460: Creating A Values Driven Relationship

Speaker A
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Speaker B
Sing this.

What's going on, everyone? Thank you so much for tuning in to today's show, where I welcome Kotor Bloxam. And Kotor is a therapist and owner of Thrive therapy at group practice in Phoenix, Arizona. He also is a podcast host where he discusses how to better relate to others and your mental health. And his podcast is called relatable with thrive therapy.

And today, Coulter and I talk about identifying your values and how to have a values driven relationship. And Coulter gives some really interesting, invaluable tips in understanding what is valuable to us in a relationship and for ourselves, how to communicate that with a partner, and understanding that our values change and why we should be doing some of the exercises he talks about every year, and why it's important to have a values driven relationship more than a goals driven relationship. I really enjoyed this conversation with Kotor. I think you guys will, too. As always, thank you so much for tuning in.

Enjoy today's show.

Hi, Kotor. Thanks so much for joining me on the show today. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Today we're going to talk about creating a values driven relationship.

And one of the things that you say is important to distinguish is the difference between values and goals. So I thought that'd be a good place for us to start, and then we'll dive into how to create a values driven relationship. You have done your homework. That is the correct place to start in understanding the difference between values and goals. And so I love talking about this.

Speaker C
This is a huge pillar of acceptance and commitment therapy, which is the type of therapy that I practice. And it's very counter to western culture. We're very goal driven. We're very like, this is what I'm going to accomplish next. This is my goal for the year.

And I like goals. I think goals are good. I just think being values driven is better than being goals driven. So the easiest way I have come up with a to distinguish it is that a goal is like a specific destination where a value is like a cardinal direction. So I tell people a goal is like my office here, and, like, I'm at it right now, and you're either at it or you're not.

Like, there's a number of people who are here, and if you go 100 miles away, you're very far away. But a value is like a direction, and so a value is like going west. Excellent. That makes sense. So should we have goals in the relationship?

Speaker B
A specific direction? Yes, we should definitely have goals within our relationship. And so, yeah, that's kind of the, one of the hangups for people is like, goals are bad. Goals aren't bad. It's just better to be values driven than it is to be goals driven for a couple of reasons.

Speaker C
One is sometimes our goals aren't necessarily available to us. And then two is having a goal without having a value behind it is kind of like having a destination without a direction, which is fine if you are going somewhere that you have been a thousand times before. But let's say you're trying to go somewhere new, somewhere that you haven't been before. If you hop in the car, let's say we get in the car together, and I'm just like, all right, let's go. And you're like, where are we going?

And I'm like, well, we're going here, but I don't know how to get there. I don't. It's east of here, but I don't know where we are or anything. So you need your directions in order to reach your destinations. You need your values in order to reach your goals.

Speaker B
That makes a lot of sense. And I want to dive into how we can think about our values and creating them in the relationship. But first, real quick, I want to ask you if you could explain what exactly and commitment therapy is. I've never heard that. Oh, okay, cool.

Speaker C
So, acceptance and commitment therapy is called act, often for the act, and it's a type of therapy that is all focused on creating psychological flexibility. And so they say, like, our goal is not to be happy. Our goal is not for everything to be good. Our goal is to be flexible. And they have these, like, six core components that's kind of in, like, a hexagon.

We call it the hexaflex of psychological flexibility. I won't necessarily go into all six of those because it probably would bore people, but just a couple of them that I really like is being able to get space from your thoughts, not taking your thoughts as being invariably true. That's called diffusion. Another is values having a clear, clarified sense of what you value, committed action, being able to commit to acting on those values. And then another one is acceptance, being able to accept things as they are.

And I'll just say the other two, because I've said four of them already. So the fifth one is mindfulness, or contact with the present moment. And then the last one is self, is context, which is being able to see yourself in the context of life as it's unfolding around you, rather than a fixed set of ideas. I love that. I think all of those pillars sound like good ideas to implement.

Speaker B
So therapy through that lens is definitely interesting. So we'll have to have you back on, and we'll dive into the acceptance and commitment therapy paradigm. Yeah, absolutely. I listen to the show. I feel like you have a lot of eft therapists on.

Yes, exactly. It's always so fun to listen because I'm like, oh, they're doing eft, which. Eft is like, my, that's my favorite for couples therapy. Um, act is a really good one, more for kind of, like, individual. And so as I talk about values and, like, we're going to talk about creating a values driven relationship, I think it's.

Speaker C
It's really important to start with your values first, um, and kind of clarifying your values on your own. Yeah. And that's, uh, obviously one of the big things in, in relationship is identifying our own values, our needs, what it is that we want, and then communicating them to our partner, and then within the relationship. So let's talk about how we can identify our values. Yeah.

So one of the points that I want to make is I almost have to apologize to all of my previous therapy clients until a few years goes, because I always use this language about clarifying your values. And that makes me think of being on an archaeological dig and uncovering a fossil and being brushing it off and being like, what is this? Huh? Oh, it's so interesting. Oh, I think it might be this.

I don't know. My three year old's all into dinosaurs, so that's probably why I go to that place. But I've since learned that our values are not something that we clarify. They're not something that we uncover and discover, necessarily. They are something that we create.

They are something that we construct. So I like to give this example of my wife and I bought a new house a couple of years ago, and there's this one room in the house that has a huge picture window. It has a big fireplace. I've had a number of people tell me this is a great Christmas tree room, and it really is. And so when we went into this room, and it's my favorite room in the house, which is called the fireplace room, when we went into the house originally to check it out, the family before had it set up as kind of like a big tv room or like a game room or something.

And so, you know, they had a big sectional in there. And I remember when we moved in, they said, hey, do you want us to leave the tv mount? And we said, no, we're not going to have a tv in this room. And it's not because we're, like, elitist. No tv people.

People get so excited to tell you. They're like, I don't even have a tv. It's like, we have a tv, don't worry. And we had a different idea for this room. We actually nicknamed it the no technology room, which is like, this is a place to retreat.

It's a place to unwind. I picture sipping coffee in the morning, journaling. We have a record player in there because we're hipsters, and it's just like, a cozy, calm environment. And so the question is, like, well, who made the right decision? Who made the right choice about the room?

Like, nobody did. They have their room set up a certain way. And I think that family before had teenagers. I'm picturing they're probably having, like, video game nights in there. You could have a really great Super bowl party in there.

It's just the, the room was designed around the values that we wanted it to encompass. And so that's why I like starting with values. Um, starting with value, saying, this is a room to retreat, have good conversation, disconnect. And then we come up with goals from there, which is, like I said, we call it the no technology room. Which is like, a goal would be like, I'm not going to bring my phone in here.

I'm not going to bring my computer in here. We want to have dinner parties where people end the night by drinking wine and listening to a record. And so those are all goals. Those are all kind of things I can see happening. The values are what lead to that.

Speaker B
What can we do when our values don't align with our partners? Obviously, that's a big question, but let's just go with your example. Let's say we identify we value having no technology in the house or in making space for a room with no technology. And within the relationship, let's just say, and our partner's kind of like, no, I want to be on my phone when I want to be on my phone. How can we navigate that?

Speaker C
Yeah, you just leave them. Find a new partner. No, I'm just kidding. So this has been a hard thing for me in my marriage. One of the things that I have had to recognize in my relationships, and my wife and I have a lot of similar values, and I can even.

I'll maybe at some point share my core values. And so one of those that is on the list is home. And I kind of already started describing that. My wife's an interior designer. We both love hospitality.

We like decorations. So home is something that's, like, huge to us. So that's something that we are really aligned on. It's really fun for us to do together. It's really fun for us to work on our house together.

Another thing that's a big value of mine is adventure. My wife is not a super adventurous person, and so I've had to kind of learn and realize, like, okay, I have to be able to meet that need on my own. That means I can maybe meet that need with friends, or I go engage in that value on my own. My son's starting to get a little bit older. Like, he and I just went camping last weekend together.

My wife's never going to go camping with us, and I want her to. I would love for her to, but that's okay for me to get that value met with someone else, but then also recognizing, okay, so, like, let's say my goal is, like, I want for us to go on a camping trip that's kind of like the destination. And she's like, I don't want to go camping. Well, that hurts. You don't want to do the things that I want to do.

Okay, what's the value behind this for me? Is it disconnect? Is it challenge being in the outdoors? For me, it's adventure and it's unwind. What are the ways that she and I can do that together that work for both of us?

For us, that might be like. Like going to a new restaurant together and turning our phone off and asking some intentional questions to each other that accomplishes kind of some of the same things. So I'm getting to engage in those values. And like I said, the reason it's better to be values driven versus goals driven is because not all of our goals are always necessarily available to us. We might not be able to do them, and so we can shift towards the value.

So I think it's like finding the ways that, like, what are the ways that my partner wants to engage in this value? And then if they don't want to, can I engage in this on my own and have some support from them? I think from personal experience that one of the ways that we get stuck or cause ourselves a lot of frustration and disconnect is when we try to, let's say, maybe control our partner in the sense of, like, making them align with our values. You know, to go with your example, your wife doesn't want to adventure as much. And I could see that another alternative is to go, well, try to convince them, you know, this is why you should come.

Speaker B
This is great. I want to connect with you this way, and then it just can create some disconnect. So can you talk about it? To me, one of the words that came up is, like, acceptance. Like, you have to accept your wife for her values in that she doesn't like to adventure.

And maybe she can share why she doesn't like, and you can share why you do like it and you could connect on that. But can you talk about and if you want to share personally how you get to that acceptance when values like that don't align? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. You even, and you said something of, like, kind of controlling the other partner and the therapist part of me wants to, like, dig into that with you. That makes me wonder, like, I think you interview a lot of therapists.

Speaker C
Like, do they pry at you or do you know how to just deflect? No, no, I wouldn't say I'm happy to go into my own stuff. I actually enjoy it. But, yeah, that's, as I said, like, personally, in the past, I've noticed that yeah. It's like I want underlying that there would be a control.

Speaker B
Like, I want the person to do the things that I want to do. You know, with me, which is super fun. When someone tells you, like, we're going to go have fun, and this is how you're going to have fun. Exactly. Like, that's really fun.

Speaker C
Right. Okay, wait, sorry. Can you. I think I sidetracked this. Can you ask your question again?

Yeah. Like, how someone can work towards accepting our partner's differences or deciding, like, maybe adventure is super important to you, and if you're with someone who's just, like, the opposite, then maybe that's not the relationship for you, necessarily. Totally. I guess navigating that. Yeah.

I'm going to bring in another little tool that we use here at thrive, which is my practice, called our non negotiables. And so I mentioned eft. You guys talk a lot about Eft on the podcast. You probably talk a lot about pursuers and withdrawers. The pursuer is usually the one that is like, I have this high list of needs, and I need for you to meet these needs.

The withdrawer is usually a little more. Okay, like, I'll meet my needs on my own. That's fine. So the pursuer is usually drawing, uh, driving that. We encourage people to get down your top ten non negotiables.

These are the things that are non negotiable in my relationship. Um, and you almost kind of use them like a little bit of a rulebook. So I think of the opposite of this would be like, were you ever a Seinfeld fan back in the day? It's like every woman that Jerry or George dated, they would find something that was wrong with her. There's this one I remember.

They keep saying, this one woman, she has man hands. Like, her hands are too big. And if that's your criteria for being in a successful relationship, you're going to end up like George Costanza. He's miserable and constantly alone because he has a hundred different non negotiables. And so it's like, come up with your top ten non negotiables.

Maybe adventure is on your non negotiables. Like, I want to travel. Like, you're living in Costa Rica. That sounds really adventurous to me. I need someone who wants to be doing those things with me.

I need somebody who wants to have kids. Um, that's, you know, it. That's a non negotiable for me. And so it's like, really understanding. Like, is this a non negotiable for me.

And they're the reason we say ten is because a lot of times the pursuer actually has 20 non negotiables. And we just tell them, like, you have to whittle this down. Like, you can't, you can't have 20. It's too much. And sometimes they don't like that.

But I think that piece of acceptance for it is, is helpful. And someone tells you, like, it's, it's not good, it's not going to be helpful for you to have 20. You need to get this down to ten. Um, and then it helps you sort out some of the things. Like I keep looking over at my list, like, what are some of the things that are non negotiable for the relationship?

And then, um, the things that I'm okay doing on my own. So it is totally okay to recognize, um, I have a need in this relationship and I'm not okay letting it go unchecked. Before we continue on, we're going to take a short break to tell you about our sponsors.

Speaker A
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Speaker B
I want to go to some of your other personal examples. But first, something that comes to mind is this idea that what we think we want is sometimes not actually maybe what we want, or I won't say what's good for us, but we have to figure it out. And I'd love to have your thoughts. I'm just thinking back to when I was just getting out of college, and I was, and still am, into water sports, and I was a kite surfing instructor at the time, and I was talking to my buddy and I was like, yeah, it would be cool. I was single at the time.

It'd be cool to have a girlfriend that also kited. And I had this idea that that would be, like, this great thing. It wasn't super important, but I romanticized it. I thought that would be great. And then he's like, he was an older guy and his partner did kite, and he's like, well, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

You know, he's like, I'm worried about her. When we're both out there, we have no time apart. We're sharing gear. And it kind of just opened my eyes to this idea of, like, what I thought I wanted, and I never actually experienced it. And there are obviously pros and cons to it, but just that idea that what we think we want and is maybe not often what is best or what we actually want.

And I think maybe we just have to experience and go through life and figure out through a bit of trial and error, hopefully not too much error, but what really resonates and what really are those ten things that we're going to say? Hey, this is a non negotiable, and to me, those can change, too. Right? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, that's so good.

Speaker C
And, yeah, I got. I. Well, I was going to say I got married later. I don't know if it's later for some people. For my community, it seemed like it was later.

I got married when I was 30. Like, all my friends were married by the time they were 24, and I was, like, one of the later ones, too.

I think about that as well, like, for my own values. Like, I'm a big golfer, and I see some couples go out and they golf together, like a husband and wife, and they golf together, and they look like they're having a blast doing it. And I see other couples that do not look like they're having fun doing it. And I remember thinking originally like, oh, I'd really like to have a girlfriend who wanted to go play golf with me or wife who wanted to go play golf with me. I realized, wait a second, I don't want that at all.

This is kind of like a different type of time for me. Um, it's a time to, like, engage in, like, competition, um, more like competing with myself. And so I don't really need my partner to be there for that. And so, you know, we have to, we have to accept and love our partner for who they are. And I think that's when we have, like, this list of values, these list of non negotiables, it's like we can kind of reorient to, like, well, what do we like doing together?

Like, what's really fun for us to do together? And there is kind of some trial and error to it that you go try out a few things. Like, when we were camping this last weekend, I saw a man and his wife pulling up and backing in with their Rv and stuff. And I was watching them get all set up. They had such a system for it.

I was watching them. This would be the biggest argument between me and my wife. But one of the things we love doing is we love hosting a good dinner party. Like, if you saw the charcuterie board and the placements and everything that my wife put out, it like, it looks like a Pinterest party. Just.

And it's so much fun for us to do together. And I doubt I would be that engaged in that if I didn't have a partner who wanted to do those things. And so I just keep coming back to, like, what are the things that she likes to do? What are the things I like to do? And then, like, what are the things that we like to do?

Um, and there's certain things that she has on her list that I'm not ever going to do and certain things I have on my list. But I think there's also asking your partner to meet one of your needs, um, in a certain way that's maybe not their cup of tea. So, like, I've referenced sports a couple of times. I'm really into basketball. I live in, uh, Arizona, where the Phoenix Suns play.

I'm a huge Phoenix Suns fan, um, which was really painful. And I told my wife, if I need you to go to one game with me a year, I want you to wear a jersey or something from the team, and I want you to be into the game, and I want you to cheer and be excited. That's all I need. One game a year, and she is like, I can do that, and she does it, and it's really fun when we go. If I'm expecting her, like, I watch every game and I stand while I'm watching every game, if I'm expecting her to get into it that way, I'm going to be very disappointed.

Like, why do you not care about what I care about? She's not going to care about it that much, but I feel like I really want her to go once a year with me. And she can do that. Yeah. And that's what makes relationships interesting, is when we have different interests and, as you said, embracing the places where we have similarities.

Speaker B
You said the dinner party, and it may not be the biggest thing for you if your wife wasn't into it, but she is. And now that unlocks this whole side of you that otherwise wouldn't have been exercised because it'd be pretty boring to be married to someone exactly like ourselves. But I think that's kind of the. At least in my mind, that was, like, the myth or this idea that I had to deconstruct as I became an adult. It was like, no, it's actually way more fulfilling and interesting when we.

Sure, we want to have some aligned values, and those are important, but that we are into different things and. Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's the learning process for so many people is like, I want someone who's into all the same things that I am, but I think we've all probably been in those relationships to some regard, and they're usually kind of boring and kind of lonely. We almost always find ourselves attracted to somebody who balances us out a little bit. I think of, like, I always thought I wanted someone who was just real heady, wanted to talk about all the deep things all the time. And I think if I was married to someone like that, I would probably go crazy.

Speaker C
Because I'm a therapist. I'm kind of engaged in that space all the time. I love being married to somebody who's a little more lighthearted and doesn't take everything so seriously. She's always making fun of me for, like, the different YouTube videos I watch about philosophy and the universe and, yeah, I think if, like, if we were both in that place together, we'd probably both be depressed because we'd just be in this, like, existential dread all the time. So it's great to be with someone who's a little bit different.

I don't know. That was part of that discovery process for me. And, like, oh, I need someone who balances me out a little bit more. Before we continue on, we're going to take a short break to tell you about our sponsors.

Speaker A
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Speaker B
Thank you for sharing that. And I think that's important to hear when you're young and figuring out relationships. That's, as I said with my discussion with my older friend about kite boarding, but, yeah, just kind of was like, oh, yeah, this illusion that I have is just that. And we need to hear these things because a lot of times, yeah, what we think we want is not always the case. So it's good to just have that in our mind.

It's not to say that if you meet someone and you hit it off and you have a lot of similar likes and similarities, that that's a bad thing. But there's so many unique people that no matter how much we have in common, there's differences and to embrace them and look at the positive. You mentioned a couple of your values, and I think it'd be helpful for our listeners and for myself to hear a couple more and just to get us thinking about identifying our values. You said home and adventure, which I love. Can you share a few more?

Speaker C
Yes. Well, I want to talk a little bit about just how we construct these. So I have a values course on our website that's free. Not trying to pitch a bunch of stuff here, but we have this free values course, and I've got this system to do it. And we have a list of values on there.

I think there's maybe 120. And the first thing to do is to do inventory of those and look at what are the ones that stand out to me. And it's just a gut reaction, do I like this or not? And then the second thing that we're going to do is we're going to put these into categories, because if you just choose them all off the list, a lot of times people end up with, like, they end up with values that aren't very different from each other. And so they end up picking strength, growth, efficiency, moving forward, accomplishment.

And it's like, is that really all you're about? Like, you're just about like that? You sound like a robot. And so we put them in categories. So really what would happen is all five of those values end up in one category, and then we go through some of our other ones.

We go through family partnership, relationship, parenting, maybe those are in their own category, and the goal is to look at those categories and then kind of choose one or two from each of them. That doesn't mean you have to only choose one. You could choose all five from one of the categories. You can go to another one of your categories and choose zero of them. But we want to pull 15 out of those categories and then whittle it down eventually to ten core values.

And I think when we do it this way gives us a much more kind of, like, diverse, robust set of values. So I do this every year. Um, I started over at the beginning every year. I don't, like, start with my values from last year. And actually, I.

Adventure actually didn't make my list this year. And I'll tell you why is because, um, I told you when we were chatting at the beginning that, uh, my wife and I have an eight week old baby. Now. Adventure is not super available to me this year.

I would love to be internationally traveling, and I know a lot of people do travel with infants and stuff. It's like, I have a three year old and an eight week old. We're just kind of trying to survive right now. We're not really trying to live our best adventurous life. We'll get back there, but that value is not super available to me this year.

So I redo this every year. I start at the beginning, and here's what made my list this year. And I ended up with nine rather than ten. But I'm allowed to come up with nine because I created the system, so I'm allowed to break it. They are family, home, recovery, craftsmanship, work, strength, rituals, compassion, and earth.

And then what we also want to do with those is, like, we want to define those for ourselves, what they mean to us, because family might mean something totally different to me and you. Um, like, recovery is a good example. I remember I told my dad about that, that recovery was one of my values, and he took it to mean, like, recovery, like sobriety. Um, and I. That's not been part of my journey.

Um, and he was like, wait, are you, like, in recovery? Like, did I not know this about you? And I was like, oh, no, that's not what it means to me. I said. And so my definition for that is intentional time to recharge, recognizing the limits of my body and celebrating having worked hard.

So, recovery is a really active process for me. Like, I think of, like, taking an ice bath is. Is a recovery activity. Um, or just, like, unplugging and taking a nap. That's a recovery activity.

I. And I think everybody needs a value like that on your list. People often want to choose these values of, like, you know, that people on Instagram choose of, like, I wake up at 06:00 a.m. every day, and then I go for a seven mile run, and then I come back and I do a meditation. Um, you need something on your.

Like, you're human. You're a finite being. Um, and I like celebrating when my body gives out, being like, whoa, I pushed myself to the limit, and I have nothing else. Now it's time to go recharge. Like, you're telling me you don't ever need to do that?

Like, everybody needs to do that. I couldn't make it through the podcast without talking about a cold plunge. I'm sorry. I think that's, like, makes it onto 90% of podcasts these days. We need it.

Speaker B
We don't talk about it enough on here. We don't talk about it enough. So that's good. Maybe the first time I've heard it, I definitely engage. Of course you do.

Speaker C
You're kite surfing. Yeah, it's obvious. It's good. I love that in the different categories and some ideas to help our listeners think about creating our values and understanding them for ourselves, sharing them with our partner, and then our partner doing the same, and now were able to relate better and meet each other in the middle. And I love the fact that you said you look at it every year because it goes to what we were talking about earlier, is that we change, things change.

Speaker B
Theres different periods of our lives. Jeff. Yeah, we go through different seasons, and it was kind of fun to go through it this year and then look at last year's list because I think only five from the list last year made it onto this year's list. And that's one thing that I think is really fun about values work, too, is like, your values consistently change depending on where you're trying to go. And I know we're talking about creating a values driven relationship.

Speaker C
And like I said, I think it's important for you to start with yourself. I want to chat on that piece as well as I'm just looking over at my list. And I keep saying looking at my list because I do feel like it's something that you don't necessarily have to have tattooed on your arm, especially if they're changing. Like, it's kind of hard for me to name them all off of the top of my head. I have to kind of go back and look and be like, okay, wait, what does this mean to me again?

And I often will also put examples of what that looks like. I like to ask this question. Let's say there was a tv show that was made about you. You're the main character, and they want to show people, they want to show the viewer that you are engaging in these values. Because you might say, like, I really value creativity, I really value compassion.

And I say, okay, let's say we wanted to show the viewer watching your tv show that you were engaging in these values. How are we going to see it? What are we going to see you actually doing? And we can't use any words, I think of a little montage or something. It's like creativity.

It's like, oh, you'd see me painting or playing music or whatever it is. We have to be able to see it happening. So thats having those examples of it. But moving into the values driven relationship portion, looking at those nine values, I like to whittle them down to now. Okay, what are the ones that really kind of drive my family?

Almost like the core values of a company? I really dont, I dont like how that sounds. But if the Bloxam family had their five core values, what are we trying to be about? So it starts with like, here's what I'm about. Here's what I'm doing.

Here's what my wife's about. Here's what she's doing. What are we all about? And so some of those ones that are on the list for my family, I would say are like, if we just start with my values, family, home, recovery and rituals, I would say are the four that really kind of stand out to me that we all really do together. And by the way, my poor wife when she was dating me, she's dating a therapist.

We actually did this values inventory together like seven years ago, and it was cool because we ended up with eight out of the same ten. And for me, that was really eye opening. Like, all right, we're on the same page, so you could always do this. It's a good thing to do with your partner as well. I just want to accept them for who they are, though, and recognize, oh, she's got other interests that I don't have.

And that's a, that's a good thing. I love that you did it a while ago and, yeah, that's great for people that are dating and you want to understand your partner and relate to them better early and maybe it'll bring up some things of like, oh, we don't really align and that's okay as well. And you either accept or you say, maybe these are my non negotiables. So. Yeah, Kotor, boy, I really appreciate this conversation and the tools and the ideas to get thinking about this.

Speaker B
I know it'll be valuable for our listeners. Can you tell our listeners before we say goodbye where they can find you online a little bit about that, that quiz or the test to help identify the values and anything else you want to leave them with, and then we'll say goodbye. Yeah. Yeah. There's two things that I would point out.

Speaker C
So one is we. So I own a therapy practice called thrive therapy. We also have a podcast. It's called relatable with thrive therapy, and that's hosted by myself and two of the other therapists here. And we talk about stuff like this.

We talk about relationships and then also mental health quite a bit. And then we also have just a number of video courses on our website that are all free to anybody. There just needs to be more mental health resources out there, and that is thrive therapy. Phx.com dot. So Phx, like Phoenix, that's where we are.

So you can check out both of those things. So relatable with thrive therapy and then thrivetherapyphx.com dot. Excellent. Well, we will have those links in our show notes and on our website. And thank you for taking the time to come on the show today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Thank you guys so much for tuning into today's episode. As always, all the links to the guest, as well as any of their recommendations will be in the show notes page. You can find the link to that in the episode description or by going to idopodcast.com.

Speaker A
click on the podcast tab up at the top and you will have access to all the episodes that we've ever done. There are over 300 of them. And while you're on our website, if you haven't checked out our free 14 day happy couple challenge, we really hope you do. It's a free email challenge that we send to you. It's 14 days of fun, easy, doable challenges to help strengthen and improve your relationship.

And if you're looking for something that provides a little more help with working on your relationship, whether it's improving intimacy or communication with your partner, or just bringing the spark back, we would love for you guys to check out our online course, spark my relationship. We're offering $100 off to all of our listeners if you go to sparkmyrelationship.com unlock. We worked with over 15 psychologists and therapists to create the real life tools and strategies that they are teaching their clients, so we wanted to give them to you. It's a self paced online course that can be done in as little as a month or up to three months. You can really decide how much or how little you want to do with your partner or maybe just yourself.

So we hope you guys check that out. It's sparkmyrelationship.com unlock. Have a great day.

Speaker B
You were listening to a pleasure podcast. For more from our sex podcast collective, visit pleasurepodcasts.com.

460: Creating A Values Driven Relationship

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1: Introduction to Values and Goals

2: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Insights

3: Practical Advice on Values in Relationships

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