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In this episode, Joel and Antonia talk with guest host and relationship expert Bruce Muzik about navigating the three stages of a romantic relationship to co-create authentic and mature love as a couple.

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Recommended Featured Program: “Couples Mapping”

Create a side-by-side map of each other’s personalities to be truly seen, accepted and understood by your partner, and wake up happy together.

—> Learn About Creating Your Couples Map

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In this podcast you’ll find:

  • Relationship expert, Bruce Muzik (ENTP) of Love at First Fight, shares pro advice.
  • What is attachment theory? What are the 3 Stages of each romantic relationship? Find out in this previous podcast episode with Bruce.
  • Bruce’s top advice: The most powerful relationship skill you can have.
  • What is the #1 thing that several of the world’s most influential leaders had in common?
  • Why your childhood wounds are hijacking your relationship.
  • Experiencing Stage 1:
    • What you go through chemically at the start of a relationship.
    • What you really might be experiencing when you think you’re in love.
    • Why fear is your worst enemy in relationships.
    • What are the differences between relationship pursuit vs partnership?
    • Can you be addicted to Stage 1?
  • When Stage 2 suddenly sets in:
    • What happens to every couple in this Stage.
    • Why most couples don’t survive Stage 2.
    • What is your amygdala doing to your relationship?
    • When your attachment style is wreaking havoc.
    • What Joel and Antonia experienced in Stage 2.
    • The shocking thing that intimacy requires.
    • When you get stuck in Stage 2.
  • Getting through to Stage 3:
    • Why Stage 3 is so exciting to get to.
    • How do you actually transition from Stage 2 to Stage 3?
    • Why conflict changes in Stage 3.
    • What are the costs you pay in this Stage?
    • Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
    • The successful big change you can make.
    • What emerges when you have a collaborative relationship?
  • The effects of a healthy Stage 3 relationship:
    • What Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Jimmy Carter all agree on.
    • How you gain personal power.
    • What does the research show?
    • What Stage 3 means to you even if you’re single.
    • The power of “us”: Dave Logan’s Tribal Leadership.
    • How our Enneagram Instincts are affected.
  • Should I stay or should I go?
    • Why good relationships are not easy.
    • What if a relationship feels too hard?
    • How do I know if this is a relationship worth fighting for?
    • The real questions you need to ask yourself about your relationship.
    • What to do before you quit a relationship.
    • The best breakup advice from Love Coach, Annie Lalla.
  • The most vital relationship question you need to be asking.

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10 comments

  • MB
    • MB
    • June 27, 2024 at 3:05 pm

    Great subject! And love listening to Bruce Muzik whose sense of humor, compassion, and knack for making things relatable always seem to keep things lively. (His “Hailstorm and the Turtle” monikers for attachment system “pursuer and withdrawer” = !)

    Wonder if you might consider following up with more on what was discussed here? Invite practitioners on working with the various modalities being used to resolve trauma, share stories along with any DIY tips?

    If may offer a couple requests, thanks in advance!

    1) Be interesting to hear stories from therapists trained in Attachment Science, as Mr. Muzik mentioned, and the results they’re getting helping people revisit and clear early childhood traumas, and what kinds of improvements they see in people (and in their relationships) afterwards? Also the new awareness around why the experience of “creating understanding” (and how to do it) is so powerful in restoring calm and repairing relations?

    2) Wonder if others here have heard about some of the vets returning from overseas who are resolving trauma with hyperbaric chambers (oxygen therapy)? (Apparently many see results in 20-40 sessions, with some hyperbaric centers around the country offering it to them gratis?) There’s been press on top athletes using portable hyperbaric chambers for sports performance and recovery, be interesting to learn how hyperbaric oxygen helps resolve trauma?

    3) Wonder what tips practitioners of Ayurvedic and Yogic traditions might offer on ways to activate the Vagus Nerve to release trauma and restore calm? (Apparently the Vagus Nerves is said to “hold the key unlocking” deep relaxation, rebalancing the autonomic nervous system, and boosting well-being. Wonder if this works in clearing early childhood trauma?)

    Heard a recent chat talking about simple DIY things for “Vagus Nerve stimulation” for calm and trauma release, and include eye exercises (“bi-lateral eye movement therapy”) “rhythmic movement” (like dancing, singing, humming, breathing, yoga), meditation, massage, time in nature, probiotics, laughing, smiling — even being the recipient of someone’s smile apparently! :)

  • GingerK
    • GingerK
    • April 5, 2021 at 9:26 pm

    I just finished this podcast. My husband is an INFJ and I’m a ENFP. He is 12 years younger. We’ve been together for 17 years. He’s extremely conflict adverse which led to him having an emotional affair via text with an old friend. She made him feel heard, understood. I had no idea he spent our marriage walking on eggshells. He’s listening to the podcast now. He probably won’t get through it for a few days and then he’ll need time to process it. I’m trying to save my marriage.

  • Anonymous
    • Anonymous
    • February 23, 2021 at 10:34 pm

    I DON’T consider myself a nice guy. Nice guys get abused by the sick, evil people in this world.

    MGTOW monk is the solution for me.

    Relationships with today’s women are untenable, because they are biologically programmed to have sex with the bad boys until they are in their thirties, then look for a beta simp to provide for them financially and help them raise their children.

    Any woman brainwashed by feminism, who treats men like garbage, or who considers abortion her human right to do as many times as she wants, IS evil, and a lost cause, and I am not even religious.

    You are wrong, many women are evil, narcissistic, and selfish, and do intend to rob the man during divorce. There was a case of women colluding to falsely accuse men of sexual misconduct to destroy their careers, and they were deliberately targeting powerful, wealthy men.

    Prenups are worthless, the woman can get the judge to nullify it, then the man will get robbed by the woman in divorce. I can’t believe you don’t know that, that’s MGTOW 101 basic stuff.

    The paternity test results could be faked, plus around 30 percent of men are raising children that aren’t even theirs, because the woman had sex with another man while in a relationship and got pregnant.

    I don’t think even 40 percent of marriages today are successful from the man’s perspective, it is closer to zero than 40 if you look at what men put up with from women in marriage according to their own words: declining frequency in sex which is exclusively the woman’s fault, nagging and complaining from the woman, the woman becoming more dissatisfied, insufferable, and demanding, a loss of freedom of the man to do what he wants and pursue his passions and interests, the woman withholding sex if the man does not do what she wants, demanding the man make more money and spend more time with her, and the woman making the man absolutely miserable.

    Men lose everything, in relationship / marriage and divorce, to women: their freedom, their mental health, peace and quiet, and their money. Women have everything to gain in divorce from the man: money from the man in alimony / child support, child custody, possibly ownership of the man’s house.

    Relationships with women fail a cost / benefit analysis.

    You cannot vet the women who are chameleons, who pretend to be everything you want to get you into a relationship or marriage with them, then suddenly change for the worse when they have you in a relationship or marriage.

    If you became aware of the high percentage of women who have sex with other people while in relationship or marriage, you would never want a relationship with any woman again, you would become a MGTOW monk, or go to professional to fulfill your needs, or buy a sex doll.

    I doubt you are going to find many sane women, because the dominant decadent and degenerate western culture and its brainwashing is totally insane.

    The future will probably be declining marriages, development and mass use of artificial wombs for childbirth, virtual reality sex, and sex robots, and more and more women will be single, unhappy, and mentally unwell. Men will be happy, free, pursuing their purpose, and sexually sated.

    The line from a song “She belongs to the streets” applies to many of today’s women.

  • James
    • James
    • February 23, 2021 at 5:57 am

    I’m not sure if you are speaking from experience or just reading things and assuming that what’s being discussed is factual and true. I get that much of what you say is factual, but due to certain situations it could also be an alternative fact. What I’m getting at here is cognitive biases, there everywhere and like opinions everyone has one or two or several.

    You generalize that these dynamics between men and women are true, depending on whom you interact with they can very well be true, especially if someone is toxic, maladaptive, has unhealthy relationship schemas, it’s all true. So no argument there on that.

    I’m getting the impression that you consider yourself a nice guy, is that factual for you?

    If it is then I regret to inform you that nice guys really aren’t nice at all they’re actually A-holes.

    For one they maybe male in terms of their sex, but they generally they are not masculine as women would define them and they aren’t considered men as men would define them either.

    Most politically correct people would describe what you are talking about and what happens to these men as something that happens to a Beta male, now the jerks or bad boy types are considered alpha by most but even they can’t keep a woman around forever and get what they want from her anymore than she from them so that dynamic doesn’t work either.

    Other than the avoiding women and marriage thing there are other options here.
    One, you could pick up a copy of Robert Glover’s book no more Mr. Nice guy read it and do the exercises then join his forum https://nomoremrniceguy.com/forums/

    A lot of folks here haven’t posted anything likely due to not triggering you because they view it as hate. I don’t see it that way, I get that you are frustrated, tired, and the behavior, thoughts of some women actually confuse and or frustrate you further, especially I would get it if you were told in youth how to treat a woman and everything that you did somehow didn’t work or resulted in pain. I totally get it, I can certainly empathize with any guy that feel that way, even you.

    Some other options that you have are the following:

    Consider that you’ll never figure women out, never be successful with them and then consider that perhaps being with another man both physically and emotionally is the solution to that problem. ( I am hinting at a same sex relationship here) Consider ordering a Real Doll from the manufacturer and adding an AI head to it and actually get the perfect woman in terms of communication and she never turning you down for physical pleasure, she won’t say no basically so that could be perfect for you she won’t want your credit card and doesn’t need your money. You don’t even have to feed her. Another option is go see a professional for a price and no strings attached. Consider a F2M person, they may actually feel the same as you and since they may still have a physically female gendered body, it could work, body of a woman mind of a man. Celibacy, become a monk, join a monastery, if religion is not your thing, you could just subject yourself to isolation with no contact with females, like live among the animals. MGTOW, many guys take that option.

    There’s a lot to consider here and yes I’m being sincere not trolling anyone or just trying to be funny.

    What worked for me even though I still on occasion have questions about women, is to get your stuff handled. I actually had to admit I was too nice for my own good, dated as my old man put it “broken chicks” much like the anti drug commercial, I learned it by watching you dad, I learned by watching you ok.. it’s true, my old man is 25+ years into his second marriage and he’s in a dead bedroom situation of his own making, yes it does take two to screw up a relationship ask anyone if their honest they will agree.

    I don’t know off the top of my head what else to add here, but a lot of us here are not new to relationships, many of us are older in our 30’s and 40’s and we know from our mistakes to vet people and to watch out for red flags. If 40% of marriages are successful that the must be some method of having a healthy relationship and a successful one.

    I personally enjoy the dominance and submissive dynamic, it’s simple I agree to dominate, she agrees to submit, we talk terms, negotiate , contract, and grow and develop along agreed to behavior, if things are not adhered to we either renegotiate or end the dynamic amicably. Seems simple enough to me.

    Women are not evil, they do have certain ingrained survival instincts but that does not mean that they are more powerful than a man and intend him emotional and financial harm, if a guy stands up for him self and before he even agrees to a relationship he should screen and test for a sane, safe and healthy woman, to do otherwise will get you pain.

    When it comes to marriage, get a prenup.

    Want babies, or if she is pregnant get a paternity test.

    Seems simple to me, saying no to things is simple too, but a lot of people don’t do it.
    Being self respecting, and setting boundaries and limits on what you will or won’t accept is a healthy behavior.

  • Antonia Dodge
    • Antonia Dodge
    • February 18, 2021 at 10:38 pm

    I mean, I’m sitting right here, dude.

    A

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