S04|11 - Creating Intimacy and Connection in Relationships with Master Coach, Aimee Gianni

Aimée Gianni, MS, is a Marriage & Family Therapist, and a Master Coach Instructor specializing in Intimate Relationships. She helps her clients create strong, loving, joyful relationships and meaningful lives that they love, full of authenticity, connection, passion, fulfillment, and physical well-being. It’s her favorite thing to do! You can learn more about her work at AimeeGianni.com and follow her on Instagram @aimeegiannims

In this conversation we cover:

• What a healthy relationship with ourselves looks like in the real world
• How to know if we have an unhealthy relationship with ourselves
• How we think and feel about us, and how that impacts our partnerships
• Creating intimacy and connection with our partners starts with working on us
• How to disentangle ourselves from our partner, and creata a differentiated self

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Episode Transcript

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hey, I'm Crystal, a certified life coach and mom of four. In this podcast, we combine radical connection and positive parenting theories with the How-To Life Coaching Tools and Mindset Work to completely transform our relationship with our children. 

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Hello and welcome to today's podcast episode, Creating Intimacy and Connection in Relationships with Master Coach, Aimée Gianni. 

 

Aimée Gianni’s background, and what she does

Aimée Gianni is a Marriage & Family Therapist, and a Master Coach Instructor specializing in Intimate Relationships. She helps her clients create strong, loving, joyful relationships and meaningful lives that they love – full of authenticity, connection, passion, fulfillment, and physical well-being. It’s her favorite thing to do! You can learn more about her work at AimeeGianni.com and follow her on Instagram @aimeegiannims. 

All right. Welcome to the podcast. I have a special guest that I'm excited to introduce you to. Do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I'm Aimée Gianni, and I am a Marriage & Relationship Coach. I've actually been a Marriage & Family Therapist for a really, really long time; and now I coach couples, and I help them create intimate marriages.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay, I love that. I know if you've been listening to the podcast for the last few weeks, you probably know that we have been talking about how to get a really great relationship with ourselves and how that's kind of at the center of all other things. 

And so, I think this will be a really great conversation to have with Aimée because of her background in helping couples, especially in creating intimacy. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about you, how many kids you have, maybe just a little bit about your journey.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. Yes. So, I live in Las Vegas and I have twin boys. My twin boys are now 23, and they were a handful. I wish I would've had the tools that you talk about when I was raising them; it would've been really, really helpful for me. Anyway, I'm married, and we've been married for almost 30 years – and yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Awesome. I love that. And you're also certified, you're a Master Certified Coach at the same school--  

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: -that I certified in, The Life Coach School. So, if anyone that is listening, when I talk about things like The Model, you can go back and listen to the episode on The Model in Season 1. That is one of the main coaching tools that we use.

 

What a healthy relationship with ourselves looks like in the real world

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, Aimee, let's just dive right into our relationship with ourselves. What does an unhealthy or a healthy relationship with ourself look like?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah, so, I think when we think about a relationship with ourself, it's fun to think about; what do we think about relationships with others? Like what defines a good relationship with somebody else or a bad relationship with somebody else? 

And then, can we apply that to our relationship with ourselves? So, like, some of the things I think about with relationships with others is you want to have trust in your relationship, right? 

So, I think when you have a good relationship with yourself, you're able to trust yourself; you know that you're going to do what you say you're going to do, you know that you're going to take care of yourself, you know that you're going to have your own back, right? Some of those, kind of, things. 

I think about when you have a good relationship, you know your friend or your spouse or whoever it is, right? You know what's important to them, you know who they are. And I think the same thing for us. It's really important if we're going to have a relationship with ourselves, that we really know; who we are, what's important to us, what matters to us in life. I think those are some of the things.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes, I love that. Because typically, I mean, when we normally talk, we don't normally talk about a relationship with ourselves, right? Coaches know what that means--   

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But most other people are like, what are you talking about? 

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I love how you talked about how we can frame it as our relationship with someone else, because a healthy relationship with someone else would look like that; like trust and confidence and belief and intimacy and love and connection.

 

How to know if we have an unhealthy relationship with ourselves

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, thinking about maybe an unhealthy relationship with ourselves, how would you frame that? What would that look like?

 

Aimée Gianni: So, that would be really, really critical. A lot of us, you know, have negative self-talk, really hard on ourselves; all those kinds of things erode your relationship with yourself, because if you're spending time with somebody that's negative like that with you, you're not going to want to spend time with them, right? 

And so, same for us. I think compassion is such an important part of having a good relationship with yourself. So, when you're not doing all of the things that make a good relationship, it ends up creating a negative relationship, right?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Yeah. It's very intentional. Hey, like it's-- I think a lot of us have that negative self-talk just intrinsically, and it just comes so naturally to us… that if we're not intentionally working on building that relationship. 

And it's obvious to see like if we don't have a great relationship with one of our kids or one of our family members or our spouse, that we're like, 'Okay, let's work on this.' 

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But it's a little bit harder to notice, 'Okay, don't have a great relationship with me, what does that look like and how can I work on it?'

 

Aimée Gianni: I think another thing is, you know, if you find out that, let's say, you like left your phone at home and you're out somewhere, and you're going to be alone with yourself and your thoughts; if that freaks you out, you know, you may want to take a look at what kind of relationship do you have with yourself. 

Because a lot of times we just always distract ourselves with, you know, going out for a walk, but we're listening to a podcast or we're listening to music, as opposed to really just being there with your thoughts. Like, can you be alone with yourself and your thoughts, and have compassion for yourself?

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, that is such a good way to check in because I think I was like this before, and I have a lot of clients I think that can relate to this as well – where it's like, I'll just keep myself busy doing my 'mom thing', doing all the stuff that I have to do.

And it was always like noise, right? There's always like noise around us or distraction around us. And when I started being more intentional about that work, it's still hard to find those little times of the day where it was a little bit more quiet and peaceful.

But I started-- I stopped listening to the radio; it helped that it broke in my vehicle at that time, so I just didn't get it fixed. But I stopped listening to podcasts while I was driving. I stopped listening to anything. 

 

Aimée Gianni: Wow. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I would just be alone with my thoughts on the drive. And now, it's my most favorite time to connect with myself. I know, like, okay, when I'm in the shower and when I'm driving – I'm not going to be doing anything else, but just thinking and just like being with myself, which before I think would freak me out.

Like, I think I would want to have listened to like even an audiobook in the bathroom while I was like getting ready or something.

 

Aimée Gianni: Right. Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But there's just so much more pause and stillness when I'm with myself. And it doesn't mean that I'm like, you know, immune to negative self-talk; I don't know if anybody is, that way. But I'm more intentional about knowing what to do with it.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. And I guess if I was going to give a definition of what I think of as a good relationship with yourself, I would say that; it's knowing who you are and what you want in life, and owning it, and showing up in a way with grounded confidence.

 

How we think and feel about us, and how that impacts our partnerships 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. I love that. I love that. What about, how does it affect other things in your life? So, if maybe you don't have a great relationship with yourself or you do, what kind of things are affected?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. It affects so many things. I see it affect marriages, in particular, because it's easy-- I mean, it's easy to lose ourself in life, in general – but then especially when you're coming together with another person, if you don't know who you are and what you want and stand up in that way… you're going to get, it's really easy to get lost in relationships, right? 

Where you don't necessarily know who you are – or sometimes you start taking on the qualities of the other person or giving in at times when you wouldn't want to give in to things. And so, when you can really know who you are and what you want and own it and have that grounded confidence, you're going to be much better at being well-differentiated, right? 

That's a word that we talk a lot about in coaching, being differentiated where you can come close to somebody but not lose yourself, right? You can still have your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, even when you are close to someone.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. Yeah. That is such a good definition. What about grounded confidence? Can you explain that a little bit more to us? Like, what would that actually look like for people that are like, okay, this sounds really great, but like, what does that look like?

 

Aimée Gianni: That’s right. What does this mean? Yes. So, I always-- I always say that the way I like to feel is grounded and lifted at the same time. So, for me, when I feel grounded and lifted; I feel totally solid in myself, I feel confident in who I am.

But when I feel lifted, I also feel open to possibility and wanting to connect with other people. I'm open to hearing other ideas, even though I may know exactly what I think, but I'm also open to hearing what others think. 

So, that's kind of what I think about is when I think of grounded confidence; it's that feeling of being grounded and lifted, being really solid and knowing who you are and what you want – but also open to others.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, that is such a good definition. I think that like being grounded and lifted at the same time and being open to understanding others because that really does affect our relationship with us and other people when we're not that way.

 

Creating intimacy and connection with our partners starts with working on us

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, now I want to talk about partner relationships. So, how would an unhealthy relationship with ourselves play out in a partner relationship? But what might that look like?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. Okay. Such a good question. So, when you have an unhealthy relationship with yourself… or you don't know who you are, you don't know what you want – you're not able to really be in alignment or show up authentically. 

It makes things very convoluted and clouded when you then come together with another person, right? And so, oftentimes, when couples start with me, the first thing that we do is, I call it untangling. 

We have to untangle them and get them each to see that they're responsible for their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Because when they come in, and I know I've been at this place, you know, before I learned about all of this work, I totally thought my husband was responsible for my feelings. He was causing all my problems, right? 

And so, that disentangling part of the work is helping people sort through that. Because otherwise, if you don't have a good relationship with yourself – if you don't know that you're responsible for your own thoughts, feelings, and actions, and you're not taking responsibility for that – it's just going to make everything confusing.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I think this is one of the first things that we learn; and it's usually, kind of, mind-blowing when we're like, 'Wait a second, I'm in control of that?' 

And I think back onto our childhood, and it makes so much sense why we believe this, because we were constantly taught like, 'You hurt your sister's feelings' or 'You hurt mom's feelings', or 'You're making me mad'. 

Or even the idea of like, you know, being given a timeout or being yelled at or being spanked when we were feeling those big emotions where we're like, 'Okay, wait, this is a problem,' right? 

Like, there's so much dirty thinking we have around emotions and ourselves and others. 

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I love this idea of like disentangling, like, what is mine? What am I in charge of? What do I have over here? And, what is my partner’s?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. And I'll talk about like two balls of yarn. If you have two balls of yarn that are like all a big tangled mess, you have to untangle them so that you can see that they're separate and then you can bring them together – and actually create something beautiful with the two balls of yarn with intention, right? 

Whereas before that it's just a detangled mess. So, that's always kind of the first work; is actually like separating people, if you will, disentangling them so that then you can bring them closer together in true intimacy.

 

How to disentangle ourselves from our partner, and create a differentiated self

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, that is a great analogy. What practical tips would you have for doing this disentangling process and then, again, the bringing back together process?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah, so, for the disentangling, a lot of it is, you know, the work that I'm sure you talk a lot about is this taking responsibility, right? Like we've been saying, identifying your own; and then being able to have conversations with your spouse because it doesn't mean that you're never going to want anything from your spouse once you take responsibility for yourself, right? 

It doesn't mean that you're never going to want to make requests of them – but when you're coming from that clean space, you then know how to have a conversation and sit on the same side of the table. 

I think Brené Brown talks about that, right? You always want to sit on the same side of the table. And so, I'll work with couples on, why don't you come together and then you look across the table at the problem or the issue that you're facing? But you're coming at it together, right? 

And so, when you have a good relationship with yourself, you're then able to join with this other person in a healthy and productive way where you can then see the problems as outside of you – rather than inside of you or inside of your partner; they're outside of you and you conquered them together.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes. I was actually, right before this recording, on a call through the course that I'm taking through Brené Brown; and we were talking about this concept of putting the problem like between you or outside of you – instead of in you, because we can't look at it with that observational-type perspective… that can be really helpful when we're so, like you said, entangled with what's going on. 

So, when we can just notice, 'Okay, wait, this is actually the problem – let's put it in front of both of us and let's both look at this, and then…' And then, still lean into that tough conversation, right? We're not going to back away and be like, 'We're never going to talk about this.' But having that conversation from really clean thinking is going to make a huge difference.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. Yes. And when you have a solid sense of yourself, you're able to have those difficult conversations and be okay with disagreeing, right? Because you're able to say, "Yeah, this is-- this is what I think." 

And if your partner says, "Yeah, well, I disagree" – if you're well-differentiated, you're going to be okay with that… it's not going to knock you over. You're still going to be able to stand by what you think and have a discussion about it in a healthy way.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Because when we're young, we're taught like black-white, right-wrong, good-bad, right? 

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Everything is so polarized.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And then we get it thrown into this life where like nothing is that way, literally, everything is like in between – in the gray area. And so, it doesn't have to be this like zero-sum game of like, 'I'm right and you're wrong.' Like, it can both be like, 'Okay, well, this is what feels right to me' – it can also be different than what feels right to you; and that's both totally okay.

 

Aimée Gianni: Totally okay.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: We are aren't great at doing, naturally, 'We're like, no, wait, there has to be one right or wrong way to think about this.'

 

Aimée Gianni: I think when you can listen, when you can say, "This is really what I think about this, but I'm open to hearing what you have to say, even if I disagree with you" – but I think it can almost act as like stairs where you're like stepping up to a solution, right? 

Because I bring what I think, my partner brings what he thinks; and then I may not agree with him exactly, but it does spark another idea that I have, which kind of takes us to another level of thinking about it. 

And then, he's able to add to it yet again. And you're able to stairstep your way to a solution that neither one of you would've come up with on your own or from the beginning. But through a healthy conversation like that, you're able to get to a place that works, right?

 

Aimée Gianni's final tips on creating intimacy and connection in relationships

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yes. Yes. Before you go, I really want to dig into intimacy because I know that that's something you talk about a lot.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I would love to give you, or have you give us some tips on creating more intimacy in our marriage relationship. So, maybe we're working on a relationship with ourselves and maybe we're dealing with, you know, some stuff with parenting and we're kind of going through this work – if we desire to have a more intimate marriage, what are some steps that we can take?

 

Aimée Gianni: So, a lot of people say they want a more intimate marriage, but intimate marriages are kind of scary, right? Because there's a lot of vulnerability that's involved in an intimate marriage because in order to have intimacy, you really have to be willing to show up as yourself and to be seen, right? Like warts and all, all your flaws, right? 

And that's-- Sometimes people aren't willing to do that work or they don't want to be that vulnerable. So, a lot of people are actually very happy with more surface relationships, right? 

But if you really want an intimate marriage, you have to be willing to be seen, which requires you to have that relationship with yourself to know who you are – and then to be able to have the confidence that… I can put myself out there and be who I am even if my spouse doesn't like it, and I'm going to be okay. Right? 

And then the other part of it is; you've got to be willing to see your partner for who they are, and love them for who they are. Not that there aren't things that you wouldn't love to be different about them, but really have that unconditional love and acceptance so that they can also show up as themselves.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. This is so good because it ties so much into what I teach in parenting, and that really is like loving our kids for who they are and having that unconditional love towards them – dropping all those expectations we have about like, they shouldn't be yelling and they shouldn't be hitting and they shouldn't be talking back… and all of that. 

And when we can get rid of all that dirty thinking and like, think, like, love them – just love them for who they are, that what I notice is that their behavior actually improves over time, right? 

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: They change. And so, I would imagine that in this creating an intimate relationship with your partner, the same thing is probably true. 

That when we can just love them for who they are and drop those expectations and just focus on that unconditional love, that they'll probably start to change also those little things that might, you know, drive you bonkers, might actually get a little bit better. And also, your brain won't be focusing on them as much either.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah. Yes. And when you can just love someone, because love doesn't force someone to change, right? Love just comes in unconditionally and creates a safe space so that both of you can be willing to look at the past – like let go of the things that maybe aren't serving you – but yet, also inspire you to move forward and to grow. 

So, I think that that loving space is really vital for an intimate marriage because when you have that unconditional love, it creates safety. And that's really where we're able to grow and to thrive and to shed off, you know, the history, the parts that we want to change about ourselves and to move forward.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Right before this call – right before we started recording – I was telling Aimée about my favorite parenting book, which you probably know if you follow me, is Rest, Play, Grow. 

And the whole purpose of that book is to have rest in our relationships – and that safety and security so that we can then learn and grow, right? That that's the best environment for change and for growth. 

And so, I think of it as like planting this seed, and then we're like watering it and we're just watching it grow. We don't get to decide what seed it is if it's turning into like a cactus or like an apple tree; we don't know. 

But we are, kind of, the caretakers of that environment. And I love thinking about this in our relationship with our partner also, that it's the same thing. Like we can nourish ourselves and we can show up as our best selves and we can nourish that environment. 

We can't, you know, decide whether or not they're a cactus or an apple tree – but we can influence how things go there based on us doing this work.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes. Well, and I think I learned this from Brené Brown too, that compassion is the greatest motivator for change. Right? And so, you know, sometimes we think, you know, we need to beat ourselves up or beat others up in order to help them change and improve, but it's actually the opposite. 

I mean, you know this; you teach this, right? It's the opposite of that. Compassion is actually the greatest motivator for change.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I would add, I think a good ending spot is, that's going to be the same with your relationship with yourself. Like that will be the best motivator for change for you too, is to find space for self-compassion – before you even try to work on intimacy and creating connection with your kids or your spouse, doing this for you first will be so big.

 

Aimée Gianni: Yeah.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. Well, thank you. 

 

Aimée Gianni: Thank you for having me.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: This has been a great conversation. I feel like what you do just aligns so well with everything that I teach here. So, I think people will find it really helpful. Thank you so much for this awesome conversation today.

 

How to connect with Aimée Gianni

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And if people are listening to this and are like, 'Yes, I want more' – and want to connect with you or want to work with you, how can they find you?

 

Aimée Gianni: Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. They can go to my website, it's AimeeGianni.com – and it's A-I-M-E-E gianni.com. You can also follow me on Instagram @aimeegiannims. 

And I offer a couple of different programs. My signature program is The Art of Intimate Connection to help individuals and couples create more intimate marriages.

And then I also offer an Advanced Certification in Relationship Coaching. So, if you are a coach wanting to improve your relationship coaching skills, I'd love to have you in that program.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. That all sounds so good. Thank you. Thank you for being here today.

 

Aimée Gianni: Thanks for having me.

Crystal The Parenting Coach: I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure that you give it Five Stars on Apple, and check out my monthly membership for moms in the show notes.