Designing Relationships Intentionally

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Michael: Everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Upbuilding the Self. I am Michael Sloyer, and I am here with Mary Kuentz and Vipin Goyal, two of my dear friends and teammates at Upbuild. And the three of us are also currently co-facilitating a coaching certification course, and one of the key skills that we teach in that course is, Mary, something you have called creating conscious relationship.

And this is not just the coaching skill. This is really a skill for life. It's a skill for anyone who wants to build more effective and better relationships. And Mary, since you were the one who taught this to Vipin and I, when we were getting certified as coaches under you, it would be great if you could get us started by defining what is a conscious relationship

Mary: Thank you. Thank you so much, Michael. And I love being here. This is a great topic to talk about that I think is really useful to everyone. Well, first of all, we all learned about this concept of creating conscious relationship through a program called coaching for transformation. And the book coaching for transformation was written by several of our friends and colleagues, Gina Kellogg, who is also a facilitator and a Upbuild coaching training, Martha, lastly, uh, Richard Michaels and Sharon Brown. So I want to give credit to them for talking about and writing about this concept. That's just so rich and really, helps us have healthier relationships.

So a conscious relationship is a relationship. that's built on explicitly making agreements and talking about the relationship rather than operating based on assumptions about how we think the relationship might go. It's very much like deciding that you're going to talk about any kinds of agreements and ground rules and ways you want to be together in the relationship rather than just taking it as it all comes.

I think in a lot of relationships, we, we don't really talk about how we want to be in the relationship, what we're willing to give and, what we need to receive in order to bring out our best. So creating conscious relationship helps us do that.

Vipin: Thanks, Mary. I would just add, maybe if it's helpful, when we talk about the levels of consciousness, which is a concept we talk about, In the context of the Enneagram framework, which we often use that Upbuild, we say you can also substitute a couple of words for consciousness.

And I think the same thing is true here when we talk about creating conscious relationship that can think of conscious as aware. So it's a relationship in which both people are aware of the dynamics and the intentions and the hopes and dreams in the relationship.

it's a healthy, aware, intentionally designed relationship. Often, we have all these intentions, but they go unspoken. And Michael, you shared this earlier before we started recording. It's making some things that are often implicit, making them explicit, and then also potentially making explicit some things that we haven't even thought about, but we're making space to do that.

Mary: And really this idea of creating conscious relationship, at least the way I learned it,

Was a way to talk about. How the coach and the client in a in a coaching relationship actually shared power and shared responsibility for the success. of the coaching engagement. So in a lot of traditional helping relationships, the person with the most education expertise, maybe authority would be expected to be the one to make the relationship successful.

So if you think about a doctor telling a patient how they need to be successful, or A lawyer telling their client how to be successful or a boss telling their direct report how to be successful. So these are all examples of where the person in authority is the one quote unquote, in the know and knows how to make the, the person, the patient, the client, the employee successful.

But in coaching. We really felt like actually this is a partnership between equals. It's a partnership between two people who have a stake in the success of the relationship. So what if we actually talk about what does the client need in order for the coaching relationship to be successful? And what does the coach need?

In order for it to be successful and what can we give and receive from each other? What kinds of expectations can we have of each other in order to show up powerfully

Michael: So what are some specific agreements? That a coach and a client who are just starting out a relationship might talk about in a we'll call this skill CCR creating conscious relationship.

So in a CCR conversation, what are some specific agreements that might be talked about in coaching?

Mary: So one of them is confidentiality. That's one of the very first agreements that we make in a coaching relationship is that as a coach, I hold everything confidential except when the client is perhaps doing something illegal or they're endangering themselves or someone else.

So, it's very explicit to my client that I'm holding everything confidential, but they also know the circumstances under which I, I wouldn't hold something confidential. Another one would be around feedback. I asked my clients to please give me feedback about what is or is not working for them. And then I even asked them, how are they giving feedback?

And if telling me something specifically in the moment would be difficult, would they be willing to write it to me How about you, Vipin?

Vipin: In addition to those things, a few other things that I Often talk about in a CCR conversation with a new client is getting explicit permission to challenge them.

So, I talk a bit about balance between support and challenge and how we're always trying to walk that line with enough comfort and enough challenge. And what does that look like? But we'll gauge what is needed on the other side, but we may not always. And so inviting the other person to actively share what's working from them and what's not.

Do they need more, more comfort and more challenge? I will also talk about, um, Interrupting as a coaching skill and one in particular that I'm working on because it allows me to be honest about what I'm working on myself. And it gives me some permission to interrupt my client when I think that's in service of the coaching itself and, and helps them understand what's behind it.

What am I trying to do? And so I'm setting some expectations. I'm again, instead of just doing that. And then having to explain it X post, I'm trying to lay the groundwork for something like that.

And then one really important thing I always, Invite is asking the client, what do they need from me to make this both a, a powerful relationship and a fun experience for them. And so I want them to tell me anything that comes to their mind right away. And then to think about, you know, spend some more time thinking about this so that we can really create the container that will be powerful and productive.

Michael: So thank you both for those examples, and it's clear with something like confidentiality, which might feel like, of course, if I'm getting into a coaching relationship, of course, it should be confidential, but by actually talking about it, there's something different when we bring it from the level of assumption or implicit to something explicit.

I'm wondering, from both of your experiences, what you've noticed is the impact of having a CCR type conversation at the beginning of a relationship.

Mary: One of the things I've noticed in my coaching clients is they have a sense of, oh, this is how this is going to work. She's not going to step over things.

Meeting me as the coach, I won't step over things that happen in the coaching, but I'll actually speak directly about them. And this is a life skill. How many of us just step over or ignore things in the day to day? And they can build up into resentments. They can build up into a lot of big disappointments, but if we have the courage to actually speak to them, our relationships can actually be more transparent and operate more smoothly.

I have had some difficult CCR conversations with my clients and they can get uncomfortable. For example, um, when I was new. in practice. This is 20 some years ago to have conversations with my clients about when they were paying their bills late. And, um, I asked them for permission to talk about that. May I contact you if you haven't paid my bills yet?

Invoice by X date of the month. This was really hard for me to do because I just wanted to let those things slide. People are human. People are late. People forget. But if we actually speak to them in a neutral and respectful way, It can let the client know I'm actually in this with you, I'm not judging you and maybe there's something happening in their life that they're calling me 10 minutes late.

Maybe there's something happening in their life where they have to pay my bill late and the only way to know is to bring it up.

Vipin: I really love this question is what is the impact on the other person? thinking what I feel, I never actually talked about this with any client, but what I feel is the impact is.

There are two words that come came to me. One is a nurturing. It feels immediately like the relationship is being nurtured in a way that's uncommon. And I also feel it's being deeply respected, like the relate both the relationship and the other person is being respected by taking time from the agenda of.

The work to actually talk about the relationship and what's important to each person. I have a sense that it's not something that they've usually experienced before and, I've seen across the board a real appreciation for it.

Mary: I had an experience once where a colleague and I were working on a project.

And I was getting really frustrated with a process that we were engaged in and he paused and he said, you know, I noticed you're kind of frustrated. I'm wondering if you would tell me what's going on for you. And so I expressed some of my frustration and he said, well, what, what could I do to make this easier and more enjoyable for you?

And I told him and I said, you would do that? Yeah. And he said, yes, of course I would do that. I want to do what works for you. And it was a moment where I felt. Uh, a lot of curiosity about, okay, what, what's this guy's angle, but what I received as someone on the, uh, the other end of that creating conscious relationship conversation was a lot of trust.

And I felt like. Oh my gosh, I'm really a priority to this person, and knowing that he wants it to work for me, it makes me want it to really work for him as well. So it was a powerful lesson, and just being willing to show up without my own agenda necessarily, and how powerful it is to want to show up at your best for someone.

Michael: yeah, the word trust was coming up for me as both of you were sharing before you shared this example, Mary, and I appreciate the other things which you both have brought out around first of all, Mary modeling, you're modeling things for the person that you're speaking to. If it's in a coach client relationship, you're modeling things for the client about how to show up in a really open and transparent and clear way.

Okay. And then this idea of epitome of respect and nurture, I'm just imagining what it would be like for certain relationships in my life to, to really have that and to, to hear some of those questions and then to feel really cared for as a result of that. it would be great if we could move from coaching relationships, CCR, into examples of how we might use this in other kinds of relationships

Vipin: I mean, I think it can be used in exactly the same way as we're talking about. Maybe the specific questions and topics might be slightly different, but this is one of the skills that we learned in coaching training that I've probably passed along to more clients than any other skill, Coaching them on how to have, how to create conscious relationship with their colleagues, certainly in every new relationship.

That is being formed, but also in existing relationships, there's many opportunities to do this with existing relationships to just again, make the intentions very explicit to make the implicit explicit to talk about what's working well. Where there are opportunities to strengthen the relationship or strengthen the trust.

So I think that is true for sure at work in every single relationship. There's a lot of scope for, for this. And then as we were talking about prior as well in, in marriages between two partners, between parents and children, You know, as, as Mary was talking about, there can be sometimes, an inherent hierarchy in a relationship between, you know, a service provider and a client, for example, or a supervisor and a direct report, similarly with the parent and children.

How can you use CCR to really change the dynamic of the relationship and invite the child? Maybe at a certain age to, express what's important to them and what they need without disrupting the authority structure that is implicit in that relationship.

Michael: What are some questions? Let's just take the example of a marriage or a spousal relationship or a partnership in a romantic sense of the word.

What are some questions? That we might use in a CCR conversation

Vipin: one up front, how we create a relationship of mutual respect, trust, openness, and honesty. There's a lot in there, like, how will, how will we create that together? How will we, what is the best possible relationship look like for each of us?

This is all, it all kind of coming back to what's really important to the other person, and how do I support that? Even the questions around feedback. Mary talked about how do we How do we like to receive feedback in marriage?

You're just the implicit and explicit feedback happening always. So how can we share those things in a way that is Encouraging to the person is inspiring to the person. How many times have you heard a merit in a relationship where people have all this feedback to share, but they found it's just better never to speak about those things because it never works that out that well.

And so. Now you're burying things that are actually really important to the relationship. So even accountability, have so much accountability in a marriage. So being able to talk about how, when we're not holding up our end of the agreements that, we want to keep with each other, how do we want to handle that?

Mary: Those are really great examples and it makes me think about any romantic relationship or partnership where We might have just expectations of our partner based on what we grew up with, what our parents did, or what our role models did. And, um, do we actually want to have those same roles?

Do we want to show up for each other in the same way? How do we want to handle conflict? Because it's inevitable. If things get heated between us, Is it okay for one of us to ask for a timeout or if I'm trying out a new skill or I've made a new commitment to my partner, I can ask them to bear with me while I get it right.

And even when I, when I mess it up, can they acknowledge my effort?

Michael: Mary, I love your point around what we grew up with and then that being the thing that sort of naturally happens for us because that's what we know. That's one of those things that are just implicitly accepted By many of us. And then when we get into a relationship, of course, in a marriage or a spousal relationship that becomes most apparent, but even in any relationship, that's not how that person experienced their childhood and their upbringing and their culture.

Michael: there might be a lot of similarities, but there will also be differences. And so by creating space for a conversation like this, we're creating space to be able to talk about some of those things. And I think the key here, is that when we give our space, ourselves space to talk about these things, we ourselves get more clarity about those things that relate to us.

So we actually learn about what's true for us, or what might be implicitly there for us, and then we can share that with the other person.

Mary: And then they get to know what works for us, and we get to know what works for them.

And we can be really excited about starting to provide that. Creating conscious relationship is not about making demands of each other, like, you need to do this. We all have boundaries, and we all probably have deal breakers, but it's not about making demands. It's about how do we both bring out the best in ourselves and each other so that the relationship itself can flourish whether it's personal or professional.

I recently got married. I was 60 years old when I got married so I had lived quite a long time on my own and I was very accustomed to doing stuff on my own and I remember when my Husband and I were just dating. I was at his home. He had cooked dinner for me and I started doing the dishes and he's like, no, you, you know, you can't do the dishes.

That's my job. And I had to negotiate with him. It's like, I really, I really want to be able to contribute to how this was all put together. I want to be able to clean up and, and be part of the beautiful evening that you created. So we had to negotiate on that. And since then, we've had to negotiate on who pays for what, how do we handle finances?

He knows not to violate the prime directive, which is don't wake me up if I'm sleeping. Well, we, we had to talk about

that.

Mary: So it creating conscious relationship doesn't all have to be really heavy duty negotiation. It can actually be a really fun way to talk about making your relationship the best it can be.

Michael: For those that might be on audio right now. Dippin and I both had a big smile first when you shared that you got married recently, and also that in some of the examples that you shared afterwards. I think they're so relatable, and also it's just so clear why this is so important, because those are some of the things that over months, years, decades, can build a lot of resentment if we don't actually talk about those things.

Mary: Yeah, there can be disappointed expectations that we can talk about. When there are recurring patterns in a relationship that don't really work very well for the partnership, that's an opportunity to actually talk about what could work better instead.

Vipin: I was also smiling because I think of Mary, you learned CCR from somebody else, but Michael and I learned CCR from you.

And so for me, I think of you as the queen of CCR for me. And so then when I, as soon as you said, I got married recently and we're talking about CCR, I just imagined, Oh, of course, Mary must have sat down with Greg and had a CCR before, you know, as they were taking the step and then I started, I was also reminded that.

You know, when we start, you and I started talking about you joining up build, we had a CCR around that. We had a couple of those conversations because Something was going to change again, you know, you and I, in the first iteration of our relationship, you were my instructor and I was a student in that coaching certification program, then when I asked you if you would start to coach me as part of that program, we had a CCR conversation because the relationship was going to shift.

And take a different form. And it was important to be explicit about what changes and what does that mean? And then again, we had that when the relationship was shifting again, when you were going to join us at upbuild and we were going to be colleagues and peers. And so. It's actually really helpful to talk about that explicitly as well, because you see, a relationship goes through different phases, and every time there is a new phase or stage of that relationship, it's very helpful to be explicit about what do we want to retain.

What's going to change and how can we do that very thoughtfully and consciously and what risks are there that we want to prepare for. And so I, I really appreciated those conversations. It makes me feel safer going into those changes because we're talking about the fears that we have explicitly, like one of the fears that I had was this relationship is so important to me.

this doesn't work out, what will that mean for the relationship? And being able to talk about that very explicitly mitigates. It doesn't eliminate the possibility that that happens, but it reduces the fear substantially that we can actually talk our talk through this. And we both have the same desire to preserve the relationship.

So we will make that a priority.

Mary: I really appreciate what you're saying, Vipin, that this is the kind of conversation that we need to have whenever a relationship changes. Thanks. And it could be a personal relationship, like how do we want to end our relationships? A lot of people just bolt. They just leave.

But what if a relationship needs to end? How do we want to bring it to a closing? We do this. With coaching with our clients, we ask that they have a closing session so we can close the relationship consciously. I'm thinking about to your example about when our relationship was shifting form. I'm thinking about her coaching client recently who was promoted and she had a very close relationship with someone who had formerly been a peer.

But now that she got promoted and the other person did not get promoted, there was a lot of tension in the relationship, and she just bared with it for a while. But then she got the courage to speak to her friend and say, I really cherish our relationship. I'm sorry about what happened. And now how do we want to be in relationship with each other after I've gotten this promotion?

And they were able to really recall all the reasons they liked each other and respected each other as colleagues. And then they were also able to talk about how do we talk about work now? How do we give each other feedback now? How do we support each other now that the relationship has changed? And so what became a very tenuous chapter in the relationship built a lot of trust.

Michael: That example is so helpful, and it also speaks to something that you mentioned earlier around having a vision for how we want the relationship to be. So, Mary, you'll often ask this as a coaching question, like if we were wildly successful, what would we have?

And if we have a sense of what that is, where our North Star is, where we're going, okay, then what, what are some of the agreements that we need to design right now to help us move in that direction?

Mary: And we don't usually have these in personal relationships, but I have it a lot. I learned a lot from creating this in coaching that we can have these conversations. With the people closest to us and most important to us and it may seem weird in the beginning because most people aren't accustomed to this kind of conversation, but it can be really fruitful in the end if we're willing to bear through some of the discomfort.

I have this conversation with teams too, and I know you all do and you're coaching work with teams. to have a team sit down and imagine, vision, what is it that they're trying to accomplish together? And then what do we need from each other and from ourselves in order to make that happen? Very exciting conversation.

Vipin: I was also just thinking about, you know, this point that you shared that it can seem Maybe it can seem awkward in certain personal relationships. It just depends on how you frame it. So I was thinking about how often traveled or, you know, gone on vacation with another family, And it's a family that we have a relationship with.

We have two children, they have two children, and we decided to stay in an Airbnb together for a week. And so I was thinking when I sit down and say, Hey, let's create conscious relationship for this week as we get into it. That might seem a bit strange, but The easier way that I could see myself talking about that is let's talk about what's important to each of us individually and as families for this week that we're about to spend together. And that is really helpful because often we don't do that and we find all these little things potentially annoying because we haven't talked about what's important to each party.

That's a very easy way to think about creating conscious relationship is to have the conversation about what's important to each person as you embark on something new or even not so new.

We've gone on three or four trips together. We're going on a new one. You know what? We've never actually talked about this. I'm going to ask because I really want to make sure that I'm supporting what's important to my friend and their family.

Mary: We all have had experiences. in work relationships, personal relationships, travel relationships, family relationships, where we know what doesn't work. And what if we were able to talk about those things before we get into this situation? And that's really what creating conscious relationship is all about, and it isn't like you're going to create conscious relationship around every eventuality, you can't avoid conflict, but you can talk about how you might want to handle conflict.

Michael: So as we start to bring this conversation to a close, If I'm listening and I'm thinking about, okay, this all sounds great, what can I do to get started? What would you both suggest?

Vipin: For me, I think to get started, it would be helpful to pick a relationship that's important to you and think about any changes that you'd like to make about how you interact with, in that relationship.

And then you can actually introduce the idea of creating conscious relationship. You can share this podcast episode with the other person and introduce the idea of talking through what's important and what's working well in the relationship and what changes both people would like to make. And start there.

Start with one relationship and even one dimension of that relationship that you would like to work on and have a conversation. And just stop there. See how that goes. what did you learn from that? What would you do differently the next time? And then if you feel inspired. Rinse and repeat.

Mary: I love all of those steps, Vipin.

The only thing I would add, if those are the first couple of steps, I might add step zero, which is really thinking about what brings out your best. What are the circumstances where you show up powerfully and well for yourself and for others around you. and really get to know what it is you need in certain roles and responsibilities to show up well.

For example, you could think about what helps you show up powerfully at work. I know for me, one of the things I try to design with the people around me is I like to have the first hour of my day on scheduled so that I can really plan out what I'm doing and do some deep work before I jump into my day.

So this is something that I try to create conscious relationship with with the people around me, but it's something I actually had to learn about myself first. And sometimes the hard way of getting really annoyed with appointments early in the day. but I was the person saying yes to it.

So I think step zero is really understanding what it is you need yourself to flourish. and try to ask for that.

Michael: Thank you both for those steps. So step zero being an exercise of self awareness, understanding what do I need, what's important to me, and then being able to eventually translate that into a conversation and Vipin, what you shared, to pick one relationship.

And maybe you want to start with something that feels like a low hanging fruit where a conversation like this would be reasonably easy to practice the skill with.

So, before we close, is there anything else that either of you would want to add?

Mary: Yeah, I actually have one. One thing you can do. It's a question you can ask and the important roles and relationships is to ask, how can I support you better? It's a really simple question. And people might say a lot of things.

You don't have to agree to everything, but it's one way to really understand how you can show up and be in more conscious relationship. With the people around you

Michael: that adds the giving component relationships are about receiving and giving giving and receiving I think we were talking about before was a little bit more on like what do I need to receive from the other person?

But I like this question because it really focuses on what can I give to you?

Vipin: Yeah, I really appreciate that I mean the only other thing I would add is that I think, um, the process of creating conscious relationship is investing in, uh, alignment So this actually comes up a lot when we do alignment work with people.

Founders and executives, uh, mediation work. And I think that there's always room in any relationship to be more closely aligned, more closely connected, where there's more understanding between the two people, but better communication, higher trust. it's an investment in alignment. And that leads to. I think more fulfillment in any relationship, personal or professional.

So there's always little divergences that are happening in a relationship and creating conscious relationship is looking at those and trying to see where those are and bring them closer, closer together. And it's invaluable.

Michael: I feel like I got to talk to two of the world renowned experts in creating conscious relationship in this conversation.

And I've also been in conversations with each of you collectively as a team and also individually where we have done CCR in the past. And I'm just so appreciative of how much importance you place on conversations like this, and what that's done for the trust among the three of us and across the larger Uphill team.

So thank you for this conversation, for creating conscious relationship with me always, and for sharing all of your wisdom with our audience.

Mary: Thank you, Michael.

Vipin: Thank you, Michael. Thank you for hosting us and, and facilitating such a lot enlivening conversation. Thank you, Mary. Yeah, thank you, Vipin.

Mary: I learn so much from both of you every time I'm with you.

And today was no exception. Really great conversation.

Michael: And thank you everyone for listening.