James Cordova

I love Nakia's story, and I love how it just illustrates that it is not at all uncommon that pressure actually plugs the system.

There's a phenomenon in psychology that we talk about as like control-counter control, that when we are experiencing pressure that we can feel from others, it's almost a basic mammalian instinct to dig our heels in.

Even if what the other person is trying to force us to do is something that we would like.

Like, we really like chocolate, and they're trying to force chocolate in our mouth.

And we're like, what are you trying to do?

Get that away from me.

So when we're pushing on a partner, we can often get pushback.

That's just a natural human tendency.

And the relationship can get stuck in that spot where it's like pressure, resist, pressure, resist.

And if we can notice that that's happening,

do what Nakia is talking about.

Like, oh, I noticed I tried and it didn't work.

And then I tried and it didn't work.

And then I tried and it didn't work.

And then I tried, well, let me try something different.

What if I step back and just like open the field and let my partner find their own way, then the system almost resets in a way where rather than having to resist you,

Now I get to like just seek around inside our shared environment and just have a much higher chance of finding my way into something that really does call to me.

And so, you know, I love that she provided her partner with that space.

And when he wasn't having to fight her anymore, he found his way to like, oh, this is the thing that moves me.

It feels like comfort, right?