How can two people succeed with power partnering and overcome tribulations? In this episode of Disrupt Reality, host Tonya Dawn Recla and best-selling author, international speaker, radio host, coach, and counselor David Essel talk about this idea and many more. David shares his thoughts about relationships and finding oneself in a constant moment to moment decision to be in it, this is as opposed to separating from it or pretending. Join Tonya and David in today’s episode to discover how you and your partner can stay together when things get really tough.
Hello everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert and I am so excited to have with me today, David Essel. This is going to be a really fun conversation, folks. We’re talking about power partnering through tribulation and I know this has been tough for a lot of you. I know you’re spending more time with your partner than perhaps you typically do.
And it’s weird for us. Justin and I met working together, we’ve spent pretty much every waking moment together, with few exceptions. We build together, parent together, create together, everything together. So people think we’re kind of bizarre, but what we’re finding now is that people are thrust into these situations where they’re not prepared for that. So certainly we have a lot of lessons learned in that space, but most importantly, is how do you stay together when things get really tough?
To the point where I can’t tell you how many couples we’ve talked to, they’re like, “I don’t think we’re going to make it through this. I just don’t think we’re going to make it through.” They don’t have the foundation and the mechanism, the communication patterns, the habits, the behaviors, everything else. And why I’m so excited about this conversation is really early into the quarantine, Justin and I kind of looked at each other because Neva is present in everything we do also. And for those of you who don’t know, that’s our 10-year-old daughter, she runs Super Power Kids, but Justin and I kind of looked at each other, like we’re going to be in the home together for how long, it was like, she doesn’t go anywhere? Like we don’t get to go anywhere. Like how is this going to work?
And so we just sat her down and had a conversation and said, look, it behooves all of us. And this is nothing new to her, but it behooves all of us, for us to have a healthy marriage. And so we established a date day and the agreement was for all intents and purposes you’re going to pretend that we don’t exist right now. We’re not home with you. And it was just a really brilliant conversation and it worked out beautifully. And of course, she’s at the age and maturity level where she could hear that. But I think it required us to get incredibly creative, to make sure that we weren’t letting that connection slip. And so I know that’s a whole lot of what not to introduce David today, but this idea of power partnering through tribulation, I don’t think we could overstate the importance of it.
So he brought with him today, just amazingness. He’s a best-selling author, international speaker, radio host, coach, counselor. You name it, folks like getting into the heart of people and enlivening them, and reinvigorating them to pursue love and ecstasy in their existence. That’s no small feat and David’s walking that path really brilliantly. And I think you’re going to enjoy where this conversation takes us today. So without further ado, please join me in welcoming David to the show. David, thank you so much for coming on.
Tony, just your opening is beautiful. It reminds me of when I’ve had really powerful people write the foreword to my book and I’ll tell people the foreword is better than the book. Read the forward. Read the forward and then go on with your life. And I’d say that today. I said Tony’s opening is probably going to surpass.
I don’t think we’re at any risk for that.
The fact that you’re so open, I just love this. And you’re open with your partner and your child. And at 10, you’re saying you’re mature enough to handle this pandemic insanity. That is absolutely incredible communication. So I love that Tonya.
Well, thank you for that and your wisdom in this conversation. Anyway, I don’t want to spoil this. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to stop there, I’m just going to leave you all hanging. I know it’s not fair, but we’re going to instead just ask David what are your superpowers? And then from there, I promise you, I’m going to tell you why this is such an important conversation. So David let just get in and get started and hear from you. What are your superpowers?
Well, the very top one, which is the one that we all need to access right now is adaptability to change Tonya.
Brilliant.
That’s it. I mean, that’s really what I focus on. I mean, 40 years now in this industry, I just can’t even believe it. But when I look at it, you know I started out in sports psychology. I started out, actually, it started out before that in 1980 I was with Jane Fonda and all those people as I was doing aerobic videos. One of the first males to break into the national scene, crazy, right? Spandex and everything Tonya. I mean, if anyone would go and Google magazines from the eighties, men’s fitness, and all these I’m on the cover of all of them for God’s sake.
Oh my goodness.
It’s a trip. And then I went into sports psychology professionally. And then in 1990, I transferred over to the world of general counseling, which means that we handle anything in the world. And then I started utilizing what we call a hybrid program in coaching. And so I married counseling and coaching, which means that the counseling part of it is asking the most in-depth question, going back into childhood, all the stuff that’s powerful in order to get us to change. And then the coaching part of it is homework. You are not leaving a session without homework, baby.
We call that Super Power Experts, We call that working from both ends of the stick. It’s like, we got to go reprogram all this while we’re building up the new stuff. So brilliant, I love that explanation.
And really that superpower, you know, adaptability to change is something that I’ve had my whole life. And as we go into the discussion today about my new book, it is another huge change for us. Now, the public who knows me, know me as a motivational David and relationship, David and all that. But most people, unless you’ve worked with me behind the scenes, don’t know the erotic portion of our work that is so powerful to keep together. And you were saying the pandemic, one of the things we see with our clients that are struggling in relationships that the pandemic has brought to the surface is all the resentments they’ve chosen not to deal with up until now.
And they’ve just compiled.
Yeah. Now you’re 24/7 with someone, those resentments that haven’t been dealt with, they’re coming up, those gremlins are coming out of your ears, your nose, your mouth everywhere. And what we say is, is that the most powerful couples of course have taken care of resentments along the road. But if you haven’t and you’re looking now at your partner after three months of quarantine and going, this is it I’m done, I’m not putting up with this crap. It’s not three months. It’s the two, 10, 20, 30, 40 years before that you never really dealt with honesty in the relationship, right?
That’s right. Yeah, I’m shocked at how I remember in our premarital counseling, our pastor said to us that marriage isn’t a noun, it’s a verb. And that’s just always stuck with us. And we work it. Like it’s a constant moment-to-moment decision to be in the relationship as opposed to be separate from it or to pretend to be separate from it.
Do you know? And so it’s amazing to me how long people will live together without facing the things that create that discomfort.
Well, in our book, we define intimacy in our last two books, our last book on relationships and the brand new one coming out soon. The definition that we use for intimacy is really simple. It is a hundred percent honesty between two people. That’s it, that’s the most intimate you could ever get. If you’re willing to put your dreams out with your partner, to put your frustrations out, to put your loves out, to put your resentments out. If you’re willing to be that brutally open and honest, you are now intimate because most couples, Tonya, can’t go there. They never saw their parents do it. They saw mom going behind dad’s back. Dad’s going behind mom’s back. They hear gossiping. They hear all this stuff, but you don’t see people communicating about tough issues. The other side of the coin Tonya is that you don’t really see people communicate about the things they love with their partner after six months.
Most couples I work with, I’ll say to them, when was the last time you complimented your wife on A, B, C, D, E? When was the last time you complimented your husband and they’ll look at me going, what? What do you mean? They’re married to me. Or there are too many things they do incorrectly for me to give them that compliment. Then they’re not going to want to take care of their challenges. We’ve got ourselves in a ball here, in relationships. And what I appreciate about your show and what we’re trying to do, which is the combination, is let’s talk logic solutions. What do we do when we’re in that bubble and we’re on the bubble of divorce or affair. You’re starting to look at other people differently. You’re starting to think, you know, it’d be nice just to have a fling, get my mind off this nonsense.
Like, what do you do? Do you go to your partner and say, hey, you know what? And as we write about in our new book, we have clients that have done that. They’ve said, hey, you know, I got to be honest with you. I’ve been in the gym the last couple of days, and I’m getting hit on left and right by guys. And I’m not telling you to make you nervous or make you jealous. I’m just saying, there’s a reason it’s happening. We have split apart. I wouldn’t have noticed that six months or a year ago, because we were so together. But over the last six months to a year, we’ve really, and now I’m noticing guys looking at me in. In one of the stories when the wife came out and said that, the husband looked at her and said, the same thing is happening to me. There’s a woman at work that really wants to be with me. And now that is an intimate conversation, right?
Brilliant. Well, we’re going to cut a break here in just a second and when we come back, I want to pick up on this idea of, folks ride into that ability to be brutally honest with your partner if you have to be willing, to be honest with yourself. And one of the biggest challenges, I’m sure you find this in your work is when people aren’t, they really don’t know who they are. They don’t know what they want. And so your partner can be a great sounding board for that. And what we’ll go into some of that here, when we get back from the break. But before we do that, David, where can people go to find out more about you?
Yeah, it’s really simple. The website is talkdavid.com. It’s because it’s all I do, Tonya, is talk, so it’s an appropriate website name. But yeah, if you just go to talkdavid.com, there’s tons of free blogs. There are free motivational videos. You can get it, there’s a bunch of free stuff. And then there’s also all of our books on that, but, talkdavid.com, easy to remember, enjoy yourself on the trip.
Brilliant, awesome. Go check that out, folks. We’re talking today with David Essel about power partnering through tribulation, stay with us. We’re going to get into the book, his new book coming out. 50 Plus Flavors of Erotic Love. You’re not going to want to miss that folks. And so stay with us and we’ll be right back after the break.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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