3 Tips To Relationship Resilience with Robyn McTague | S1E053

Linda Orsini: 00:00:09

Are you someone on a spiritual journey, seeking to deepen your connection with your higher self? If you're eager to release fear, overcome self limiting beliefs and find relief from emotional stress and anxiety, then there is a call for love. And I'm your host, Linda Orsini, guiding you on your journey to awaken your inner healer by getting unstuck from old patterns through mindset, movement, and meditation. Let's begin.

Linda Orsini: 00:00:40

Welcome to Robyn McTauge. And she is the creator of a life of choice coaching and consulting. She helps individuals, couples and teams navigate the complexities of their personal and professional relationships through unique blend of proven strategies, including science and metaphysical systems. Wow, that is so interesting. I can't wait to dive into that deeper Robyn. But you also empower your clients to uncover the drivers behind the behavior, addressing conflicts head on and cultivate thriving relationships with themselves and others. Welcome, Robyn, to a call for love.

Robyn McTague: 00:01:20

Thank you for having me.

Linda Orsini: 00:01:22

It's great to have you here. You come with a wealth of knowledge. And I would like to hear about, just briefly how you got to where you are now.

Robyn McTague: 00:01:34

Sure. Well, I was one of those really curious kids. And I came from a family that was really challenging. My mom was suicidal. The first time I remember I was four years old, my dad was alcoholic and an abuser. And my mom and I ended up leaving when I was about six. And we lived with other families. So I had to fit in wherever I went. And so it made me really curious about people and why they did what they did, and why they didn't have awareness. Why did some people have awareness and other people didn't. And later when I learned about the Enneagram, it's like, wow, that's I could see my way of viewing the world, right from such an early age. And so then, you know, I went through life and I had more challenges about marriage, I kind of did the typical thing, even though I learned about psychology and counseling, and later conflict resolution. But it was like I repeated the patterns, because there was that emotional connection that I hadn't dealt with. And when I had breast cancer 23 years ago, now, that's when basically I sat on my couch and went really deep and started to allow those feelings to come up. And we really have to look at what we're avoiding in ourselves. And it's like, how did I get here? Do I want to continue my life this way. And so then I learned the meditational, and energy healing systems that allowed me to shield my energy. So I could figure out what's mine and what someone else's, because I'd learned to really be that chameleon and see what other people were thinking and feeling. And that was my safe way to be in the world. And so I didn't know how to keep my energy and be able to speak who I was. And then through that and getting more secure and who I was and knowing what I wanted. Then I left corporate and I learned the motivational map to help me to see where those internal conflicts, I had already learned the conflict resolution skills, and some of the critical incident stress debriefing some of those things, some of the trauma, and then the Enneagram. And it just helped me to see more and more why I did what my what I did, what was important to me understand my values, what I really wanted in life. And so that's what I love helping others to build the skills because we don't grow up in families that know about boundaries, or give us skills to express who we are. And often it's like we play these roles, and then we carry those roles forward. And then it's like, how do we learn to break that? And that's why we need to bring in the awareness.

Linda Orsini: 00:04:29

Oh, absolutely. This I'm a big advocate for that. It sounds like our paths, in some ways are parallel. Although, you know, my childhood was very blessed. You know, there's challenges as you got older and it's navigating through those but you have something called discovered the path to relationship freedom. Three expert tips. That sounds like something everyone could use. Can you tell us about that?

Robyn McTague: 00:04:59

Yeah so the First one is we take things really personally. So if we can learn to be able to take a breath, and just notice what's going on with us. And it's like, oh, what's that defense that's coming up? Or what's, what is stopping me from actually hearing what people have to see? And understand and maybe ask a question. And one of the things that we use with the Enneagram system is a centering practice. So spending some time in the morning, just two minutes, breathing into our body center, or the belly, two minutes into the heart center, and two minutes into the head center, and then a minute, kind of connecting those. And that brings us more present, and gives us more space to be able to have that self observation skill, to see how we react. Because it might be someone that we have in our life. Now that reminds us of someone else, or not necessarily how they look. But that energy pattern we see so often people leave relationships, whether it's in a workplace or in a dating relationship. And that energy follows them. So the same patterns happen again and again. And they wonder why, right? That was partly the marriage I was in. The person wasn't a drinker. They weren't into the arts, and all the stuff that I used to date, type of people I used to date. And you know, this was a top athletic person didn't drink, had a really lovely family, but the energy was the same. It was that anger that would build that happened with my dad. So I repeated that pattern, even with my knowledge, because I hadn't dealt with the emotional piece yet. So when I could learn to see, oh, that's what's important, him and it, it took me years some times for certain things, because there was a certain thing that had happened. And I finally had that aha lightbulb moment. It's like, this is what you wanted. But you didn't see it. And you said, Yeah, you're right. And that was kind of the beginning of the end, when I saw that pattern where it was all about him. And I was expected to give everything that I owned, basically over. So you know, then it was like, No, that's what's not important to me anymore, I need to move on. So that's the first one is really to

Robyn McTague: 00:07:34

allow ourselves not to take things personally. The second one is learning to embrace conflict, we're so afraid of conflict. But when we shut that down, we're not honest with ourselves with the other person. And so the mantra that I have from my conflict resolution training is Be curious, all behavior makes sense. So to that person it does. So can we be curious and ask the questions and be open? And find out why that's important to them? Yeah, so for example, in my marriage, because there wasn't that place of being able to say, what we thought there was this fear of being honest with each other. And when I finally had that light bulb moment of what his expectations were, and it's like, oh, you expected me to just give you the money and do what you will with that, even though I've put everything into our home to make it better. And you know, get it ready if we wanted to move. But that wasn't good enough. So that was kind of my light bulb. It's like nothing is ever going to please this person. So why am I here. And so that was kind of the beginning of taking more responsibility, the correct responsibility, because as a child, my mother put a lot of responsibility on me for her emotional wellness. Having had the challenges with the depression, so I had to learn about that, and that kind of emotional impact of different things in my life. And that's why the meditation I found was so helpful, because when we can learn, we all are energetic sponges in some way. So we feel other people's things so we can have these boundaries energetically. We can learn what's mine and what someone else's. And then the other thing is to really know who we are, right? The more that we can understand what's important to us, what are our values, and really listen, because so often we look outside of ourselves for this. And so that's one of the processes with the motivational map how helps us helps us to see what gives us the energy to move towards what we want. So some people are more relationship based or achievement based or growth based. And so if I'm really growth based, I want the bottom line, I don't need a lot of communication. Whereas a relationship person wants lots of information on a regular basis, and relationships take time. So they want that regular connection. So we can have a misunderstanding just from our basic wants and desires. And the other part is through the personality. So the Enneagram system is a psycho spiritual system that lets us see the nine different ways that we view the world. And so often, is just our way of being human is that we expect other people to think like us, ace. And this comes this is where a lot of the conflict comes. And especially in love relationships, but really in anywhere we see this works really well in the workplace too, is because when I can understand why you're doing that, what's important to you that that's your way of viewing things, then I can have more kindness and compassion for that. And then I can start to see what I do, and how that might influence how people are reacting to me, for myself, like that peace around the awareness. That is something that's really key to the personality type that I am. And so you can see it at a really young age. So we're kind of brought into the world with this way of the seeing things. And when we can build that clarity for ourselves, then we can have more alignment with ourselves, we can be more aligned and secure so that we can have those conversations. So if we have the conflict, or if we want to discuss something a little deeper, we have the confidence and the ability to do that. Because we know what's important to us rather than, well, I'll just go along and then build the resentment. We see this so much in relationships, we kind of go along to get along, or we just say yeah, it doesn't matter, when in fact it does.

Linda Orsini: 00:12:37

Well, that's I feel like we're so aligned here. I feel as though our listeners would really want to know more about this Enneagram and the types that there are, can you share with us the nine types?

Robyn McTague: 00:12:52

Yes, so one is the helper. So that's the people that really want to find that love connection. And so that they feel it's like the way that I give I won't ask for things directly. Like we have different levels, we have nine levels of development. And this is partly why people can look different is because you know, they have different things going on. So when I don't know who I am, when when I can ask for what I want. Being that helper, that's sorry, that's too. I didn't start at one. That's okay. So it's like expecting all get the love back by doing things for you. And when we can get to a more developed place, then there is a kind of really solid way of giving from a place of love and not expecting back. The one is the reformer. And they really want to make sure that we're doing things right and good in the world. And, you know, we need these people, we need the people that really say, you know, where's the integrity and this, the type three is the performer. And so they're the ones that really give us that energy to get out there and do things. And so when we're not using it from the place of what we can do, it can be overdoing. And so it's learning that balance, but when we can say, Yeah, I see that light in you and I want to bring that laid out in you too. Like I'm shining and I want you to shine. That's what they love to do. The four is the individualist or the romantic and they're the ones really about that deep uniqueness of who we are really celebrating this place of. Yeah, there's this when you think about poetry and different things like there's this very difficult place to really even put it into words. But there's this beautiful place of beauty and uniqueness and really being who we fully are. And the five is the investigator. And there's different names for all of the types, there's lots of different ones. And so the five is the one in the head center. So we have centers, we have the body center, eight, nine, and one, we have the Hudson, or head centers, five, six, and seven, and the heart two, three, and four. And so they're the ones that really can go deep on a subject, they, you know, they might be a physicist, but they might be in a specific aspect of that. So really about that knowledge and being able to bring all those parts together to be able to really help us to see, you know, what are the possibilities, and what can we bring together in this knowledge. And the sixth, which is the loyalist, which is where I land. And so this is really about connection with people. So I love to make sure that we're all connected, we're taking care of everyone. And that's why I love to do the union work when I was working corporately, to really make sure everyone was taken care of. And all included, the seven is the enthusiast and lots of energy. If we overdo it, then we have too much, we're always going after the next thing instead of really learning to engage and bring it into ourselves first to really digest it. But when they're on that higher side of it, it's really about bringing information together and in a very unique way often like they'll take different aspects of two very different things. And then like, how do we bring this together. And so they can come up with some really interesting ways of working with things. And then the eighth is the challenger. And these are the people with lots of energy. So these are the leaders that are out there. And it's like, let's do it now. And let's just go. And sometimes we see these people as angry, but they're not, it's just that they have this really high level of energy. And so they can really get things done. And then the nine is the peacemaker, and they're at the top of the Enneagram. So they can see out onto all the different numbers. And so they really want to bring that unity together. So they all all of the different types have a specific gift to what they bring. And the nine is that place of we're all connected. And they can hold this beautiful space, like these make really great counselors and stuff when they can really sit in that place. And when we're not being kind of go to sleep to ourselves, so we have bits of all of them within us. So we can learn from all of them. But we have one main one that gives us our most direct path for our growth and our learning. Yeah,

Linda Orsini: 00:18:11

that's so interesting, because as you were speaking, I was like, oh, yeah, I have a little bit of that. Oh, yeah, I have a little bit of that, but not much of that. And it was like, I came up with the enthusiast, the loyalists, the achiever, the helper and the peacemaker, but I guess can't be all of those will

Robyn McTague: 00:18:28

know what happens is the system can actually get quite deep, and that we can look at what is that main point, what is the way we see things and then work with that. And then we have paths for growth. And so we kind of start in one area, and then we bring in all of them. And that's, that's the important piece is then we can see, everyone has their gift. And then we're more open to what people are and how they do things. And we're not making people wrong for seeing things differently.

Linda Orsini: 00:19:05

Yeah, I think that's a really important thing for everyone. Well, for everyone to know. Because when we know where people are coming from, it just gives us a little bit more empathy, to allow us to respond with more loving kindness. And that doesn't mean that we drop our boundaries and we drop our self worth. But it means I feel that it means that we can hold space for other people more compassionately, and then our relationships can get better which would really tie into your, your path to relating and creating better relationships.

Robyn McTague: 00:19:47

Absolutely. That's the whole thing, right? When we can bring in kindness and compassion first for ourselves, then we can bring it for others and then that's when there's more flow and And that is part of the path, right is being able to be present to what's going on not take it personally learn to be able to deal with the conflict. And then by knowing who we are, then we can be honest about what we're feeling, and being honest with ourselves how we're seeing things, right, if I'm seeing the lens through, you know, people aren't supporting me, for example, that's one of the things that comes up for me with my type is like, Is that true or not? Because, you know, one of the stories I have is when I was working corporately, and we were gathering food, our manager, his wife was sick with cancer. So we all cooked food and brought it to work to take home. And I said to my friend, I said, How come no one did anything for me when I was sick. And because I wasn't open to it, like I was Sis, I had to do it all myself, right, because that's what I learned growing up. So I didn't know what support was. So that was a huge learning for me with the Enneagram is learning to understand what support was and how to be open to it.

Linda Orsini: 00:21:18

That's so interesting that you created that self awareness. But that's only through reflection and time and inner work, when I believe that and a call for love listeners are very mindful of that, because listening to this podcast reminds us where we are standing, you know, where are we standing in a place of love, are we standing in those lower vibrations, and when we know that, we can, you know, hold space for ourselves with with greater self compassion. And then we can be more empathetic to others, which allows them, as you said, our relationships to become deeper and more profound and more intimate.

Robyn McTague: 00:22:03

And remembering we build capacity over time, you know, that this is, I think, part of our culture that really needs to shift. And one of the things again, I see really works really well with the Enneagram. Because the heart types, each of the centers has some emotions attached. And so for the heart type, it's that sadness and shame. And the shame is just about being human. Like, I really had to learn that and what that's why I love the, during the meditation and healing in the metaphysical part, but something that's grounded in our humanity, we need both. And if we're just doing one or the other, we're not fully incorporating all of us. So the Enneagram gave me that more grounded part of how do I deal with these emotions of shame for being human, right? We make mistakes, we get embarrassed all of these things. But that's part of being human. But we don't want to admit that, right? Because our culture doesn't embrace that. It's more about who do you want to be and look like and all of this, but that's not who we are. There's other parts of us. And that's why I love to do the shadow work to because there's parts of us we say, No, I'm not going to go there. But we all have the feelings, like jealousy, what is the jealousy telling me? Oh, it's simply telling me I want and desire that too, then it doesn't have that charge on it. Because it's giving me a gap between me and that other person. And I'm seeing them a certain way with, you know, maybe I'm going to dismiss them or I'm not going to connect with them. Because that brings up uncomfortable feelings within me.

Linda Orsini: 00:23:52

And of course, with envy. We know that that lack in abundance mindset that, you know, we can want something as well and be happy for somebody else. Yeah. So I love this conversation. I know we could go much longer and in depth. But for now, where could people reach out to you if they wanted to connect?

Robyn McTague: 00:24:18

I'm in Canada. So the website is a life of choice.ca. And there is a chapter in a book that if you're interested in I have six compilation books that I've been part of and one of them is about partner conflict resolution, and you can download that free chapter.

Linda Orsini: 00:24:42

Awesome. Well, this was really enlightening. Thank you so much, Robyn. I was so grateful to have this time with you and learn all about anagram. So that was really awesome. And, of course your three expert tips to discover the path to relationship freedom which I know know that everyone wants better relationships in their lives. So thank you. Thank

Robyn McTague: 00:25:04

you so much for having me.

Linda Orsini: 00:25:08

Thank you for listening. It would mean so much to me if you could share this episode with someone you feel could benefit from its message and subscribe to a call for love podcast. To receive new weekly episodes every Tuesday, head over to global wellness education.com To learn more