43: From Referee to Relationship Healer: Tony Victor’s Journey Into Deep Connection

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Narrator

Hello and welcome to Cherie Lindberg's Elevated Life Academy. Stories of hope and healing. Through raw and heartfelt conversations, we uncover the powerful tools and strategies these individuals use to not only heal themselves, but also inspire those around them. Join us on this incredible journey as we discover the human spirit's remarkable capacity to heal, find hope in the darkest of moments, and ultimately live an elevated life.

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Cherie Lindberg

Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode of Elevated Life and I am your host, Cherie Lindberg, where we talk about stories of hope and healing. And today's guest is Tony, and we'll share here in just a second how long we've known each other and how we've met. But today's topic is going to be about relationships and connection. And welcome, Tony Victor to the podcast.

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Tony Victor

I thank you, Cherie. Thank you for the invitation and I'm excited to be here today.

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Cherie Lindberg

I really appreciate it. I'm just going to ask you to go ahead and share about yourself where you're from and what it is that you do as your career, and we're going to go from there.

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Tony Victor

So I'm currently in southern Illinois, just outside of Saint Louis, Missouri, practicing primarily doing 100% couples work in a marriage counseling or couples counseling. And that's actually from the beginning of my time as a professional, about maybe 35 years ago now, it was my sense of just a kind of a real calling to do that couples work. And actually, I think that probably comes from my own childhood experiences where I grew up in a home that mom and dad were always together.

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Tony Victor

However, they just kind of constantly argued and bickered, almost like cats and dogs, you know? And growing up, I knew what I didn't want in a relationship, but I had no idea what I did want. And so I think from there, you know, came my own exploration. And then as a young adult, I moved into the counseling world wanting to do marriage and family counseling.

00;02;28;08 - 00;02;59;27

Tony Victor

So I have a doctorate in ministry. And let me think for a second that I have a doctorate in ministry in pastoral counseling. And I did a three year clinical internship in psychodynamic psychotherapy with a two year emphasis on family systems and on a family counseling. After that, I went into private practice and started seeing couples, started seeing families, seeing individuals.

00;02;59;29 - 00;03;22;25

Tony Victor

And very quickly my practice really kind of began to grow and boom. And I was doing great except for one area of my practice, and that was the work I was doing with couples. I sometimes most of the time I felt more like a referee with a whistle and just kind of saying, hold on, hold on, let's slow down.

00;03;22;27 - 00;03;48;06

Tony Victor

So I recognized early on that I needed something more, and that's when I went out and started looking. I thought, maybe I'll do a PhD in specifically in couples work, but I found horrible Hendrix and how little Kelly Hunt and Imago relationship therapy. And it really fell in line with my sense of who I am as a therapist.

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Tony Victor

And so I decided to do the basic clinical training, which is about a 1 to 2 year program. From there, I continued on in advancing using Imago therapy in my practice, which I found to be awesome, and the work I was doing with couples really began to flourish. I continued on with with the growing and developing in the Imago world.

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Tony Victor

Eventually, I joined the faculty and became a faculty member and began training therapists around the world. In this process of doing Imago Relationship therapy, I was also dean of the faculty for a while. In addition to doing that, I was also doing Getting the Love You Want workshops and Imago workshops. And so I was doing training on the faculty.

00;04;41;23 - 00;05;14;27

Tony Victor

I was doing workshops, and I opened up a group practice and for about 5 or 6 years had several therapists either training to become therapists or licensed therapist working in the group practice. And my bride of now, 50 to 53 years became the office manager, and she really worked with me together as we built that group practice more recently, I've slowed down quite a bit.

00;05;14;29 - 00;05;39;15

Tony Victor

I am retired from the faculty, and I also turned the group practice over to one of the people in the practice who took it and changed the name for his name, and the group practice is still working well now, under the leadership of one of the therapists that I trained. I've also let go of doing the workshops for the most part.

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Tony Victor

And so now just really kind of enjoying practicing, pretty much just working with couples. Most of the couples I work with are direct referrals from either from other therapists or from past clients.

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Cherie Lindberg

Well, just to let our audience know a little bit, that's when you were doing the workshops. That's how my husband and I met you, and we did trainings with you so that we could both learn the Imago dialog. And then after that, we continued to come for our own maintenance, for our own relationship. I call them oil changes, if you will, to make sure that, you know, we're staying conscious and working on ourselves.

00;06;25;00 - 00;06;51;29

Cherie Lindberg

And so let's dip in a little bit more about, you know, your philosophy on connection and talk a little bit more about that. I know a lot of it comes from you've talked about Dan Siegel before. You've also talked about a Margot's, you know, philosophy. But I want to know where you're at now in terms of your beliefs about, you know, connections between a couple.

00;06;52;02 - 00;07;32;08

Tony Victor

Yeah. So actually in some of the papers I wrote really distinguish the difference between attachment and attachment theory and connection and connecting. And I think the, the essential difference and which also helps kind of describe my philosophy of connection is that connecting is something we do because we are in connection, you know, the the universe, if you will, is is an interconnected and lively being.

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Tony Victor

And we're part of that inner connection. So even as you and I are talking now, we're connecting around this topic of connection or, you know, couples work, if you will. And the reason we're connecting is because in one way or another, we're already connected. And so connecting is something you do because you are connected. In our field, there's a lot of talk about attachment theory and attachment.

00;08;06;27 - 00;08;39;23

Tony Victor

And the difference is attaching is something you do to get a sense that we're attached. So I do attaching behaviors to try to get you to attach to me where connecting is something I enjoy being with you and going back to, you know, that infant, when that infant is born, it doesn't try to attach to mom and dad.

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Tony Victor

It just simply comes into this world and in a cry, will automatically connect with mom and dad. Now, when that infant grows up to be about 2 or 3 years old and finds himself being punished for doing something wrong, it really scares him or her. And then he does things to try to get back into mom or Dad's good behavior, good graces, I should say.

00;09;09;21 - 00;09;41;20

Tony Victor

So the small child will do things because they're afraid. They're no longer connected, they're no longer attached, and so they do those attaching behaviors. And when we move into adulthood, we tend to try to do things to to attach with our partners. And what I've discovered is that if we let go of doing things to attach, then we can enjoy the connection that we have.

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Tony Victor

So for me, I don't know if that's clear or not or how foggy that is, but we could do the same behaviors out of very different motivations. One motivation is to enjoy the connection you and I have, and and to be able to relax in it and enjoy it fully. The other mental process is, oh, I think Shari's not happy with me.

00;10;05;20 - 00;10;16;22

Tony Victor

I need to do something to make her happy so that we'll feel that attachment again. So I want a positive pull the others more of a negative.

00;10;16;24 - 00;10;26;29

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah. Can you talk? I know you've brought this up before. Can you talk more about the symbiosis and differentiation piece?

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Tony Victor

That's another great piece. So symbiosis and people who know the word know it from ecology for the most part in ecology symbiosis is a healthy thing. It's that example of two people or two life forms. If you will, two animals existing for the good of one or existing from one. And the classic illustration is the bird who basically lives on the black on the back of the black rhinos.

00;11;00;05 - 00;11;36;20

Tony Victor

And by living on the back of the black rhinos, the bird will continuously pick off the insects and organisms that the bird can feed off of. And so the bird is getting its life from the black rhino. Now, the good news for the rhino is the bird. By taking, getting its life and feeding off the black rhino, the bird then keeps the black rhino from getting infected with the disease by these tiny creatures.

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Tony Victor

Tiny bugs in micro organisms that could actually kill the black rhino. And so there's the black rhino is the one, and both of them are existing for that from each other. When we move into the realm of relationships, if we go back to childhood, that idea of two people existing for the good of one is genuine because a two, three, four, five, even ten year old has zero responsibility for the well-being of mom and dad, and mom and dad have a 100% responsibility for the well-being of that two three newborn on Earth.

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Tony Victor

Gradually, over time, that that responsibility begins to shift, where we move all the way into adulthood. And as adult children, we may share responsibility for the well-being of mom and dad as they age and get to the place. So there's a shift that takes place. However, when we move into a relationship, that's where we need to recognize that that symbiotic relationship where one person is responsible for the other, is one of the greatest drawbacks to being in a in an adult relationship, especially an intimate relationship with a partner.

00;13;13;03 - 00;13;56;13

Tony Victor

Because I am not, it's not appropriate for me. If you and I were in an intimate relationship, it's not appropriate for me to expect you to do what I want and need without taking responsibility for that. For myself. And so we begin to recognize that when I talk as though I expect you to be thinking the same way I do to, you know, if I see maybe a couple just as an example, and say, maybe we haven't seen them for a long time, and I just decide, well, it's great to see you.

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Tony Victor

Let's get together Friday night. And then I come home and tell you that I've decided already that we're going out with this couple Friday night. I'm assuming that you will agree with me, and I haven't checked with you to see if you have different thoughts. Maybe secretly, you don't even like this couple. Or maybe you're just thinking about doing something else.

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Tony Victor

So symbiosis is that idea of not considering your partner as a separate person who has their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own ideas, and have the core of conflict that is one of the cause of conflict. I can imagine how you would think that way. I can't understand why you don't agree with me. And when I see a difference, I try to get you to be more like me.

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Tony Victor

Now, the opposite of that is moving towards differentiated empathy and that word differentiated. You know, the simplest definition of it is recognizing that my partner is different than me, is a different person, has their own thoughts, their own feelings, and those thoughts and feelings, those ideas, those concepts, whatever it is, are important, especially the ones that are the most different than mine because it gives me an opportunity instead of trying to get my partner to change, it gives me an opportunity to see the world in a completely different way.

00;15;39;04 - 00;16;16;25

Tony Victor

And maybe there's some things there that if I could be open to, would help me to grow as a person. And so we want to we recognize symbiosis is kind of a common experience in many relationships. And then moving to that relaxed joyfulness of connection is not fighting against it when it shows up, but embracing those differences and seeing those as, wow, there's another whole world here that I've never even thought of.

00;16;16;28 - 00;16;43;13

Tony Victor

And that's one of the gifts that my partner actually brings. So we recognize when when conflict happens and arguments, whatever. There's probably some symbiotic thinking happening. And if we can see where that symbiotic thinking is and shift it to differentiated empathy, then we can negotiate the differences in a cooperative way rather than in a competitive way.

00;16;43;15 - 00;17;06;19

Cherie Lindberg

I remember in one of the ways, in the dialog about the story I'm telling myself and I, I remember initially and this was many, many years ago, it's like, this isn't a story I'm telling myself. This is the truth. Like, like this is the truth for me. It's the truth for my husband. It's the truth for every. You know, it's like there wasn't differentiated thinking back then, but can you talk more about that?

00;17;06;19 - 00;17;27;06

Cherie Lindberg

Because that is like the difficulty and shifting that when there's been so much conditioning the other way. I mean, there's so much when couples come in where they're, you know, shaming and blaming the other, blaming their partner. So how difficult that can be to shift to that different creation.

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Tony Victor

It is difficult, yes. And we're pretty much conditioned, you know, to see things one way. Now, the what you said a second ago partially is, is very, very accurate. It is the truth, the way you see things. But it's not a factual, historical truth. It's the truth of that's your experience and that's your interpretation of your experience. And the only place we can live in, in life, we can't live in the real world.

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Tony Victor

We only live in our experiential world. And we need to recognize that our partner actually lives in a different world. They live in their own experiential world. And so it is true, your perspective. All of that is true as your experience. It isn't the one and only truth. And when we're not taking your truth away from you, when I work with the couples, I'm not saying that's wrong.

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Tony Victor

You're not thinking right. I'm saying you're 100% right. However, it's not the real world. It's your world. And helping the partner to see that my partner's world is really an interesting place to come and visit. And I want to invite my partner to come and visit my world. And the shift happens when we talk in ways of inviting you to come into my world, rather than defending against your attack on my world.

00;19;14;21 - 00;19;43;14

Tony Victor

And so we we I have nothing to defend. I don't have to defend, but I can invite you in and just a quick example of how that might sound different. Defending my world says you should think this way. Inviting you in is come on in and let me let me explain to you how I see it. And so there's kind of the, you know, from classic work, there is the shift from all of the you statements.

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Tony Victor

You're wrong. You should see it this way. And shifting to I statements, which is this is the way I see it. And then, you know, they my one of my, you know, fun things I like to say to couples, I think you're wrong is not a nice statement. It's another use statement with, I think at the beginning. And so learning the difference between inviting my partner, your partner into your world or my partner and defending against defending my world against my partner is really a lot of couples.

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Tony Victor

This light bulb comes on. I said, oh, wow, we've never talked about it that way before. I guess we've always defended our own point of view.

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Cherie Lindberg

Right? Wow. I mean, it's such a it's such a shift. And and thinking and like you said, going against our conditioning and our, our programing, you know, from cultural from our upbringing, talk to me more about what you've learned, Tony, in all your years of experience with with trauma and connection and how that impacts what we've talked about so far.

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Tony Victor

Yeah, that's that's really important. And there's, you know, obviously there's very different levels of trauma and everyone has some level of trauma. Once I've experienced something traumatic, the survivor part of my brain really does want to protect me for the rest of my life, is trying to protect me from that trauma harming me or hurting me again. And so there's an autopilot function that is constantly looking, scanning the surface, looking for anything, clothes or anything similar to that felt experience.

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Tony Victor

And again, it's not what happened, but is the experience instead of what happened that is really significant. And for, you know, for one person, something dramatic may not be traumatic for another person. And so it's that felt experience. Once I my brain starts trying to protect me, then what can happen in relationship is anything similar can trigger a reaction.

00;22;18;00 - 00;22;45;07

Tony Victor

And so if the trauma in and as I said, we we, we have all experienced some trauma to very slight to a very abusive. And so the the amount of danger that we, we experience is somewhat on a scale to that as well. The more significant the trauma, the more we're protecting our we need to protect ourselves from any possibility of trauma.

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Tony Victor

And again, this level of trauma is in our experience. And so some people have a really traumatized even though what happened to them might not have been what other people would say. Oh, that's not a big deal. That's that happens to all of us. That doesn't matter. It's that experience of it. So trauma happens in in typically in one of two ways.

00;23;10;15 - 00;23;40;16

Tony Victor

There can be 1 or 2 very significant events that are traumatizing. You know, if I just think of an example, think think of a maybe a small child who has a twin brother and there's a house fire and the child survives, but the twin brother doesn't. That would be a horribly traumatic experience. And, you know, the circumstances around that and all.

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Tony Victor

So that's one type of trauma. And many, many people have experienced some type of really horrific experience. The more common type of trauma are those little things that happen repeatedly over and over and over again. We talk about sibling rivalry, which, by the way, is a word that adults made up, not not children. And imagine the kind of the common scenario where there's, two children better one's four years younger than the other, and the older child is expected to be more mature, expected to, you know, be the voice of reason between the two children.

00;24;26;25 - 00;24;47;27

Tony Victor

But then when the older child get too annoyed, may react, you know, in a angry way to the younger child, and the younger child goes and runs to mom or dad and says, Johnny is picking on me. And then mom and dad kind of automatically take the younger child. I'm just making this up. But it's a common thing that happens.

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Tony Victor

Takes the younger child side of it, if you will, and says, Johnny, you should know better. You're the older brother and those little things. And that happens 3 or 4 times a week for four years. That's a if it happens once or twice, that's not a significant trauma. But it becomes significant, becomes a big because it becomes a repeated pattern.

00;25;14;05 - 00;25;53;09

Tony Victor

And we all have, you know, either significant traumas or or those less significant repeated traumas. And those will show up in our adult relationships. Now, if there's a diagnosis from a trauma in some ways, in doing couples work, it's it's really the same as if it's not diagnosed, if it's just a, you know, you're mentally healthy, yet you're still reacting to anything similar to this, you know, kind of scenario in couples where while the intensity is far greater, the process is pretty much the same.

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Tony Victor

Recognizing that there's a reaction here, and it may be more about what's happened in the past than it is what's happening right now.

00;26;06;00 - 00;26;21;21

Cherie Lindberg

And I know just from my own experience to help hold that space, you know, for the couple and, and help the partner, like you said, be able to have some, some empathy like that's what can heal some of those things.

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Tony Victor

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be the same thing on the surface that's happening. But again, it's that experience of what's happening that seems similar to the traumatic events from the past.

00;26;38;12 - 00;26;50;28

Cherie Lindberg

So anything that I haven't asked you that you might want to share around connection, you know, that would be good for our audience to know that I haven't asked you about.

00;26;51;00 - 00;27;29;05

Tony Victor

You know, I think one of the really important things and what makes connect being and sitting with connection very, very difficult is that it actually requires us to move outside of our comfort zone. And we like being in our comfort zone because there it feels safe. It feels comfortable. However, connect acting, as you said earlier, is that shift away from defending to inviting and no longer defending myself.

00;27;29;05 - 00;28;05;00

Tony Victor

I become defenseless. And becoming defenseless means I'm allowing myself to become vulnerable and vulnerability is scary as it can be. So there's a part of our brain that survival part of our brain that says, don't go there. You remember what happened before, you're going to get hurt again. And that's saying just stay with the attachment. Just do the things that that my partner likes to do, and then you'll be okay.

00;28;05;03 - 00;28;44;27

Tony Victor

You'll survive, but you'll never be able to get to that. Wow, this is really awesome place. And so connect doing well. Attaching is doing things to soothe the fears, but it's not opening ourselves up to being vulnerable. But connecting is facing any of the fears I have and it's opening myself up to be vulnerable. What I recognize is in most relationships casual relationships, work, relationships, there is a limit.

00;28;44;29 - 00;29;09;00

Tony Victor

You know, if I go in with my pickleball group and we we just had an election, so I'll go to politics. And I say to my pickleball group, I want everyone here to know that either I'm a Democrat or Republican. I know many of those people. Whichever one I say will not accept me, so I can't be vulnerable.

00;29;09;03 - 00;29;45;29

Tony Victor

And so I don't we don't talk politics, and it's just kind of an unwritten contract that we have. We'll talk about, you know, sports. We'll talk about pickleball, we'll talk about the weather, but we won't talk about anything that would bring any vulnerability. So we recognize, you know, in many places we can have friendships, but they're not that deep, intimate ball of joy kind of experience because we know that it's that vulnerability will simply break the friendship.

00;29;46;01 - 00;30;02;25

Tony Victor

But in my intimate relationship, if my partner can help make it safe by accepting me and my perspectives without telling me I should be more like them, that opens the door for vulnerability.

00;30;02;28 - 00;30;26;25

Cherie Lindberg

So wonderful, Tony. I mean, I just think about leadership too, like being in a meeting or something, you know, with folks and, you know, having a desire to be who you really are and having a desire to be be vulnerable. But that survival brain going at you know, what happened last time if you, you know, say what you really think here.

00;30;26;28 - 00;30;42;29

Cherie Lindberg

So you really just really helped me see how often so many of us still in culture and in relationships are still doing a lot of attachment behaviors, a lot of people pleasing so that we're accepted.

00;30;43;02 - 00;30;52;27

Tony Victor

Oh, that's a great word. Accepted attachment is a conditional acceptance. Connection is an unconditional acceptance.

00;30;53;04 - 00;31;22;25

Cherie Lindberg

A beautiful I hope may we all learn more about unconditional acceptance, and learn more about being able to be vulnerable in our relationships, because we get to do that joyful connection that you're talking about. Well, thank you so much for coming on here and and sharing all your wealth of experience working with, with couples and the difference between attachment and connection and symbiosis and differentiation.

00;31;22;25 - 00;31;34;10

Cherie Lindberg

I hope people find this, you know, helpful or reflective, you know, in their in their own relationships. Can you tell us where folks can find you? Tony.

00;31;34;13 - 00;31;46;05

Tony Victor

My website is the Midwest Relationships Center. You can just Google that. You can actually Google my name, Tony Victor, and yeah.

00;31;46;07 - 00;31;58;15

Cherie Lindberg

Yeah, we'll have your link in the show notes too, so that if people are wanting more and to understand more about what you have to share, and is there anything more that you would like to share before we wrap up here.

00;31;58;17 - 00;32;09;27

Tony Victor

Just one more piece around that connecting piece that that just came up just as we were, is that connecting is not about agreement.

00;32;09;29 - 00;32;12;09

Cherie Lindberg

Oh, that's that point. Yeah.

00;32;12;11 - 00;32;42;02

Tony Victor

We don't have to have the same point of view to connect and acceptance. It requires, you know, an intimate relationships requires the the space for us to not agree and attachment. We we tend to have to agree. You can have your perspective and I'll value it. And I have my perspective and I'll ask you to value it. But I'm not asking you to agree with me.

00;32;42;04 - 00;33;04;07

Cherie Lindberg

That's a really important. I'm glad that you added that part. I often say with couples that I work with too, that when we're validating somebody's perspective, we're validating their perspective. We may not agree with that perspective, but we're still finding value in it, which is really, really important. Just like you said. Well, thank you so much, Tony, for for coming on.

00;33;04;07 - 00;33;07;06

Cherie Lindberg

It was great having this conversation with you. And I appreciate it.

00;33;07;09 - 00;33;12;11

Tony Victor

Yeah. And again, thank you, Sherry, for inviting me. And welcoming you in.

00;33;12;13 - 00;33;48;29

Cherie Lindberg

All right. Thank you. I hope everyone found this episode and connection enlightening. It is definitely a journey to learn skills on how to authentically connect and accept. And Tony is, I would say, a master at that if I wasn't clear before in the podcast. He is our relationship coach and we have been with him for over ten years, and Paul and I really enjoy our, what I call the oil changes, where we we check in it raises our consciousness level to check in as a couple.

00;33;48;29 - 00;34;22;20

Cherie Lindberg

And how are we doing and are we on target and clearing up anything. It just is very helpful for ongoing connection with each other and for our hopes and dreams, and for joyful connection and our relationship. Relationships are the core of who we are. Everyone has relationships, and so I hope you found this a very helpful podcast for those folks that are wanting to elevate their lives and live and learn to live in joyful connection until we meet again next time.

00;34;22;20 - 00;34;29;11

Cherie Lindberg

And joy elevated Life Academy Podcast stories of Hope and healing.

00;34;29;13 - 00;34;48;09

Narrator

Thank you for joining us on another uplifting journey on Cherie Lindberg’s Elevated Life Academy. Stories of Hope and healing. If you found resonance or connection with what you've heard today, we encourage you to share this episode and consider becoming a subscriber. Please spread the word so others can live an elevated life.