Love is a skill

An incisive “couple’s workshop in a book” for navigating the challenges of relationships and unlocking lasting love

Linda Carroll’s first book, Love Cycles, describes the five stages of intimate relationships in detail, illuminating the behaviors associated with each stage and strategies for successfully navigating them.

 FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE

Welcome to shelfware podcast folks, I am so excited to have Linda Carol with us today. She’s the author of love skills, which is a follow up book to love cycles which I read and spoke to Linda about years. ago. I’m trying to think of the whole year for that one. So welcome, Linda. I’m so happy you came to the show today.

Linda Carroll 1:07
Well, thanks. Hi, I’m glad to be back. It was another chapter of the great mystery of how to make love better, how to live better and longer and richer. So I’m happy to be here again.

Leann 1:20
Well, thank you. And her book comes out on February 14, which could not be a more appropriate day for a book of love skills to come out. So the book love skills. Do you consider it a follow up to the book love cycles or a companion or tell us how you picture it?

Linda Carroll 1:38
Well, I think that it’s all three but I think really, it started out because actually, the lifecycles book started out because I’ve been teaching a class for a long time. 25 years which has changed in name from many different many it has had lots of different incarnations. And the last one was love cycles and Adam came a book. And I but the book was really more about the ideas. And so as I continue to teach the class, which I do in my town in Corvallis and, and now I’m creating an online class, I realized that sort of the heart of love cycles, and how to go through those cycles more easily, how to keep the love alive, was really about the skills that I was teaching in my classes, and that I needed to do another book. So I started out with a book that was going to be just a companion book. Not I don’t mean just as a minimization, but it was that was it. That was where it was going to sit. But as I began to write it, something strange happened. I started to write you know it as therapists, we write case stories. You know, Fred and Mildred walked into my waiting room, and we use those to give examples, but I have such great examples in my own marriage and So I just started to write about my husband and I, I started to talk about some of the places we’ve had loops where we’ve been stuck. things that happened that were really embarrassing and hard. But I just did it. And pretty soon I had a whole different book. And as I was doing that, and I was talking about the skills and where the, in the, in the truth of my search and experience about how to work with couples, the real heart of that was finding out for myself, how to make my own marriage better. And so I just, I don’t know, I had a place my husband said, You’re really unplugged in this book. And I hit a place where I just thought, you know what, I’m not going to come off as some great expert. I want people to know I’m a vulnerable, fallible human, and that I have had a lot of a lot of trouble with issues like control and having my own way and wanting to win. And even though I know the series I get stuck like everyone else and yet the skills have kept our relationship going for over three decades. So I’m going to tell the truth about it. So the book is kind of a isn’t a lot of narrative in it. And there’s still you know, Fred and Betty came into my office, I still use examples of clients. But a lot of it has to do with my own search, my own experience in trying to understand what makes love work, what makes it last. And so it changed midway. And it became a really personal book, a lot of it about my own journey.

Leann 4:32
And I really, really enjoyed reading about you and Tim, at the beginning of each chapter. And to your point. I think that’s what made the book relatable to me. You hear so many expert opinions or books written about love and how to handle relationships and communication skills, and they all start to sound the same after a while but yours were actually unique and you didn’t come across as we never have any problems because I love the skills. So tell me how wide Being relatable was important to you in this book?

Linda Carroll 5:05
Well, you know, it wasn’t some? That’s a really good question. I think that I, that for me, what’s really important in having a teacher, and what I get from my students at when I am the teacher is how much they appreciate how human I am, and how normal they feel, once they’ve worked with me. And so, so, so to me, and also for myself in terms of learning, I remember when my husband who is a veterinarian, but he has done a lot with me in terms of teaching and doing a lot of the training. And we were looking we were doing the imago training, the harville hex endurance training, and a Mago therapy, and we had to find a couple to work with. And I remember I called one person or not a couple of teacher, I called one person, and I said we want to learn to teach the classes together and the guy said, well That’s great. My wife and I, we walk the talk 24 seven. And the first thing we’re going to find out is if you walk the talk 24 seven, we want to make sure you’re doing it right. And when he said that, I thought, I don’t want to go there. Because I know that I can at any moment, you know, fall into what I call a loop. And I felt kind of I felt very, very nervous. And I just, and I felt intimidated, and I kept looking. And then I found this fabulous teacher who taught with her husband, who said, you know, this is really hard to do this, and to live this and we fail at it all the time. But we get back on it, we work at it. And I thought I can I can learn from her because I am so perfectly imperfect and I need a teacher I can relate to. So that’s what I want to be to my students and to my readers.

Leann 6:50
Tell us a little bit about the classes and your role as a teacher. Just tell our listeners a little bit about your history and background.

Linda Carroll 6:58
Sure, I was Well, I started out being a therapist, not a marital therapist. And I, in fact, I was really pretty scared of it, which was good because when I started almost 40 years ago, there was so much wrong with how how we did couples work. But I had I worked at a clinic, and I had a couple that I was working with. And it was I had never done therapy. I mean, this was an internship. I had never worked with a couple before, and they were fighting about money all the time. And at the same time that I was doing that I was teaching a class, and I was a teaching assistant at Oregon State University where I was getting my degree, and the class was on interpersonal communication. I had this moment, it was a real aha moment. And it was everything that cliche is about. I had been teaching the students this, this exercise called pillow talk. And in the exercise, they were debaters and what I was teaching them to do was to take a topic that They had very strong feelings about, and then to tell that from the other person’s point of view. And, and what you would do is you would change, you would sit on a pillow, your partner would sit or the person in the class would sit on the other pillow. And you would take different your perspective in there, and you’d argue them, then you had to go sit on their pillow, and argue from their point of view. And so I said, I was doing that, and I went to work with this couple, about half hour later, in this clinic I was working at and they were arguing about who was right and who was wrong, and they had a very classic argument about money. One person, they didn’t make a lot of money and one person believes that they needed to save just everything that they could, because they had such a limited amount for a rainy day and the other person felt like this is our life and we need to spend it on experiences which will give us more enthusiasm to make more. So I thought to myself in this one The moment I thought they don’t need therapy, they need skills, they need to do the pillow talk. So I brought in the exercise, then I had them tell their point of view. And then I had them tell the other person’s point of view as though it was theirs. And something really magical happened. They got a sense of what the other person was really saying. It wasn’t that they changed where they work. But they actually had some empathy. They were so busy trying to get their way and they couldn’t hear their partner. And so that, I think was the moment that my whole belief about love being a feeling, and relationships being a skill set. That was when it was born. And I thought how many couples are in therapy, because they think something’s wrong. And it really isn’t that anything is wrong. It’s that most of us didn’t learn the skills growing up, and we need them when we’re in an intimate relationship. So that was how it all started.

Leann 9:59
So do you just The difference between meeting skills and just a fundamental incompatibility?

Linda Carroll 10:10
I think that’s a very deep question. I say, you know, I’ve been with couples, for example, I can I can talk about my own relationship too. But I’ve been with couples that seem to have everything in common. But there was something. It was not there between them. And I’ve been with couples that seem to have nothing in common. But they were determined to work out how to be together. And I think that I think that certainly there is in compatibility. I mean, there are there are key issues, for example, that are such huge and important issues to someone that it’s not possible to be with somebody who doesn’t have the same belief system. But I think that compatibility is overrated. I think that there’s something else that is about do you, you know, I just read this article somewhere. I shouldn’t quote from it because I can’t remember the source. But that the title was that that humor between you is more important than compatibility. And I think that’s really great and I people, people get compatibility, of course mixed up with. Do we love to birdwatch? Do we love to bike? You know, do we feel the same about money and, and I think that there is a deep compatibility kind of a soulful compatibility where, certainly in my own relationship, there’s a deep belief system that we my husband and I each share about life. But if you if you were to put us on match.com we probably wouldn’t come up with partners. He loves the outdoors. I love movies. He loves to cook I love restaurants. You know, he’s he he is a as done is a physical person who is would registrate that under the stars I want to hotel and then we can we can laugh about that with us. And and we can say we are so invested heritable. But we love being together. And we have the same humor. And we have the same core beliefs. So I think it depends what take whereas another, you could look at two people that have the outer fit really well, but deep inside, there’s some way they don’t grok each other. So it’s a complicated issue. Does it make sense to you why I say it’s complicated?

Leann 12:23
Yes. And I think you actually explained a very complicated issue extraordinarily simply so that we can all kind of relate to it and understand because we’ve all seen couples where they should be the perfect match. And it doesn’t work out. Yeah, that’s right. And couples that have nothing in common yet. They’re joined at the

Linda Carroll 12:43
hip. They’re joined at the hip there some way they fit in, it’s like, it is some compatibility almost socially, you know, whatever that word means. I don’t know what it means, but they get each other in some very deep way. And I think that we I mean, I when I look at at the the complications of my relationship because of the things that we do so differently. I think, Oh my gosh, how have we, however, we kept this going for 40 years. But then I think of how we have last from the very first conversation we’ve had, and we have left so we had to pull over the side of the road and not drive. We were laughing so hard. We did it last night in our bed scared our dog a lot. We just started laughing about something and kept each other going. I mean that we get that part of each other, even if I don’t understand why he still stands on his head every day in his yoga practices. And he can’t believe I can spend a whole weekend reading you know, so. So I think that at work for some people that birdwatching component is a number one. It got to be with a birdwatcher. If you’re not a birdwatcher, I don’t want to be with you. And so we’re all very, very different and what compatibility means when you look at the couples that are politically so incompatible, and they’re on TV, I can’t remember their name, but one is a very staunch republican one, a staunch Democrat. I mean, that people are coming apart over their political divides right now. And yet there are people that work out how to do that together. And that seems, you know, for some people, that would be a walking issue.

Leann 14:11
No, I think this kind of goes into you bring up personality types in the book, which I was a little surprised you normally see personality types brought up in a relationship book. So tell us a little bit about how you saw personality types playing into your couples work, and why you thought it was important enough for the book.

Linda Carroll 14:32
Because I think that the most important thing between couples is compassion is empathy. And that when when the end the most important skill, is really being able to say I get you I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with it. But you’re not crazy to think what you think or feel what you feel. And I found that the enneagram, which is what I described in the book, that the enneagram is the very best way I noted do that because it’s not it. There’s no good or bad way personality. We’re all described as a particular type, which has to do with the lens through which we see the world. And so my husband is on the enneagram of one. And one is a person who does what they say they’re going to do. And they are, they’re really incredibly honest. Integrity is everything to them. And I’m a seven and sevens are, but they’re much more dramatic. They can rationalize all kinds of things. They love stories. They changed their mind on a dime. And so I can remember one of our arguments was going for we were going away for a weekend, and we were driving to the city over in Eastern Oregon and the rain came. Really a lot of rain thunder. I said, let’s not go there. Let’s go to Portland, and consent. Now we’ve already agreed to go to bed and I said, but then it’s raining. Let’s just change our mind. We had this argument on the freeway. And when we fell in love with each other, we fell in love with the ways that we were different. We fell in love with, I fell in love with how predictable he was, and how what he said was, what would happen and just the way he said it, and he fell in love with how spontaneous I was. He thought you I don’t ever know what’s going to happen with you. I’m life is so wonderfully full of surprises. So that day, we’re on the freeway. And that’s I’m a seven on the enneagram that describes me full of surprises. And and we’re having this argument about which way to go, do we change our plans and go to the city? Where do we keep our plans and go to the country? And suddenly I said to him, You are so rigid, and he said, You are so impulsive. And so what’s what’s rigidity it’s the other side of dependence. ability and impulsivity is the other side of spontaneity, when we fall in love with the very things that drive us crazy in the end, and we have to work through that, and to get to yet another space, which I call wholehearted. But the enneagram will describe those differences in it without judgment. And, and now that wouldn’t happen, because I understand from his point of view, as a one, how important it is for things to happen in a certain way. And he also understands me as a seven. So that’s, it’s a shortcut we use also in our language, you know, laughing, we can laugh at that there we are laughing again. But we can laugh about those differences where they want seemed so impossible. And I think understanding that the he has a different lens than I do, gives me such an important aspect of a good of a healthy relationship, which is realizing that my partner isn’t me. And it takes a long time to get there. Because at the beginning, we’re all about how we’re alive. And then we move into the trouble of how we’re different. But it really is more you’re not me. And if I can appreciate that life for you is different. We have a bridge between us, we can go back and forth rather than arguing or about which, which will lenses right? I can understand you, you can understand me and I think that’s a great, a great factor in having what I call wholehearted relationships.

Leann 18:28
And I like the fact that you lead up to the personality traits where you go back and do kineo Graham, which is more about the family history, your patterns of behavior, even going into how we’re siblings involved to talk about how that came into practice.

Linda Carroll 18:48
Well, I that’s the cornerstone of family therapy is that when you are working as a therapist when you’re working with two people, you have at least six other people in the room on each You’ve got the family of each person and their grandparents, you’ve got those stories that have come through and those ways of being that have come through generationally, and they’re playing out with the two people who are in front of you. And I believe that that is such a mess. One of the things I do with, with my clients as I go into at least three generations, and help them look at what the story that they came from was, and how that impacts them now, since have attitudes about money and touch, and sex and openness, I just did a weekend was a friend of mine. We actually it was for the women. And we spent it was a five day retreat for women, and we use Genia grams to in history, to to talk about attitudes that they had in their own life and where they came from. And a lot of the people in that particularly group had grandparents, who came here as immigrants. And you know, when you come as an immigrant, especially when you’ve come from a, from a painful situation, and you run away from your country, which many people did you know, during the wars, there were very strong beliefs about two things I think that I’ll share one had to do was talking about what you feel. It wasn’t good to talk about what you feel because there was so much trauma and sadness that you had to get on with making a life. And so there was some rules about Don’t, don’t give in to those feelings. You know, you’ve got to get a job. You’ve got to fit into this new culture. And if you fall into the sorrow, you’re not going to be able to do it. So those rules were really, really smart rules for an immigrant running from their life from some war torn country. two generations later, their kids are saying, but what does it feel like? Why don’t you ever tell me you love Me, why don’t you talk about what’s going on to what made sense then doesn’t make sense. Now, if people’s attitudes about animals, you know, dog shouldn’t be in the house. I mean, I had one couple, they had they both loved dogs. But they practically came apart because the one of the one of the people had an absolute belief that was wrong. They have dogs in the house. And the partner believed the dogs needed to be on the bid. And it was it almost they almost fell apart in the Jimmy Graham, one of the things we discovered was that the man who was the one who believed the dog should be outside, that his grandparents had a farm, and that they were all farm people, and that they were very, very poor and that they had sheep and that the dogs had to be outside to protect the sheep. So they didn’t. They lived in Oregon, where there and they lived in the city. There were no sheep. And he was sort of blown away like you said, I all this time. I’ve been fighting about a rule that felt like it was, you know, just a totally black and white rule. Like everybody knows dog shouldn’t be in the house. When he said, it’s not relevant for me now. Anyway, they got a dog, they got another dog, actually. So they had two dogs on the bed and he was happy. But that was, but that came from looking at where did that rule come from? And I think we have a lot of rules like that, that have to do with touch, and sexuality and self expression of feeling. And we think that the it’s sort of the expression, it’s just the way I am. But so much of it comes from our history. And when we can understand that history, we have some choices. Do I want to keep believing this? Which is okay, we can or do I want to question it? Does that mean So? So? So I think it’s so important to know where we come from and all kinds of ways. And also I think that we play out our history with our partner and for many people that That our family history often involves a relationship with a sibling, much more than it does with parents. So that’s why I included that about siblings, siblings or you know, older siblings, younger siblings, special needs, siblings state help. They’re such an important part of how we develop our sense of self. And we don’t do that consciously. We just do it. And so that when we come into my husband’s had an older brother 18 months older, so he was always better at everything than he was. And, and, and for a lot of our early years, when we would be out with friends and I’d be talking about something he suddenly kind of burst into conversation kind of pushing. And later he said, You always get the attention. You’re always taking that away the story away from me. But as he began to explore this, and Sophie said, you know, it’s not about you. It’s about, you’re not my big brother. I can talk just as well as you can, but I get into this little kid play And I think that the answer was liberation, when he understood that for both of us, because we were playing something out with each other. And it didn’t have to do with he and I had to do with a long time ago in his life.

Leann 24:13
He touched on something that I think is vitally important. One of the purposes with this whole podcast is to let people know that there is hope there is inspiration. And there is probably a pattern. If you’re listening to this and wanting to read a book to solve, in this case, relationship problems. There is a pattern and there is a history and there is a context to why you do the things you do today. So I think one of the strongest parts in this book is you have so many tools available for people to see those patterns. Were there any tools that you reach for the most, or any tools that you had to leave out just because there was too much in the book.

Linda Carroll 24:56
I think that there’s lots of tools to leave But I think that the two things I would say that are the most important tools, I mean, there’s certainly things to do when you’re upset, you know, ways to talk about a topic that don’t escalate it. But even before that, I think that there’s a chapter called connection without conflict committed connection before conflict. And what that chapter talks about is how important it is to put in on a daily basis, the goodwill, and I compare it to a bank account. It’s like you want your account to be in the black, because something’s going to come up and you’re going to need to draw that money out fast. And you don’t want it to go into the red. So So an example that I give is that my husband has made me a latte just about every morning of our relationship. And he has made that latte and brought it to me in bed. He gets up really early, and I have trouble getting up. That latte appears it appears when when he’s in a hurry and he just sets it down. It appears when we’ve had a fight and we’re not particularly sweet on each other. And he puts it down and doesn’t say much. It appears with sometimes a hug in the morning, and and it in a welcome. But it’s always there. And no matter what’s happened the day before that act of goodness comes every morning, we start new with that latte. So and that’s one of so that’s one of the skills is just using the generosity and expand expanding our generosity, so that we do those acts of kindness for our partner, so that when we do go into a hard, hard moment or a hard issue, or a hard season, which we will, that we have a lot to draw on. So that’s the first skill and I have all kinds of skills in there that I talked about, you know, ways of connecting every day, ways or something, I call it emptying the jug and using the daily temperature reading, which is a great tool, just as a way of kind of keeping connected and then definitely One whole set of tools, then there’s a whole other set of tools that has to do with when you are in trouble. What do what do you do? And how do you not get into worse trouble than you already are? And I think that that’s where that expression of how love is a feeling. But But loving is a skill set that how can you create a loving connection, even when you have very different ideas about something or when one of you is hurt the other feeling you have your feelings because I think that the thing that happens in arguments that I see, most of all, is not that the issue is why people actually come into therapy. It’s because people have become so shut down and defensive and upset over what’s happening with their partner, that they lose the connection. I call that the black belt of therapy, or the black belt of relationship that you having Very different points of view, even points of view that are threatening to the other person. I want a child, you don’t mean that’s pretty scary? Can you talk about that? This is how you get your black belt. Can you talk about that? And even though you feel very strongly about your point of view, and you don’t want the other person’s point of view, you hardly want to give it any validity. Can you walk away from that conversation and be in touch with your love for each other, and still feel respected and cared about? And that’s a skill, we don’t do that naturally. We have to learn how to do that. So that I, I’d say those are the two subsets of skills that I think are so important.

Leann 28:43
You mentioned in the book that out of all the things you write about, you wrote about defensiveness, and probably get the most amount of comments. Yeah, and I thought your chapter on defensiveness was brilliant. Can you talk a little bit about what happens when people are defensive and What do you do? If you’re with someone who seems to be on the defensive often?

Linda Carroll 29:05
Yeah, yeah, I think that you know, dis defensiveness causes so much trouble, then that’s true. I’ve I’ve had more letters from people and requests for coaching and help around that issue than anything else. Because what happens is it it closes down communication about difficult things. And one of the things we need to be able to do, we we connect, and then there’s some kind of a rupture. And in most of those ruptures are not because someone’s bad or done something wrong. Someone you know, you forget the spinach, or you forget to put gas in the car you forget to pass a message. The other person your partner needs to be able to then make a complaint. You forgot the spinach going started the car went out to the car and there wasn’t guests, you know, oh, you forgot to give me that message. You we have to be able to say that and then It’s over very fast, hopefully, because the partner who forgot this Bennett says, Honey, I’m so sorry, I’ll go back and get it. Or I’m so sorry, I forgot to get the message. But if you’re defensive, you’re already usually so critical with yourself, that when your partner says you forgot spinach, what you hear is I’m a worthless person. And then your response to that as though it’s as though that’s what your partner actually said. And if this goes on, for a long period in a relationship, the other person who isn’t defensive, stops protesting, and then they act it out. They do. What that means is that rather that they’ve learned, I can’t say to you, that I’m upset about something because it’s going to get really big really fast. And I don’t want that. So I’ll not talk about what’s upsetting me. So what do we know about what happens if I can’t say to my husband, what am I My partner, I can’t say, you know, I’m upset about you telling bill, something I told you that I asked you not to share. If I can’t say that to him, I’m going to have a resentment, I’m going to hold that resentment, and it’s going to come out sideways. I’m gonna, you know, take more and more time away from him, I’m going to, I’m going to keep something from him. It’s going to shut me down emotionally or sexually, or in my willingness to, to extend. And, and so it costs a lot. It shuts down communication. And so for the person who’s defensive, there’s a whole lot of steps to do and things to think about in terms of what does, where does this come from? And how can I work with and ways to work with it in oneself? For the person who’s with a person who’s defensive? One of the things I talk I suggest is that you talk about that issue. It two things. One is you talk about it when you’re not in a conflict. So when you’re having dinner, there may be a conversation like, you know, I and I don’t and I don’t suggest you talk about it by saying, you know what, you’re so defensive. I don’t know what, I can’t tell you anything that’s not going to go well. But you talk about it in a way because here’s another really important thing that I believe is it under a complaint is a wish, a hope. So if the complaint is you never hold my hand, what’s the wish? I want to hold you I want to touch you more. I want to hold your hand. So you can talk about it with your partner in a way that has to do with the wish. You know, sometimes, I really want to talk about how to make things better with us. But when I do, I feel like you hear it as a criticism. How can I do it in a way that’s not gonna make you feel criticized? So you can tell that was an just an example of how you can bring it up, you know, that it so that you don’t bring it up as a creative If you criticize your partner for being too defensive, it’s going to be it’s going to go on a loop over over over again. So it’s how can you get heard? Does that make sense?

Leann 33:13
Yes perfectly. And then I think this segues into those cycles that you talk about, ya know and love cycles. You talked about the merge you know, Downton and distance and disillusionment for step three and phase four is decisioning. And five is wholehearted living the the phase we all think we want to be in for the rest of our lives forever and ever. Talk a little bit of how it’s a cycle and not a permanent state.

Linda Carroll 33:41
Well, it’s like being it’s like consciousness or enlightenment. You know, we get to or you have or having a great weekend, where you’ve done a lot of working out and you come home and you’re just and you’re determined you’re going to do it with that life is full of seasons and cycles and we have wholehearted moments. And I think that we can, the more we do the work, the more we do the practices, I won’t call them work, the more we do the practices to become wholehearted, the more often we are there, but we don’t stay there. You know, we just we get into, it’s just in the same way you go to the you go to the ocean, and you walk on the beach and you see a whale, and you’re just blown away at the whale and the waves have beautiful, and you have this moment where you think, Oh, this is this is life. You know, this is it’s like you’ve arrived in some great truth of how great the whole world is. And then on the way home, you get a text and your your assistant is quitting and something didn’t go well at work and you get home and you know, the, the cat got out and all of a sudden you’re back in it. You don’t stay in it. Everything has cycles, just like the waves are cycles and the seasons. And relationships are cycles too. So you know how you can get to wholehearted but you don’t stay there because You get older and somebody you know, suddenly has a knee that doesn’t work, right? And they’re hurt all the time and are in their grouchy. Okay? So what, what, what the practice does, of doing those things that help you get to wholehearted what they do is you remember how to get back. You know, like, I just have this hard week I was doing, I have this nonprofit that I that I do and I worked 40 hours last week, plus my regular life plus the book coming out. I was so tired. And for the past three days, I was just I was like a blob. I kept saying I’m having a D minus day I could barely get get out of bed. And I felt I just I just sat by the fire and I read and I was and I started to really feel like like, how can inertia You know, it was like I was catching up. I was so tired. I could hardly move. And this I had an appointment this morning and I just made it just Vision I’ve got to get my body moving. I’ve got to get myself back in life and not give into this tiredness. So I walked home from the appointment It was really hard to do it with my husband so I’ll pick you up I said no, no I want to walk and it was raining and I walked for two miles and by the time I got home, I was back in a great place again, but before that, if I hadn’t done that, I could have stayed in that inertia place for a long time. wholehearted is like that you have the tools you know how to get back in there. Maybe that was the more how I got back feeling better in myself and therefore I am more wholehearted but the in wholehearted in the chapter on wholehearted I talked about how, what that means and the practices that get us there. And even though we we fall out of that place of being, we can do those things that get us back into feeling wholehearted. I

Leann 36:52
really like that analogy and to further that point. You walked in the rain for two miles so wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just oh, I’ll do this little thing and I’ll suddenly feel better. It was work and you had to step remind yourself, why am I doing this?

Linda Carroll 37:09
Yes, that’s right.

Leann 37:10
I really think that that’s a beautiful analogy for doing the work and doing the practices inside of the book. Tell us a little bit about your online course and things that are you’re starting, how are you? Are you doing a book tour? How are you promoting the book?

Linda Carroll 37:27
Well, I’m just my, my, I’m doing a lot of Pogs and doing some TV. And I speak a lot. But I’m starting an online course because so many people they fly in to do a weekend course but they want something longer. So it really is based on 25 years of teaching classes where people are going to when you sign up, there’s going to be a shorter course where you there’s a lot of lessons and I’ll be speaking and and doing you know kind of quick quick little teachings in between the lessons on Mine. And and then there is a course it’s longer and more involved where I’ll actually meet with people virtually three times during the course. So I’ll help them with some of the the skills that we’re learning and just see how to make it easier for them to actually do the work. Because it’s like going to the gym. And if you you can sign up. I mean, how many people sign up for courses? Because they had in the same way people start diets, right? You know, I’m going to buy this book. I’m going to buy this book on keto or lifting weights. But actually the follow through is hard. So the the second program will have me there kind of as your coaching, did you do it? Let’s do it together. Because we know that repeating practices is how we really integrate them into ourselves. So that hopefully will be up in my website. before too long. I’ll have a Facebook meeting page where people can meet and talk and where I will also talk with people So that’s coming up. So that’s very exciting.

Leann 39:03
And what’s your website address?

Linda Carroll 39:05
Linda, a carol.com. Linda, a, Carol, Li, n da, a CA RR o Ll, and I have an Instagram page called Linda Carol official.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai