Moving Toward the Center: Overcoming One‑Up/One‑Down

Terry and Layla discuss shame, grandiosity, contempt, and practical guidance for returning to healthy self‑esteem and intimacy.

Play episode from 09:23

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Transcript

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Transcript

Episode notes

Shownotes

Terry's "grid" that reveals how your trauma shows up in relationships
The difference between individual empowerment and relational empowerment
Which quadrant of the grid Layla is on and how she got there
Why Terry calls our relationships our "biosphere"
Terry's best advice for shifting out of anger and into connection
A powerful guided boundary practice to follow along with

Bio

Terry Real is an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker and best-selling author committed to helping you build the lasting, loving relationships you deserve.

The author of four books, including the recent New York Times bestseller Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, Terry knows how to lead people on a step-by-step journey to greater intimacy and personal fulfillment.

His revolutionary approach to couples therapy, Relational Life Therapy (RLT), underpins all of his books, courses and teachings. RLT equips people with the powerful relational skills they need to make love work and cultivate authentic connections – to themselves, each other and the planet as a whole.

A former senior faculty member of the Family Institute of Cambridge in Massachusetts and a retired Clinical Fellow of the Meadows Institute in Arizona, Terry has worked with thousands of individuals, couples and fellow therapists. His extraordinary ability to save couples on the brink of divorce garnered Terry the reputation of "the turnaround guy," and demand from other therapists to learn his RLT method skyrocketed.

To bring the remarkable results of RLT to as many people as possible, Terry established his Relational Life Institute. To date, thousands of mental health practitioners have benefited from a whole new perspective on couples therapy that has transformed their clients, their practice and their own relationships.

Terry is passionately committed to empowering us all with the essential relational skills for meaningful relationships.

Learn more about Terry's work on his website and take his FREE quiz.

Timestamps

00:00:56 - Guest introduction

00:01:12 - What Terry's book Fierce Intimacy taught Layla

00:05:03 - Sign up for Layla's newsletter at LaylaMartin.com

00:05:43 - Terry shares the work that inspired his grid

00:07:00 - Terry's "grid" that reveals how your trauma shows up in relationships

00:09:47 - Why we have a hard time centering our own self-esteem

00:11:21 - Terry gives a real life example of self-esteem

00:15:33 - How to get out of one down or one up on the grid

00:21:10 - Say whatever you have to say, but do it from the heart