Episode Description - Trapped in Victim Mode? How to Flip Your Drama Triangle
Life often throws curveballs that leave us feeling overwhelmed or trapped - especially during challenging times like divorce. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Dr. Carrie Johansson, a psychologist and author affectionately known as "The Sensible Psychologist," introduces a powerful yet simple framework that will shift you out of the "Drama Triangle" so you can reclaim your life.
Throughout this podcast episode, Dr. Johansson reveals practical tools that allow you to honestly assess your situation without judgment and finally break free from the cycle of avoidance that’s keeping you stuck. She also highlights the crucial mindset shift that will help you stop waiting for motivation and move forward into action.
Dr. Johansson also challenges conventional wisdom about relationships, suggesting that collaboration - NOT compromise - leads to healthier partnerships. By changing predictable conflict patterns and accepting that some disagreements may never be fully resolved, couples can move from resentment to understanding, creating relationships that feel less like work and more like joy.
Dr. Johansson’s straightforward yet compassionate approach helps you discover your "next best move" in any situation, guiding you toward the outcomes you truly desire.
Show Notes
About Dr. Carrie Johansson
Dr. Carrie Johansson is a psychologist turned speaker and author. Fondly known as The Sensible Psychologist, she works with teams, corporate audiences and dedicated individuals, to build resilience and help them skillfully navigate life’s inevitable ups and downs. On a personal note, Dr. Carrie works her own program to create a life she really enjoys. One of her favorite pastimes is baking muffins, ask her for your favorite flavor and she’ll make them for you!
Connect with Dr. Carrie Johansson
Connect with Dr. Carrie Johansson on Facebook at Dr. Carrie Johansson and LinkedIn at Self Help on the Go and follow her on YouTube. To find out more about the work Dr. Johansson does visit her website at Self Help On The Go and grab her book Self Help On The Go.
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Dr. Carrie Johansson
- Dr. Carrie Johansson, "the sensible psychologist," explains that people can tell they're in victim mode when they ask "why me?", feel life is happening to them, and look for someone to rescue them.
- The Drama Triangle consists of three roles: victim (feeling helpless), rescuer (trying to save others), and bully (rigidly demanding things be done a certain way). This creates unhealthy relationship dynamics.
- The opposite of the Drama Triangle is the Choice Triangle, which replaces victim with creator, rescuer with champion, and bully with challenger, focusing on "what's my next best move?"
- Happiness isn't something that just appears—it requires active creation through small, intentional actions and conscious awareness of positive moments in your daily life.
- Avoidance increases pain; directly facing difficult tasks prevents the prolonged suffering of postponement.
- Motivation follows action—start the task first, then motivation will come naturally.
- The process to move from Drama to Choice Triangle: acceptance of reality, assessment of options, and taking action.
- Compromise builds resentment, while collaboration creates something better than either person could alone.
- According to Gottman research, 70% of relationship arguments recur from early in the relationship—learning to accept these differences is essential.
- Breaking negative relationship patterns requires deliberately changing context to disrupt established conflict cycles.
- Chosen actions toward the life you want consistently lead to positive outcomes.
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Transcript
Leaving Trapped in Victim Mode? How to Flip Your Drama Triangle
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
choice triangle, collaboration, awareness, assessment
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Dr. Carrie Johansson
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show.
With me today, I have the immense pleasure of speaking with Dr Carrie Johansson. Dr Carrie is a psychologist turned speaker and author. Fondly known as the sensible psychologist, she works with teams, corporate audiences and dedicated individuals to build resilience and help them skillfully navigate life's inevitable ups and downs. On a personal note, Dr Carrie works her own program to create a life she really enjoys. One of her favorite pastimes is baking muffins, and if you ask her for your favorite flavor, she just might make them for you. Dr Carrie, welcome to the show.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
01:19
Hi, it's nice to be here. Okay, my favorite flavor is blueberry. Well, I made chocolate espresso muffins this morning on a request from a friend, so she had fresh muffins at a meeting that she was at this morning.
Karen Covy Host
01:33
That sounds like I would suffer with chocolate espresso. That's cool.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
01:39
We can do blueberry next time. Next time we get together in person, I'll make you some blueberry.
Karen Covy Host
01:43
Oh, my goodness, that sounds amazing, but we're not here to talk about muffins, so let's dive in. And I was really excited to have this conversation because I know you and I are on a similar page the same page, actually when it comes to helping people through difficult life transitions. When it comes to helping people through difficult life transitions, and what I wanted to talk with you about is because people have a natural tendency which makes so much sense to feel bad when they're going a divorce. They figure that they feel like poor me, poor me. Why did this happen to me? I didn't sign up for this kind of thing, right? Why is this happening to me?
02:22
And it's really easy to get trapped in victim mode, yeah, but, and when you're in that head space, it's easy for someone else to say, oh, you know, just shake it off, get out of it. But it's not so it's not that easy to do. So I wanted to talk to you about how you help people get out of that psychology and into something that will serve them better. So how do you do that? What would you say to somebody who's like starting the divorce process or thinking about it and think this is not, this isn't what I wanted for my life. I shouldn't have to be doing this for me.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
03:00
Yeah, and I think one of the most important places to start is just to understand that you're in victim mode, and we all get into victim mode. I think sometimes we have this idea that if we're in victim mode that means that there's something wrong with us or that you know we're doing something wrong, and the answer is like I teach this stuff, Karen, all the time. I have to catch myself when I get into victim mode and the number one way that you can tell am I in victim mode? There's a couple of tells. The first, the number one way, is if you are asking the question why me? And you feel like life is happening to you instead of you creating your life right.
03:46
That's the number one thing. The next major tell that you're actually in victim mode is that you're looking for a rescue. You want someone to come and make it all better. Right, and sometimes you'll be doing that with yourself Well, if I'd only done this, if I'd only done that. Well, if I'd only done this, if I'd only done that, if he'd only done this, if she'd only done that. Right, like that. When you're looking for the rescue, that actually is an indication that you are still in victim mode and that's really good.
Karen Covy Host
04:21
I've never thought of that one before, so thank you for that. I think that's really good. I've never thought of that one before. So thank you for that.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
04:25
I think that's really telling. And the third is when you actually get into what I call bully mode. And so bully mode is when, well, you have to do this, I have to do that, I can't do anything except this right, Anytime you get that really like rigid, very demanding sort of tone, either with yourself or with others, you probably have slipped into bully mode. And so that completes the victim triangle. Right, this is an old research. It's this guy named Cartman from the seventies. If you look him up, he the main picture of him that you'll find online. He's wearing the grooviest 70s shirt. Right, he looks like he's a part of the Bee Gees His outfit is hilarious, but the Cartman Drama Triangle is quite famous.
05:16
What I've done with the Cartman Drama Triangle is utilized it and put it into a framework called acceptance and commitment therapy. So this is a longstanding theory of therapy that I've been using in my practice and, essentially, act is all about asking the main question what's my next best move? So this flips you right out of that victim triangle and flips you into the choice triangle.
Karen Covy Host
05:43
I like that, but I want to stop you for a second right here. For people who aren't or might not be familiar with the drama triangle, Can you say again what are the three characters? Would that be the right?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
05:56
way. Three points, right, three points of the triangle. So the first the bottom point of the triangle, is victim mode. You know you're in victim mode when you're asking, why me, why? And you have this overwhelming feeling that life is happening to me, right? The next point on the triangle is rescuer, and this is where you are looking for a rescue or you can be serving as a rescuer to other people. This is the part that's interesting is that sometimes, the victim triangle we think of ourselves as this noble rescuer, right, secretly, you want to be someone's champion. That's in the choice triangle. We don't want to be their rescuer. Now, if you're at the beach and somebody's drowning and you need to pluck them out of the water, please rescue them, right? But rescues should be this they should take this much time. It should be quick, right? Because as soon as humanly possible, you want people to be back on their own two feet and you want them to be choosing the direction of their life.
Karen Covy Host
07:07
So it sounds like and correct me if I'm wrong that when we get into that rescuer mindset, we're almost enabling or perpetuating the victimhood of someone else so we can be the rescuer.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
07:22
Yes. And a piece of how you know you're in rescuer mode is sort of the central feeling there is that you're the only one who can save them, right. And now, when we're in victim mode and we're looking for a rescue, right, it's like this is where people get into trouble, when they're first getting divorced and they go out and they start dating and the very first person they date is going to save them and vindicate this bad relationship they were in. And this is not good news, that you are not going to end up in a great relationship. If the relationship is a rescue, got it. You're rescuing someone else. If they're rescuing, you, got it.
Karen Covy Host
08:11
The victim, the rescuer. And what's the third point of the triangle?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
08:18
The bully. So the bully, I know better than you what you should do right now. Right, if only you do it this way.
Karen Covy Host
08:29
Yeah.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
08:30
Right, and how often do we bully ourselves? Often.
Karen Covy Host
08:35
Yeah, that's true, right, we will often be a bully to ourselves.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
08:40
Also, though, in a divorce process, one person in the divorce sometimes serves as the bully. One person's the victim they're helpless. It's terrible this is happening to them. One person's the bully they're sort of kind of emotionally pounding on somebody. Or you'll have people outside in your life who are bullying you because, again, they know better than you what you should do in this moment.
Karen Covy Host
09:06
You know this is probably a very politically incorrect thing for me to be saying. I tend to do that. But I can see in the context of the legal system where the client comes in often the woman, but not always but the client comes in with the sob story and the lawyer becomes the bully. They assume that role. And I know I mean personally. That's not the approach that I ever espoused when I was actively practicing law, because I don't think it's my job or my right to make decisions for another person's life. My job is to tell them here's all the decisions you have, here's the pros and cons, the consequences of each decision that you have to choose. But I have many colleagues that I know who will just say no, you're going to do this and you're going to do that, and the person the client doesn't know any better and they're comfortable in that victim role. So that drama triangle just perpetuates all the way through the divorce.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
10:06
Yes, and, and we're looking for a rescue which, if you're in victim mode, if you're in that victim triangle and there's somebody who's being a bully, you will want a rescue. Yeah, right. So the choice triangle if you imagine that the victim triangle is like an upside down triangle like this, with the point on the bottom, Yeah, the choice triangle is the opposite. So the opposite of victim is creator, ok. Opposite of rescuer is champion. The opposite of bully is challenger.
Karen Covy Host
10:48
Okay, say more about those prototypes.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
10:55
So and again, this is not an original idea there was actually a graduate student who was taking a look at the Cartman Drama Triangle and I think this was in the late nineties, early two thousands. His name was Sean Choi and he came up with this idea of like, well, what would the opposite of the victim triangle look like? He's the first person who started this idea. I've kind of you know, for my work and my practice I'm using my own language, but these are not original ideas. So the central question in the victim triangle is why me? The central question in the choice triangle is what's my next best move? Okay, so it isn't, I'll be okay once this is overIt is this is happening right now. What options do I have right now? What would I eventually like life to look like? Sure, but mostly it is about what's my next best move in this moment. What are the choices I do have?
Karen Covy Host
12:05
Okay. So, and I'm trying to wrap my head around this because people are always looking well, sometimes looking to the end of the divorce. It's like what? I want to be happy, I want to be financially secure, I want my kids to be well adjusted and they're looking at all those things. But when you're and it's good to keep the end in mind, as Stephen Covey would say. However, when you're in the thick of it like you have so many choices before you get to that place, you can't make it. So if I understand what you're saying is you know, yes, keep that in mind, but look at what can you do right now.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
12:47
Yes, and what's your next best move?
Karen Covy Host
12:52
OK, say more about that.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
12:54
So let's say you have an idea that you want to be happy, right?
Karen Covy Host
12:59
OK.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
13:00
You're unhappy in your marriage, you're getting a divorce. You want to be happy. You can't wait for happiness to come. Number one happiness isn't. It's not a new purse, right? Like? Well, maybe sometimes it's a new purse, but it's not a thing. It's actually a state of being and it's something that, like any other emotion, is going to ebb and flow. And so if you'd like to have more happiness in your world, that's actually going to be linked to what actions are you doing? Happiness just doesn't. You don't just wake up in the morning and it's sitting at the breakfast table waiting for you, right? You wake up in the morning and you think to yourself what could I do today that would make me feel a little happier? And then how can you notice on any given day when you are feeling happy?
Karen Covy Host
13:53
How do you mean notice when you are feeling happy? Don't we know when we're happy?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
13:58
But we don't really necessarily pay attention to it, right? Not unless it's a big, loud thing, right, like? Like it's easy to feel happy when your kid graduates from high school, right, it's easy to feel happy when you get a great big bonus check at work. But our happiness is actually made up of all these little, tiny little things, right, like?
14:24
I happen to be around a coffee shop this morning. I'm not a coffee drinker, but I had to put a piece of mail in a mailbox and that happened to be right next door to a coffee shop that I hadn't tried, and so I walked in and I got myself a really nice cup of tea. And then my job, right. My next best move this morning, first of all, was to have enough flexibility in my schedule to be able to be like hey, I haven't ever tried that coffee shop, I wonder if they have a nice cup of tea. And I walk in and I try. It Turns out they do. And but then my job to sort of cement in that satisfied, happy feeling is to really take a second and admire the tea, and take a second and enjoy drinking the tea, and take a second and enjoy that. I have enough space in my morning to be able to get a cup of tea.
Karen Covy Host
15:19
So it sounds like what you're talking about is being in the present moment, building an awareness of what's going on right now.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
15:31
Yep, and to do an assessment of what's going on right now. Do an assessment of what's going on right now. There's been plenty of mornings I've driven by this very same coffee shop and have not had the time to stop, because if I did the assessment of my morning, the assessment was like oh no, don't have enough time. Okay, no problem, right. But so this assessment process, right? I think, particularly in divorce, we get very into like the good and the bad bucket I'm good, he's bad, I'm good, she's bad, right. And what we're missing is all of this lovely nuance in between. So judgment is good or bad, assessment takes judgment out of it, so judgment is good or bad. Assessment is this behavior in a marriage does not suit my values. I'm no longer willing to put up with it.
Karen Covy Host
16:31
But what about what would you say to the people who say they're in the thick of it, right, and their assessment is their life sucks and every you know? They don't want to assess because they don't want to feel even worse about what's going on than they already feel.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
16:42
But here's the thing we love avoidance, right Like we are. We're amazing how much we will spend 15 hours avoiding something that takes 15 minutes right. Oh my gosh, I'm noticing that my light's really weird from the morning sun, so. But the problem with avoidance is avoidance actually increases pain.
Karen Covy Host
17:02
Okay, tell me how that works or why that's true.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
17:05
So let's say that you're in the middle of a divorce and your life actually does suck right now. A factual assessment is well, my life sucks right now. Okay, is there anything I can do today? What do I want to do today about that? And then maybe you do something as small as getting a cup of tea, maybe you do something as large as handling that tax packet that you've been putting off because you think it's going to be dreadful the year that you're getting divorced, and it might actually feel dreadful, but what I know for sure is that avoidance you're going to feel badly while you're avoiding and you're going to experience the dread of dealing with the tax packet, right. But here's the thing that's interesting If you just deal with the tax packet, yes, it's dreadful, but then you have avoided all of this other problem, right.
Karen Covy Host
18:04
Yeah, I see so many people doing that where it's the monkey on their back Right that they don't want to like grab the monkey and pick it off of their back because the monkey's probably going to bite them. And that's true, but in the meantime, the monkey's chewing on their back for weeks and months and years and the monkey still bites them when they try to pull it off
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
18:30
Exactly. So pretty much the only thing to avoid is avoidance to avoid is avoidance.
Karen Covy Host
18:37
How do people, how do you rally the troops or muster your energy or whatever, like there's something that you're going to do, and this I see this a lot when people are trying to make the decision of do I do this Right? Because they know it's going to suck, and they are a hundred percent right, it's going to suck, right. So they avoid and they kick the can down the road, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, sometimes for decades, right, and it doesn't go away and they're just unhappy that whole time. But how can? What would you say to someone like that? What tips or tools or techniques can they use to actually face the fear, face the demon?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
19:19
Well, I think the first step is to stop the faulty thinking that when you feel better, that's the right time to do something.
Karen Covy Host
19:31
Okay, what do you mean?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
19:33
So have you ever waited to do something until you feel motivated to do it? And it takes a really long time because it's not something you want to do and you're not motivated to do it.
Karen Covy Host
19:44
Yep.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
19:46
And when you finally did it, when did motivation kick in A little bit after you started, right?
Karen Covy Host
19:54
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
19:56
So this is why there's all sorts of time management books and techniques and all that stuff. Like there's a book called something like eat the frog, right, which is like do the hard thing first thing in the morning. Then there's the time management tip of you know, just three minutes, right, so just start a task for three minutes. And the reason that this is a time management technique because three minutes doesn't seem long enough to do anything. Three minutes is a surprisingly long period of time. Once you get started on something for about three minutes, you actually kick off motivation. If you are waiting to get motivated before you start. It doesn't come that way. Action is the thing that drives emotion. We are lying to ourselves when we say that we'll do something when we feel better about doing it. It's BS. We only feel better about doing it once we have started doing it.
Karen Covy Host
21:01
Okay. So the motivation to do it is if you want to feel better, you've got to start it.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
21:08
Yep, and essentially the motivation to do it is I'm no longer going to rely on motivation. I'm going to schedule this in my calendar and put my butt in a chair and get it done Right. So that's putting together a bunch of different things we've talked about. It's avoiding avoidance, referencing action, doing the next most important thing right, and you're choosing to do it. So all of that means you're in that upper triangle where you are choosing to move forward.
Karen Covy Host
21:51
Okay, let me play devil's advocate with you for a minute. What do you say to the person who, like they, make a choice of what they think will be their next best act, best action for the day? And it bombs.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
22:09
Yep, so then, it is back to assessment mode.
Karen Covy Host
22:15
Okay.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
22:15
Right and assessment sometimes sounds like well crap, that didn't work, Okay, why not? Why
22:27
not and sometimes the answer is what did I have the other day? It's something big planned and instead it snowed Right? Okay, not going to be able to do the big thing because there's a foot of snow, all right. So that's that. Back to that assessment. And the assessment in that realm was okay. Well, I'm not in control of the weather and can't do the thing.
23:02
Sometimes the assessment so sometimes it's an external thing that comes in unexpected wasn't what you planned. Or sometimes the assessment is I thought that would work and and it did, but not at the level that I wanted it to. So and this is where, also, you can take a look at what was your motivation with, with what you chose to do, and if your motivation was to hurt somebody else, to make them feel bad or to punish them. Just spoiler alert those rarely work very well. They're almost immediately followed by regret or they tend to make people more angry. So one of the things that I see in divorce is people will attempt to make the other person feel bad because they feel bad, and then they think that they're going to feel good because they finally given it to that person and they really right, except for then they feel bad and then it makes things worse.
Karen Covy Host
24:12
Well, I've seen it all the time. But sometimes people really they still really want it. They it's sort of that you did this to me, I'm going to do that to you, and then it just it escalates up. But sometimes they don't feel like they don't feel sorry for what they did.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
24:29
They're like I'm glad I gave it to them, but they still don't end up in a happy place right, and here's the thing about humans we are just taller, less fuzzy mammals, right, like, we actually respond better to rewards than we do to punishment. We will certainly try to avoid punishment, without a doubt, but we will tend to respond better to rewards than punishment. Now, this doesn't mean that you know if your ex-partner has been, you know, a total jerk to you, that you're extra nice to them, right, like. But you want to check in with yourself about who do you want to be? Because, again, this is this choice, this is choice mode. Right, you want to create your own life, you want to be your own champion and you also want to challenge yourself when you're behaving badly. Right.
Karen Covy Host
25:29
So it sounds like, if I've got, because you use a framework to help pull people out of the drama triangle and get into the choice triangle, and this step number one is assessment. Yeah, is step two or three action? I'm missing a step.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
25:39
So the first step is actually acceptance, where you're just acknowledging what is true and that might sound like this suck, okay. Step two is the assessment what's working, what isn't working, what are my options? And if you can't see any options. That's where you ask some outside eyes what are my options here? What don't I see that I'm not seeing? Step three is action, and then repeat, and repeat, and repeat that All right.
Karen Covy Host
26:15
So we've been talking about using this process to get out of the drama triangle in the context of a divorce. What about somebody who's just in a bad marriage or a marriage that's not serving them? They're not sure they want a divorce? Can they use this same process in that context and if so, what does that look like?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
26:36
Absolutely. That's where you again the acknowledgement, is like huh, this partnership is not going the way that I want it to. Okay, what is working? Is anything working? What used to work?
Karen Covy Host
26:53
I like that question.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
26:55
What used to work, what are the things that we used to do that helped us feel close to each other. And you know what would happen if I brought some of those back in. What would that look like? Yeah, and again, that's where sometimes some skillful outside eyes can be really helpful, which is like how, what you know, what do you see that I don't see? What are the patterns that we're in that maybe we could do differently? And certainly, it's involving the other person and asking and this is where choice mode comes in Like here's the type of life we're living. Like does this work for you? Because it's not really working for me. Very different conversation that I can't believe you aren't doing blah, blah, blah. because again if we're in that mode where we're trying to punish somebody else, we're actually automatically in victim mode, because then we're being bullies
Karen Covy Host
27:53
well, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't think of it in that, in that term or in those terms, but that makes complete sense.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
27:59
Yeah, If we're in choice mode and we want to challenge someone's behavior, that's where you say you're doing this and this doesn't land well with me.
Karen Covy Host
28:09
Yeah, I like that. You know, there's one other thing, there's another concept I really wanted to get into with you, because I think it's unique and it's an angle that I haven't thought about before, and that's the difference between compromise and collaboration.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
28:25
Yes, and this actually is a perfect segue. So a piece of being in choice in your life is that you actually then want other people to be in choice in their lives, and when you bring two people together, you'd be really bored if everything went right, like if every single thing crossed over just evenly. That's lovely, but it's not, doesn't really happen in relationship, and so I think what we've been taught is that we should both be compromising, right. First of all, the relationships are tons of work and, second of all, that we should compromise more BS to both. Relationships should be super joyful.
29:05
Now, do you need to be thoughtful a lot? Absolutely right. Do you need to be clear in your communication? Definitely, but if your relationship feels like a lot of work, that's actually probably a warning sign, and if you constantly feel like you're having to compromise, that also means that that is going to build resentment really fast, because compromise means each person comes in and both people give something up and you settle on something that you can tolerate. Collaboration is each person comes in and they brainstorm and figure things out and then they move together in a in a more positive direction. It's where one plus one equals seven, right?
Karen Covy Host
29:46
I love that. Yeah, I think that so many people they have a bad taste in their mouth about marriage because of that very thing They see marriages as something that requires them to give up a piece of themselves rather than to create with someone else something that's bigger and better than either one of them individually that's fun.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
30:13
And that again leads to that, that same process of like. Let's assess like where are we working well together? Any holes in our functioning, any patterns that we're slipping into, that aren't the best.
Karen Covy Host
30:33
But you know, I work with so many people who they, they can identify the pattern. It's like I do this, the other person does that, and then we're in this spiral and we, you know, like they, they can see it, they just can't stop it. So how, if you're in a relationship and you see yourself having the same fight you've had a thousand times before, how do you separate yourself from that issue or that fight, and break the pattern?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
31:00
Somebody's got to be calm enough to say, like wait- time. We're doing the same fight. And if you can make it funny, even better, like I bet next you're going to say this and then I'll say that, right, and then I'm going to feel like this and then you're going to feel like that and right, yeah, change the pattern.
31:19
If you always fight at the kitchen table, make sure to have a disagreement outside holding hands. If you always have the fight watching TV and in the living room, change seats in the living room. If you always have the fight standing up, take off all your clothes with your partner and get naked and then attempt to have the conversation. See how well that goes, right. Hopefully something else will happen. Instead of fighting the notion of like take any portion of the pattern and muddle it up, choose to do something differently and practice it beforehand. Recognize, like what are the patterns that I can predict? And the next time I see this happen, I'm going to do that instead.
Karen Covy Host
32:10
Okay, what if you've got I'm sorry, just playing devil's advocate here again? What if you've got a partner who doesn't play along? Like you start taking off your clothes to that point and they're just looking at you like what is the matter with you? What are you doing?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
32:25
And you can say I'm changing the pattern. Or you can have their agreement right, you could collaborate on this beforehand so you could give them some warning. Or you could literally say, like I'm getting in the shower, I have no clothes on, our kids are in bed asleep. What would you like to do with our time right now?
Karen Covy Host
32:46
I like that, but I can see that one maybe having a good outcome, shall we say. But if you wanted to, if you're like in in the middle of the living room and you say, no, I want to go to the kitchen, and your partner's looking at you like what's wrong with you.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
33:03
Just say I'm not doing the same pattern. We have the same fight. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to do it a little differently okay, and so you break the pattern.
Karen Covy Host
33:13
Now you're fighting in the kitchen.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
33:14
Maybe you're fighting in the kitchen, maybe you're not. If you are fighting in the kitchen, then I think the next step is to ask like again how do we do this differently? We have this fight a lot. How do we do it differently? Because some portion of being in a couple is understanding that there's some fights that are never going to get solved.
Karen Covy Host
33:36
A hundred percent and so many of my clients. You know, when we talk about things, they just say, no, I've, I've tried this, I've tried that. It's like she's never going to change, he's never going to change, right.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
33:51
So that's automatically in victim mode because you're out of your own choice. we could talk for a million years there. There is some interesting research, which I don't know if this is going to leave our podcast on a positive way or a negative way, but famous couples researchers John and Julie Gottman. They are a couple and they run a research Institute about couples therapy, about, I believe. The exact figure is 67%. I typically round it up to 70. Around 70% of the things that we are arguing about is the same stuff we've been arguing about since the first few months of the relationship. so there are arguments there's 70% arguments that you have to get skillful at having them come up, figure out something to do about it and then, understanding it's probably going to come up again Some things. You come up and you realize like no, this has to get solved, we're going to move that into a 30% and then you don't have to bring it up again.
Karen Covy Host
34:52
Is it possible that you've got that 70% of the things that just bug you about the other person or in the relationship? Is it possible that you can dissolve those and they just go away? You don't fight about it anymore.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
35:06
I think you cannot fight about it anymore. But the point of the 70% is that it's probably going to be stuff that if you can learn to roll your eyes, or if you can learn to renegotiate it from annoying to adorable, if you can learn to just say like, yeah, that's just who they are Right, if you can be an acceptance of the 70 percent, then you're not upset about it all the time.
Karen Covy Host
35:31
You know you just made a really important point that I want people to hear, because a lot of people I'm using air quotes accept something but they don't really. It's still bugging the devil out of them inside, so but they're saying, oh no, I accept it, but it hurts, it still bothers them. How do you get over that? How do you change your own mindset, perception of what's happening so that to your point it goes from annoying to adorable or something like that?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
36:04
I mean, I think a lot of it is doing that very deliberately, and something saying like this is annoying. I can't make it adorable. Could you please try to do this more or do this less, right? So then you can ask for your needs to get met and your partner will try to do that or not, you know. But again, in the best partnerships the 70% stuff is just sort of like oh there they go, that's who they are, and then you're not taking it personally and then you're not riled up about it.
Karen Covy Host
36:36
Yeah, that makes so much sense and I think you're also taking it personally, and then you're not riled up about it. I think you're also a hundred percent right. We could talk and talk and talk and talk for hours about this stuff, but I really I want to thank you for sharing your perspective and the whole perspective of taking the drama triangle and flipping it to the choice triangle. I think if people hear just that and they understand and they can use those three steps to pull themselves out of drama, it'll make a huge difference.
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
37:07
And it does really make you feel better. Chosen action towards the type of life that you want adds up to very nice outcomes.
Karen Covy Host
37:18
I love that. Dr Carey, thank you so much for being here, for sharing all of your pearls of practical wisdom. If people want to find you, if they want to learn more or work with you, where can they find you? Where's the best place?
Dr. Carrie Johansson Guest
37:30
Easiest place to go is my website selfhelponthego.com. It's the name of my book. It will get you to my LinkedIn. I can get you to my therapy website anything you need selfhelponthego.com.
Karen Covy Host
37:49
I love that, Dr Keri, thank you again, and for those of you who are watching, for those of you who are listening, if you enjoyed today's episode, if you'd like to hear more episodes just like this, with guests just as wonderful as Dr. Carrie, please do me a big favor. Give me a thumbs up like subscribe, and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thank you.
