the conversation.
Right. So it'll be, can we talk about this in two hours? Do you mind if we talk about it tomorrow over coffee? Can we talk about this on Saturday? And what Julie Gottman has really talked about in her research, that's John Gottman's wife. She said, basically, if you don't have that rescheduled, you don't have anything. You just had the whole conversation got constricted. You never had the conversation and you didn't schedule it. So there's nothing.
really happening. Do it a bunch of times. You've got a pattern. Now you've got a negative drag on the relationship that could lead to termination.
create like a season of life where this happens and i feel like like you don't see the light is even on i mean i think that can be true and i think when you like you both have young children i think this combined with some of the things you can't even talk about in front of the children can lead too many topics on the table that would never get finished
And it's not because you aren't like you're trying, but it's just you have to actively do it. So what Julie would say to you is it's got to be scheduled. You've got to figure it out. Don't give up on the hard topics. And especially one where there's that big of an emotional response. There's something there that needs to be talked about.
So let's flip it around and say, let's say you're the person who flooded. What would Julie say to you? Julie Gottman would say to you, understand what just happened.
note the pattern, note the instance of the flooding, and you need to figure out how to self-soothe. You've got to figure out how to get yourself under control such that you resume regular heartbeat, regular blood saturation, just calm your body to a state that gets back to rationality. Now, most of the Gottman research says it's got to be at least 25, 30 minutes. The pause, like you got flooded, now we need 25 to 30 minutes.
To ruminate, to think about it, to do not. I'm going to guess not. Yeah, I'm teasing. Yeah. So Julie would be the first to say, absolutely not, Meredith. You can't go into the other room and think about how bad your husband is and what a jerky is. And the reason for that is it doesn't actually get you the de-escalation of the body responses that you're looking for.
So you don't go listen to music and just go, man, I hate that family member. And they did this to me and that to me. And what you're doing actually is hurting your own health because your job is to self-soothe and to get yourself into a better state. And you instead extend the heightened state, which is not good for you. I have done this.
Julie Gottman would say, don't do that. Instead, figure out what will be the soothing thing you need. Now, some people need physical activity. They need to stretch. They need to go for a run. They need to go for a walk. They need to sit outside in the sun, whatever. Some people need to do something more related to mood, maybe listen to music, maybe meditate, listen to different sounds, whatever.
Well, I think two things there. I think one is it would be easy for us to go flooding bad. And we're saying it is bad in terms of the utility, if not managed correctly. But this is something I had to, just because I don't flood, it doesn't mean it's not a normal response.
So I think we have to get rid of this idea that, oh, flooding happened. It's bad. Stonewalling. You shouldn't have shown up tonight. We had an important thing we need to talk about. You know that that's there's a little bit of a judgment in there. It doesn't help us. Like it is a human response. Like that's not just this one off. You're this like freak of nature that nobody else is like this. Like this is obviously research based because so many of us go to this place.
Oh, it's kind of comforting. I mean, especially with the men in the research, it's a very high category for men. And I think first, just accepting that this is an actual response, not a not a cop out, not a chicken out. It's only a chicken out if you never come back. Hmm.
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