The Joy of Imperfect Love

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If you'd like to leave me a voice message with a suggestion for a guest or a guest idea for a show, you can do that directly from that site and I will be notified. With that, Dr. Carmarean Manley, clinical psychologist, imperfect love podcaster, and author, is based in Sonoma County, California. In addition to her clinical practice focusing on relationships and personal transformation, Dr. Manley is deeply invested in her roles as a consultant and speaker. With a fresh and direct and honest approach, plus a dose of humor, Dr. Manley enjoys supporting others in an ever-evolving journey of her life.

Her novel self-development paradigm builds resilience, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem. Highlighting the importance of love connection, her work also focuses on helping others create deeply connected and satisfying intimate relationships. Working from a transformative model that honors the body-mind-spirit connection, Dr. Manley offers holistic relationships and wellness seminars around the world. Her four captivating books, The Joy of Imperfect Love, Date Smart, Joy from Fear, and Aging Joyfully, highlight Dr. Manley's empowering approach and profound expertise. Dr. Manley's expertise is also regularly cited in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Oprah, Newsweek, NBC, HuffPost, Read His Digest, The Psychology Today, Parade, GQ, Women's Health, Architectural Digest, Men's Health, and more. Dr. Manley joins us to talk about The Joy of Imperfect Love. Welcome, Dr. Carla.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Hello. Thank you for having me on your show today.

TalkToMeGuy : It's always going to be fun. I know it's going to be a blast. I want to start by asking, how is writing Joy of Imperfect Love for you? Was there an instant or a tipping point where you had the, I had to write this?

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Yes, I think there was maybe four years ago. I had just come to this realization, almost a culmination of this urge to take what I had learned as a human, as a clinician, as a partner, as a daughter, as all of these roles that I play in life that have taught me that the foundation of a truly healthy relationship, of truly healthy love begins with self-awareness. It begins with that turning inward to discover what your strengths are, what you're doing well, to heal your past issues that might be lingering and unresolved, and then really work, consciously work, to love yourself better, to love those in your world better, and to shift your dynamics. So all of those knowing that learning that I had come to embrace from so many wise people, so many tremendous books, so many of my clients, where the journey with the clients or the groups had taught me what works, what doesn't work. And then I really felt the urge to bring that into book form.

TalkToMeGuy : In the process of getting ready for the show, I listen and read a lot of material, including the book. And I can't remember whether I heard you say this or I saw you say this.

The relationship will always be imperfect or ever-evolving. It is a work of art. And that really hit a spot for me, because as we were talking backstage, I've been doing photography since I was before high school. And so it gives me a ray of hope of, it is a work of art. It's in flux. Would you talk about that a little bit?

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Absolutely. It's almost the crux of the book, because we expect on some level for ourselves to be perfect, for our parents to have been perfect, for our children to be perfect, for our partners to be perfect. And many people will tell me, well, my relationship's not doing well with whomever it is, and especially a romantic relationship. And if it takes work, there must be something wrong with it. And I think, oh goodness, everything in life takes work to do everything, to cook a meal, to have a child, to raise a child, to go to work, to be a photographer, to be an author, to be a lover. All of these things take work, and it depends on how we look at the work. Do we see it as a burden, or do we see it as a joy, as something that allows us to grow deeper and richer as we're on that journey? And something that we can hope benefits those in our world as they see us effort and strive to connect, not just with the self, but with others. And so I do believe it is an absolutely ever-evolving process. We will never get it right, no matter how smart we might be. It has not so much to do with smarts.

TalkToMeGuy : And it is art. It is.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : And as we were talking before the show, when you were saying you grew up with a camera in your hand, and the camera in your hand in high school and from there on, allowed that camera to be part of you. So you pick up a camera, and unlike me, there's a few photography classes that I'm still fumbling with the dials, especially if it's a non-automatic camera, right? There's a real art to it. And it's not familiar to me, because I don't do it all the time and didn't grow up with it. It's the same with love. If we grow up with healthy love, and parents who are good enough parents, as Winnicott and Bowlby used to say, good enough parents, not perfect, but good enough, then we learn to be good enough at the art of love. And we learn through a tuned parenting that it's a work in progress. But if we don't grow up with love that is healthy and safe, and where healthy love is modeled, and we have it at our side and in our hearts day in and day out, and learn how to apologize, learn how to keep trying, learn how to fix our hiccups and not feel criticized or criticize others, then love becomes our camera.

We're just moving through life with it in hand, and it feels very familiar, and we pick it up and it's part of who we are. But unfortunately, because of parents who didn't learn how to be parents, or didn't want to be parents, or situations that were traumatic, or caregivers who were so busy doing everything else other than parenting, often by necessity, that we didn't grow up learning that art of love. And that's what my goal is in life with all my books, with my work, is to help people learn what healthy love looks like, and if they don't have it in their lives, to realize it's not that they're broken, it's not no use turning around and blaming or shaming or getting stuck. There is use in turning around to see what we want to do differently and to do more of what works well. So that's the essence of the journey.

TalkToMeGuy : And I'd like to start, this is a odd place to jump in, but I'll have a flow here, because I saw this, I read about this, the toxic positivity. What it looks like and how to break out of this? Because I think I've seen this, but I just had to ask you about toxic positivity.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : It's a great question, and toxic positivity is a meme that's been around for a while, and to explain what it is, it means that instead of being naturally optimistic, and really just being yourself and being able to feel your emotions as they arise and be with them, and if they're optimistic and upbeat, you know, really breathing into them, and sometimes working to shift not negative emotions, but down emotions if they're taking us over. So we don't want to get stuck in any emotion too long. We don't want to be attached to always being sad or always being depressed or always being angry or always being happy. And that's where toxic positivity comes in. Some people get attached to the idea, the ideal, that we should always be happy.

We should always be upbeat. So even when they're crying or dying on the inside, they're putting on that happy face and they're going out there with a smile and never allowing themselves to really feel their emotions and explore their variety of feelings, they just feel as though, hey, I have to be happy 24-7, and it does take a big toll and eventually leaks out in depression, anxiety, or other issues. So that's toxic positivity. It's that drive that is promoted by society, especially for women, to always put on a happy face even when you're not feeling happy at all.

TalkToMeGuy : I've been around, I had to ask because I've been around people who are what I now know as toxic positivity, that's their baseball cap. And it seems like it's really stressful to hold up. It feels like it from my side, my perceiving side.

And hard to do because it takes so much chi to keep that smiley face, everything's great, I'm happy as can be. What it may not be true and it's okay if it's not true. So it's just, it's a gnarly one in my view.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : It is, as you say gnarly, because we do have our five core emotions, sadness, fear, joy, anger, and disgust. They're all there for a reason. They're all positive in their own way because they all have messages within them. And each of these five emotions goes up through, you know, up to the brain, and the brain takes those emotions, couples them with history, with our narratives, with our experiences, and out comes thousands and thousands of feelings. So if we're always trying to be happy with some people confused with joy, we are divorcing ourselves from the messages of all of those other emotions and all of those other feelings. And so what we would want to do if we're finding that we are constantly feeling the need to be positive at our own expense, then we want to look inside, slow down, and say, why am I doing this? What part of me, what part of my learning, what part of what I've been taught is telling me that I am not allowed to be my genuine self, that my other emotions and my other feelings are negative or unwanted or unhelpful. And so we just want to explore that with compassion and objectivity because when we do that, then we get to the root eventually of why we are feeling the need to be toxically positive. And to be fair, some people have a higher natural set point for positivity and optimism.

I tend to have a pretty naturally high set point, but I can tell you there are times when I'm a little bit of an introvert, so there are times where I really want to and need to draw inward and be... It's sense that it's less bright. It's not that I lose my optimism, but I'm a little quieter. I'm a little softer. I'm a little... Sometimes a little more, you might call it a bit of melancholy if I'm thinking about someone I've lost or something that's troubling me. And for example, if somebody makes me angry, I don't get angry very often, but I allow myself to be angry, but I don't act out on people or throw things or yell and call names.

But I might. One of my first instincts is to go for a walk. And if I can't go for a walk right then because I have a full client load or something, I'll just say to that emotion, I'll say, hey, I know you have a message for me. I know I'm feeling angry. I've got to put you over here.

I'm going to tend to you. And then when I get a break and it might not be till evening time, I will go for a very long walk to process the anger, to give the anger space so that I can explore it and see what it's trying to tell me. Because that's what our emotions are.

They are messengers. And again, if we just stick with trying to be positive all the time, we're cutting out a huge percentage of the messages that are trying to reach us and help us grow.

TalkToMeGuy : Well, I think the tricky part about stuffing your feelings is that eventually it's going to do something to your body, in my view. I think that holding this stress or even the toxic positivity, eventually it could be a part of a bundle that's going to turn into something either possibly immunosuppressive or hyperacidic or any number of things that if you just stuff all those feelings, it's going to act out in your body in some way because the body's going to hold onto it and churn on it in a way that you don't even consciously have as an awareness. That's my view as an old school health care practitioner that what we do with our brains affects our body.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Absolutely, Richard. I am such a believer in the body-mind-spirit connection. And when we look at the enteric nervous system, the gut, and we think that the brain, the mind is the master, particularly the mind, and we want to realize that the enteric nervous system, our gut, the gut biome, is, which is where, of course, gut instinct comes from.

It has so much to tell us. And, you know, 90% of the messages go from gut and gut to brain and 10% go from brain to gut. And we really want to honor that if we have a feeling like sadness, anger, fear, whatever is happening, rage, it's going to sit in the body. It's going to be in the gut.

It's going to be in our nervous system. And sure, we can do our best to suppress it, but I agree with you. It's not healthy to suppress it because we are using our energy, as you say, our chi, our life force, to suppress something that is not our enemy. It's not our enemy.

It is our friend. That anger is coming to us for a reason. That sadness is within us for a reason. That disgust, that irritation, whether, you know, there are emotions or feelings and we can use them interchangeably for the purposes of this interview, but they are there to tell us something, something about a piece of us that is not right with the self.

Or a piece of our relationship with someone else that is not right for the self. They are there as our guides and we don't want to ignore our guides. We want to pay attention to them.

TalkToMeGuy : There are clues and hints. Our bodies, it's like, as I would say physiologically, I always think that any kind of inflammation in the body is the body going, hey, hey, hey, over here, stay attentive to this. And I'm certain there's some sort of psychodynamic equivalent to that kind of inflammation, but it's a marker that we should be attention with a system. Amazingly enough, we are actually a system. Absolutely. Yeah. Alright, so we're going to jump. Oh, no, go ahead. You go ahead.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : I agree with you 100% that when there's, we have a blister on our toe or our knee is hurting or something, we're wise to not ignore it. We usually pause and say, oh, I think I need to put, you know, some ointment on this or I need to stretch more, whatever it is. And that's the same thing with the psyche. When there's an irritant in the psyche, we want to pause and we want to give it ointment.

We want to give it heat or ice or rest, whatever it is it needs. And sometimes that simply comes in doing something like sitting down and journaling or talking to a friend or finding a psychotherapist. The ointment for the psyche comes in so many forms. And sometimes it's as simple as pausing to breathe, to get back in touch with our breath and the healing power of our breath, or to ask someone for a hug or to give a hug. The psyche has so many ways that it can be healed. We just need to find what works for us and what works for us in a certain situation.

TalkToMeGuy : And this again fits into a thing I talk about when I'm talking about health issues with guests, is that I've always believed that given the opportunity the body will heal itself. It is a system and if we supply it with what it needs, it knows what to do. I'm not talking about if you have a compound fracture or you get a bad cut, or I don't mean that. But I do mean in terms of rebalancing the system.

Give it good microbiome, nutrition and fermented food and maybe everything will work a little better and you won't feel distended. That won't be setting signals to your brain. And certainly in the therapy world there's a similar thing of whether it's journaling or seeking good therapy or doing EMDR. There are things that can move the potential blocks out of the way. Maybe blocks isn't the right word in my language. Blocks out of the way that allow your system to flow as it could.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : I agree with you and I think blocks is a perfect word because out in the physical world if there's a block in the road we don't keep just driving over it. We somehow find a way to get that block in the road, a tree, whatever it is, move so we can go forward. And it's the same with the psyche, whether it's EMDR, talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, with meditation, all of the various avenues that we have to get the blocks out of the way.

That's all it is. And I'm not saying it's easy, depending upon how long our brains have been wired in a certain direction, especially a direction that's working against us, it'll take more work to get those neural pathways shifting into a healthy direction.

TalkToMeGuy : And now we're going to jump. Thank you. What is the attachment-based approach? What is that?

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : It's such a great question and it is where the joy of imperfect love starts from because when we look at various styles of therapy, the modalities, so to speak, back in the 50s there was research being done as a result of the effects of children being separated from their parents during the war. And the work that was done largely through Bowl B, Winnecott, and Amesworth has been so well researched and one of the most well researched areas of psychotherapy. And what they discovered was that children who were securely attached to their parents, who in the first year of life, which are key, and then the years beyond that had a parent who was a safe base, a secure person, or a caretaker who attuned to them, who saw who they were, who helped them learn who they were, who were not frightening to them. And who were consistent and safe and lovingly attuned. That these kids grew up to, by and large, have safe and secure relationships and be parents who were safe and secure for their children. So the intergenerational transmission of secure attachment is shown through the research.

Now for the other kiddos who didn't get safe and secure parenting, and we're not talking perfect parenting, this is where it goes back to the idea of the good enough parenting. When we, because no parent's going to be on it 24-7, it's impossible. We're human. We're imperfect.

But we want to be on it. We want to be able to be attuned and loving the maturity of the time. So the kids that did not have secure attachment, they fell into the other category of insecure attachment. An insecure attachment for children is broken into avoidant attachment, ambivalent attachment, and disorganized attachment based on the style of the caregiver. And so the avoidant child grew up really just feeling as though the parent wasn't there and that love wasn't safe, so they learned to avoid connection.

The ambivalent or resistant style is very anxious. They learn that love is dependent on circumstances. It might be there, it might not be there. That love is not strong and safe on a consistent basis.

And then we have the disorganized or the unclassified style. And that child grew up with parents who weren't making eye contact, who were not emotionally available most of the time, who likely had significant mental health issues of their own. And so let's fast forward these kids become adults, and unless they have had a significant change in their life, by 17 or so they have adopted an attachment style because sometimes the caregivers had two different attachment styles. So by the time that they are 17, 18, that style is firmly rooted within them. And then they go out into the world and they carry on that attachment style. And in the adult world, the avoidant becomes the dismissing style, the ambivalent becomes the preoccupied style, and the disorganized becomes the unresolved style. And so these individuals go out and as an example, the adults who have the dismissing style, they will get into relationship with people and find people fairly disposable. They may be in a long-term relationship, but it will likely be a very disconnected one where we have two people in the relationship on railroad tracks, so to speak. They're just kind of going along but not connected.

And then we have the preoccupied style, which is you're very anxiously attached person where they're very preoccupied with safety in the relationship. Always worried, am I safe? Am I safe? Is my partner going to cheat? Is this happening?

Is that happening? So there can be a lot of emotional dysregulation. And then of course in the unresolved style, there is very difficult time in intimate relationships because the person surely wants a loving relationship, but they just don't know how to do it because they never had it. So when we understand in the joy of imperfect love, I present all this in a very foundational, easily digestible way so that listeners can look and without blame or shame, just say, wow, you know, I think that this is what happened in my childhood or maybe when I was raising my kids and maybe in my relationships.

And so now what can I do to create the love that feels healthy and satisfying to me? And the good thing, this is such good news, when we look at attachment style, we can all earn secure attachment. It's not something that you're stuck with. If you decide, hey, I want to earn secure attachment, you can earn it.

It takes work that you absolutely can. And the beauty of secure attachment is that once you've earned it, you feel so much safer in your own skin and in your own relationships. And then you also find a relationship where someone, let's say they have a very unresolved attachment style or they're very dismissing and you say, wow, this isn't healthy for me. It's just, you know, you're not doing your work and I'm just constantly on edge and I don't want to live that way anymore because it's not good for my body, mind or spirit. And so I might need to take a step back from this relationship. So that's beautiful.

TalkToMeGuy : Hell, I feel like I need to lay down on the chair and we could work on that. I resemble that remark. I'll just say that for years I had said, of my parents that I was raised by wolves, not as a derogatory because at the time, I didn't know as much about wolves as I do now that wolves are very much pack animals. They care and know everything that's going on in the pack with all of their fellow wolves and they're very mate strong and they, even when they're out on the run or out hunting, they stop every 30 minutes and play.

I mean, they're very organized society. That was not my childhood. And my, you know, I used to say to my parents, they raised their wolves.

Now I can't say that anymore, but it felt like that. I might be the avoidant. I'm one of those. I'm an interesting mix between avoidant and possibly disorganized, just depends upon where I look. But it's amazing when I hear that. It makes me have to lay down.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : I have to, yes. And the beauty of it, and thank you for bringing that up. Some people think that they must be one of those three styles of Indian culture that I must be either avoidant, ambivalent or disorganized. And often there is a mixture where you, there's a big part of you that might feel secure, but maybe you're avoidant, you know, so maybe 40% of you is secure and 30% is avoidant. And then the other pieces, you know, they're slices of the pie. So we don't, we are generally not, although there's securely attached people who are truly securely attached, they generally, you know, their pie is like 90%, sometimes even higher than that.

But we all have bits, and especially if we've been traumatized in life, then we can really look and see, this makes sense. And reaching back to you with the idea of being with parents who were feral, so to speak, feral parents, right? And I do agree that the more we learn about wolves, the more that there is to respect about wolves.

They are so wise. But when we're raised by parents who are feral or often children themselves, and they are passing down maybe insecure attachment styles that they grew up with, then we do get the privilege, I see it as a privilege, of diving in and doing the work. And I certainly did not grow up with a secure attachment style. I simply didn't. Ninth child in the family of ten, not that that's problematic in and of itself, but if your parents were wholly distracted and busy trying to make ends meet or, you know, get life going, it's very difficult.

So we can look back and blame our parents if we want, but I prefer to look back and as you're doing and saying, oh, well, this explains it. They were feral, and they didn't help me with this or that. So now what can I do? I'm a person who is able to create a strong and secure base for me inside of me. And I can truly say, for me as a human being, but also for the clients and all the work I've done with people, that when you start earning that secure attachment, it is so life changing because it's exciting to realize that you're reacting differently in a situation than you would have in the past or that you're putting your boundaries in front of you in a strong and secure way rather than a defensive way. And you're saying, wait a minute, this is what I deserve. This is what feels right to me. And it's just a beautiful feeling.

It really is. And I get to see that in my clients as they're doing their work where they'll say, oh my goodness, I did this. I stood up to my partner or I stood up to my parent and they didn't know what to make of it. And yes, they will not know what to make of it because as you change, the relationships change and some people will want you to stay stuck.

And other people, the people who are really wise and those who want to grow too, they'll be welcoming of your change because they'll see that it's for your better self.

TalkToMeGuy : Well, we have to go now. I need therapy. No. It sounds exciting. The idea sounds exciting. Yeah, it makes my mind go down a whole different track, but I won't go there because it's the whole long, you know, lifestyle of being a chef for 20 years. When you're working hard in a room with a bunch of other people all alone. And I don't mean that in a sad way, but I mean that's part of, in a functioning kitchen, and I was the lead chef in a number of kitchen, a bunch of kitchen.

Your job is to monitor everything that's going on at all times. And there is no time for feeling because you're, it's insane. You're just got to get it done. You're going to maybe feed 500 people that night and it all has to go as smoothly as possible or allow the space for incidents to occur where you have to fix that.

And then you go forward. So it's a very, like Anthony Bourdain wrote in his Kitchen Confidentials, it's a very different kind of lifestyle, especially in the old style of kitchen, not so much today, but in the old style, which he was part of. And it takes the sort of dysfunctional, most chefs I've known are dysfunctional in their personality in some way. And they end up being in the kitchen because it's a place where they can use that dysfunction or just set it aside and be a skilled getting it done person. So you take that dysfunction and you use it as a tool of benefit by going into a kitchen where you can be sort of whatever that is, but yet you do this thing that's high functioning, or looks high functioning on the outside.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : And that makes perfect sense because a kitchen like that where it's organized chaos, so to speak, and people in their food, you know, it's a very delicate area when you're working with people in food because a hungry customer or a dissatisfied customer is not a good situation. And so guests would see you where for many people, I'm not saying you are a workaholic, but many people in certain industries become workaholics and become so invested in one area of life and become myopic, so to speak, as a way to cope with their unresolved trauma, their unresolved stressors. And so they can channel, and I know so many people like this, where they may have highly dysfunctional home environments or a lack of love relationships or a lack of relationship with their children, but when they go to work, they are, it is their area.

It is the area where they can say, I do well, I thrive here, and I make a difference. And I'm not saying that's a negative thing, I think it's all important, it's important for all of us to love our careers and be invested in them, but I do find it sad when our lives become lopsided, and I'm not judging it because some people may enjoy a lopsided life. I happen to really enjoy having a balanced life, and it's just how I made, if one part of my life is out of whack, I just naturally, it's probably that part of me that teaches yoga and loves yoga, I just love balance. And so I don't like a part of my being being out of whack. I love having balance in my work life, my exercise life, my body life, my personal life, my friendship life.

I love all of it to be in balance. And it sounds as if, and I do agree with you that for many people who have, I don't know if there's research on this, it's an area I don't know about, but I'm wondering, because I know many people who have insecure attachment, particularly the disorganized style, they really suffer from various mental health issues. And so I do believe that the more that somebody's attachment style falls into one of the poles, you know, way over on the edge of maybe disorganized or avoidant, where that becomes your safe place. So you sacrifice other parts of your life, and it may not feel very safe by the way, but it becomes the known place. And it's interesting because I talk about this a bit in my first book, Joy from Fear, where then we become jailed. We live in a cell, a dark cell that is unfortunately of our own making, and we didn't realize we were making it, but it's where we live. And I can speak to that on a personal level. There was a part of my life where I lived in a cell of my own making because I wanted to please other people and not rock a boat and wanted to be loved and accepted and do the right thing. And that comes at a high cost. It really comes at a high cost when we create a cell, wittingly or unwittingly, that doesn't allow us to grow and expand as we are meant to do.

TalkToMeGuy : We could do a whole show on the restaurant world, the kitchen world, because as you say that, I realize that mostly, particularly as the lead chef, my average day would be 10 and 12 hours. And in some restaurants, I'd do that for six days a week for several years. And it was a choice in that I do love to cook, but I never going in think that it is going to swallow my life up. And pretty soon you're operating around in a paradigm of where you're working, everybody knows you're working, you're hanging out with other restaurant people, and you all have the same kind of like, oh, I'm off to work, and you just have that as that sort of pack. You don't have a lot of social time. And I don't know if I used it as a way to be an avoidant, but it was just a choice of, you know, I did love to cook. I didn't keep doing it.

20 years was enough. But it's definitely a different kind of, it may be different now. I don't think so because it still is a grueling, I always think of food as the ultimate expression of art. It's art that is very transitory because you put the food down, you create the food, you create the idea of what the food should look like, smell like, and when it's presented, it's a transitory piece of art because it's going to be gone in 15 minutes tops. And it's a wonderful thing to create, but the lifestyle around it is tough.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Absolutely. From what I know of it, and I recall I recently saw a movie with a chef, and I believe it was set in New York City, and he was an addict, and it just fed his addiction, and the lifestyle, the late hours, the stress, the high degree of perfectionism, the teeter-totter that you live on when you're in the realm of fine food. And I can only imagine, and I'm not saying it's only fine food kitchens that are highly stressful.

Like I said, I imagine being in any kitchen where you have people who are clamoring for their food and coming in on an empty stomach, and you get it right, but they don't think it's right, or you get it wrong, and there's big fed. It would just be, it would not be a world I would want to live in. I would say that.

TalkToMeGuy : I don't necessarily recommend it. I don't necessarily recommend it because it is, it's very much you're in the world and then you're in the world. It's not like a 9-5 job or a job where it's like, oh, I have to go to my yoga class. It's like, you're here, you're working until you're not. Absolutely.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : You're not getting the sleep that you need. You're not getting the time for your relationships that you need in order to sustain them. And I would imagine that that sum of, speaking of Anthony Bourdain, I'm not going to guess his mental health, right? Because that's not what we're talking about here, but it's a good example of how the life can become, albeit successful in some ways, quite dark and self-limiting. And I think that's a big piece in the joy of imperfect love, where I talk about, you know, throughout the book, how important it is in this imperfect world. We're truly, I believe, that what matters most is our love relationships.

And I'm not saying necessarily our romantic ones because some people, too, do not have romantic relationships. But we are people who need people. We are gregarious beings. That's how we're created.

We need each other. And even if we only want to have one relationship with one best friend or, you know, really be close to our parents or whatever it is, we want to be able to do that in a healthy way because if we don't have love in our lives, I really believe we have nothing at all because if money were the answer, we would have no wealthy person with mental health issues. We would have no wealthy person with a divorce because money would be the answer. But money is not the answer. Money gives us, to a certain extent, what we need so we have food, clothing, and shelter and healthcare. But beyond that, it is love that sustains us. Love, even if it's love, you know, a deep, deep, abiding love for one's divine that I'm sure somebody like the Dalai Lama, who, you know, I can't even imagine what that lifestyle would be like. But I think that that is what the book is all about.

It's asking all of us to look and say, do I have this love, this type of strong love within myself? If not, do I want to create it? Do I have healthy, loving relationships with at least a few people or one person in my life that makes me feel safe and loved and secure?

And if not, do I want to create that? And even more, I go into areas like loving communication, loving communication with the self, paying attention to the scripts, to the narratives that are running inside your head. Because once we become aware of how we talk to the self, which is often the problem to begin with, I've worked with people where I would want to live inside their heads for five minutes, quite honestly, because their internal critic is so strong. They're always doing something wrong and they're not good enough and they're not handsome enough or pretty enough or thin enough or tall enough or whatever it is.

Oh my goodness! And I'm sure we all have a little bit of that in today's world where there's this voice of constant talks of comparison, but we want to do our best to exterminate it, to become aware of it, and have a gentle, loving voice inside of us that coaches us to be kind, gentle, empathic, respectful with the self and with others.

TalkToMeGuy : How does that sound? I will ask a different question, only because we could go down that path. I have a whole thing about kindness, but let me ask this first, because I think this is an important piece for listeners. This is in Chapter 3. You talk about knowing and embracing your imperfect self. How do we make friends with or make our imperfect self-love an ally?

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : I think, Richard, that that is one of the most difficult yet glorious parts of the process. The way we do that is to first not be enemies with the self, because many of us are afraid of diving inward. We are afraid of what we're going to discover. We are afraid that we are going to be found wanting or having made too many mistakes or being a bad person. Truth is, we've all made mistakes and we will all continue to make mistakes. There's nothing inside of us, aside from people who have committed murder, or really heinous crimes, but even those somebody in prison could come to forgive themselves and vow if they were ever released to not do it again. To me, that's hyperbolic in a sense, but the idea is to look at our mistakes, and to make friends with them, understand them, look at our resentments, heal them, look at what we've done, that we wish we had done differently, and not spend a lot of time in what we did incorrectly, but look at what we would have done differently, because then, neurobiologically, we are saying, oh, well, if I encounter this situation again, I wouldn't want to throw a plate at someone or throw X-blit at them. I would want to do this.

And so then, let's lean into that and let's practice that. We might say, oh, I look back and I was a horrible parent or horrible partner, and I'm so embarrassed. Or I was an addict or I am an addict.

Well, okay, that's great that you're aware that you want to do it differently, or that what you were doing didn't work well. So let's do a full stop. Let's look at what we didn't do well and what we might have done differently. Let's replay it now in the positive. Let's make our apologies if we've harmed people. Let's forgive the self, and let's do it better next time. And when we do that day by day, step by step, and be really mindful about it, we become more familiar with who we are in the current world, who we want to be in the next moment and in the next day, and give grace and compassion to who we were in the past. We can't change that. We've all done things in the past where we look and go, oh goodness, I wish I'd been more mindful or kinder or whatever we might wish.

And okay, so now let's vow to carry that forward in a different way. And I remember one of my first learnings on that was I was in a supermarket line and somebody behind me was being very grumpy with me, and I was not very tolerant. I just turned and I said, you know, would you just stop?

Can't you be kind? And I raised my voice and I think that was the end of it, but I didn't feel good about myself or the interaction. And so I played that in my head until I said, well, if I ran into that person or someone like them again, how would I do it differently? And so I played that in my head, and what I would have done differently is just say something if I said anything at all, like I see your perspective, and I appreciate it, and just leave it at that.

And if they continued, I would just finish what I was doing and then leave. And so I think that's a very small example. We all have likely larger examples in our lives, some big like decision we may have made that didn't come to a good conclusion.

So sure, go ahead, visit it, not to blame or shame yourself or someone else, but to say, hmm, if I had that to do again, how would I have exited more gracefully or soon or what would I have done differently? And then practice that. And as we do that, Richard, we are coming to know and love the self more fully and deeply. We're learning to have conversations with the self that are curious, that are loving, that are interested, that are not blaming. And as we do that work, and it does mean having lots of conversations with the self, and I love having conversations with myself because they help me learn and grow, then we'll be better able to have conversations with other people when they're doing something. And we're able to say, you know, when you did that, I felt very hurt. Could you possibly try this the next time? And seeing how they react.

And then modeling for them just by using an iMessage and being curious, they also have the chance to do things differently if they want to. And then from that point, let's say we're in a love relationship with someone, and as we get stronger, or in a family relationship, it can be any relationship, where we're starting to stand up for ourselves. We were the doormat for all these years. And as we stand up for ourselves, they become highly aggressive, and they want us to be the doormat.

They want us to just be bullied or whatever it is. So we may realize, oh my goodness, this person does not want me to grow into my best self. And therefore, maybe I need to step back from the relationship or end the relationship. And if that person ever wants to grow and become a kinder, more empathic, more balanced human being, maybe we can connect again.

But if not, then I think I shall just need to continue on my way and find people who are more aligned with me. And that is the beauty of imperfect love. We don't judge or blame or shame. We just say, oh, I'm on this imperfect journey.

And so is that person. And maybe their imperfect journey is very different from mine. But I'm not going to get stuck in here trying to get somebody to connect with me in a way that's unhealthy for me. Because many people are connected in unhealthy ways. They are connected by battling or shaming or blaming or addiction or codependency. And no, life's too short to get stuck in those.

TalkToMeGuy : This sits right into, I was going to ask this earlier, but now it's perfect now. I want to ask about the other section. This is in part A, I believe. Personal freedom and autonomy and how that might affect my relating to a partner.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : That's a good point, Richard. And it takes us back to the attachment styles. So I see that there are four styles in relationships. There is a style where we are very entangled and we don't breathe or move without checking in with the other person and them checking in with us.

And for some people that works, right? There is a style that is very distant, where it's one I referred to earlier, where you have two people on train tracks. They are kind of going along. They are parallel, but they don't know each other very well. They don't connect very well.

And then there is the divergent style. We have two people and one is on this path and one is on the other path. They don't know each other at all.

They are both out doing their own thing. And those eventually separate because they are just diverging too much. And then we have a style that is much like a healthy braid that can be braided and unbraided, braided and unbraided. You come together, you move apart and you are autonomous. You come together, you share, you connect, you are interdependent.

And then you go and you go out and do your own world. So that for me, for my paradigm, is the healthiest of styles because you are not overly dependent on somebody for their permission for everything you do or you are not afraid of having friendships or other activities. And you are also not afraid of depending upon someone else. You can be autonomous, but if you need help, you need support, you need some affirmation, you go to that person and say, hey, can I have a cuddle? Can I talk to you?

Can we work through this problem? I need your support over here. And then that person feels safe coming to us as well. So that healthy interdependent style is to me the hallmark of a truly genuine healthy relationship. And it doesn't just mean a love relationship. It can be a parent-child relationship. It can be, you know, a grandparent, grandchild. It can be best friends. It can be any kind of relationship where we really want to be able to stand on our own. Yet, also reach out for support and love and connection. As the old saying goes, no man is an island.

And so many times in life, we, especially if we're highly defended and we're either, you know, of the dismissing style or the unresolved style, we try to be islands and we're not meant to be.

TalkToMeGuy : What a radical idea. Oh, really? Wow. I've been suspended so much of my life being an island. I've, you know, I've, I've went from being a chef to a guy who's alone in a room talking into a microphone.

And that doesn't mean, oh, poor me. It's what I love to do. But it's just I'm, I'm a person who is very comfortable alone. And as a, again, I'm not like, oh, sad, poor me. I'm also very good at socializing. I'm a chef. Let's go into your kitchen and make food.

How fun can that be? So it's both sides. I like the, the braided part very much. Yes. And then I want to. Yes, go. Go ahead.

Okay. I want to ask, I'm surprised that we're heading toward the end. It happened so quickly. I want to go back to talking about kindness. I think kindness is underutilized. I think it's sort of my bumper sticker on kindness is now spread it around. It's free. Just it's okay.

Be kind. I think we would not possibly be in some of the situations we are now. I don't mean on the world stage, but just in general, in terms of people not talking and not having discourse, I'm a big fan of discourse. I talk with people often, well, not often, but on an irregular basis who are, who are completely in different worlds or different thinking styles, but it doesn't mean I can't have conversation with them and a little kindness. Hey, what about a little kindness? Talk about the power of kindness, if you would please.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Well, talking about bumper stickers, I'm looking at one of the few stickers in my office and I have love is greater than fear. I have the beaches my happy place and above that is my religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.

And those are my three stickers in my office and that is my religion. It's not that I'm perfect at it because I'm an imperfect person, but I strive to lead with kindness and I strive to be. And I think it's a piece that we've lost in many cases, our relationship with kindness because, and I'm not blaming technology, technology is a tool and we can choose to use it for good or not good, but many people hide behind technology, whether it's a phone call, whether it's a computer screen, whether it's a text message. And I think it's important for us to all, sometimes we are weary, right? Sometimes we are stressed and can we dig in regardless of how hungry, angry, stressed, lonely, tired, you know, we are all of those things and find a little bit of kindness. Kindness for the soul, kindness for someone else, kindness for the planet, picking up litter, you know, donating our time, kindness, kindness. And they don't need to be big acts of kindness. In fact, I just did a podcast, the one that released this past Friday with Magali Lamehta, who we are talking about, how little acts of kindness make a huge difference in the world. And I think so many people in today's world feel disempowered and powerlessness, yet one way we can always be empowered, always, always, always, is by being kind. And that is one place we can find our power. And it doesn't mean being a doormat to people, it means simply leading with kindness. And I think that it's another piece in our intimate relationships too often. People are kind in the external world and come home and are unkind to their partners or to their children or to their parents.

And I say, oh no, no, no, no. If you had a camera in your home or wore a camera, would you be proud of how you treat your loved ones? Would you be proud of how you treat your full workers? Would you be proud of how you treat yourself? Are you being kind? Would you be proud of how you're treating the planet? And that's how I try, though so imperfectly, to live my life.

I try to live it as though this beautiful power is looking down on me and asking me, so is my best life, to be my best person, every day, day in and day out. Do I get it wrong? Do we all get it wrong?

Of course we do. But we always have the next moment, because that's all we have is this next moment to try to be a bit kinder. And that is the essence of my last book, The Joy of Imperfect Love. It's the essence of my podcast, Imperfect Love. It's all about trying very hard, very gently, to spread loving kindness.

TalkToMeGuy : And congratulations on your new podcast, because you're not quite busy enough. It's impressive. As if I'm not busy enough. That's quite busy enough. Wow, you're doing a podcast now. Wow.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Oh, and you know what I've also done? That's very fun, and I couldn't have done it without the help of one particularly stellar individual, or several stellar individuals. But I'm creating relationship cards, and they are called Imperfect Love Cards. So for people who don't like to read a big book, they are reflection and oracle cards that are very mindfully done. And they're in the final phrase, and we'll be getting printed very soon. But I am so excited, because it's a very digestible form of doing some self-work.

It's really wonderful. So yes, but like everything else in life, we need to have angels with us. We need to have people who are angels, and we need, I'm a big believer in the divine. So I believe that there are many forms of angels out there who help us be our best selves and help make the world a better place.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah, I love the idea of cards. I work with a number of people who either have a deck of cards, whether they're angel cards or they're classic tarot cards or, you know, just cards.

As you say, I think they're a great... Cards are a very powerful way of slipping something people into people's unconsciousness, because it's just a visual thing to people. There is no...you don't have to study it or move words around to read it. You're just looking at some pieces. It's like my saying with the transitory of work or art is food, a nicely presented bird food. You don't have to study it.

You don't have to figure it out. You get a feeling from how it looks and how it looks is how you have that feeling. So the idea of cards, I think, is a really powerful tool.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : I love cards. Yes, I love oracle cards, all sorts of cards, because you're right. It's the collective unconscious, if people like that idea. And it lets something speak to us in a very gentle way.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah, we're very visual people. We have the head, the eyes at the top. There's a reason for that. There is a reason for that. Nature knows. Where would you like people to find your podcasts, your book, and anything else you'd like them to know about?

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : Well, thank you. My website is drcarlamanley.com, and my last name is Manly. People can find me on Instagram at Dr. Carla Manly, Facebook at Dr. Carla Manly. All of the usual social media places by the same name. And my books are available to my publisher, Familius, on Amazon. Through your local bookstore, you can request it through your local bookstore. My podcast is available in all the local, you know, regular podcast places, including Apple and Spotify.

It's called Simply Imperfect Love. And for those who read my work, like my work, please feel free. Please, I'd be so grateful if you'd leave me reviews on iTunes for my podcast and Goodreads and Amazon for my books. I'd be ever so grateful because it helps me spread the word a little bit better. And my Imperfect Love cards will be available soon through Amazon and possibly on my website if I can get my head around that one. I'm not a very good marketer.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah. I have other skills. That's not them. Exactly. Well, that was, I knew it was going to be fun, and that was really great information and fun as well. Thank you so much.

Dr. Carla Marie Manly : It's my pleasure. Thank you and thanks to your audience for sharing time with me. It's such a joy.

TalkToMeGuy : And everybody, have a great rest of the weekend, and we'll see you next week.

TalkToMeGuy : Bye-bye.