This Episode Appears in Our 'Best Of' Lists:
Co-hosts Kelly Berry and Sadie Wackett unpack why relational health is the missing link between emotional wellness and lasting success. From childhood wiring to workplace dynamics, they explore practical frameworks that help women leaders protect their energy, set healthy boundaries, and transform relationship dynamics without losing themselves.
Healthy relationships are the backbone of thriving careers, families, and communities. These five insights will show you how to lead yourself first - so every connection benefits.
Unresolved tension doesn’t just stay at home; it hijacks focus and drains creativity. Kelly and Sadie explain the body’s fight-or-flight response to emotional threats and why acknowledging the stress signal is the first step toward relief.
Instead of fixing others, the duo reveals how to shift inward: identify your own needs, values, and boundaries, then act from that place. The result is greater agency, clarity, and calm - even when others refuse to change.
Sadie’s concentric-circle model helps you separate what you control (inner circle), what’s shared (relationship circle), and what’s not yours (outer circle). Seeing the map in real time makes it easier to drop over-functioning and reclaim your power.
From “Who takes out the trash?” to project ownership at work, unspoken assumptions breed resentment. Hear Kelly’s premarital-counseling story, then learn simple scripts to surface expectations, negotiate roles, and defuse conflict fast.
Judgment shuts people down; curiosity opens possibility. Discover how asking open questions and removing moral weight from others’ behavior builds empathy, strengthens communication, and keeps growth on the table for everyone.
“I think for a long time we’ve known how important it is to work on our physical health and focus on our nutrition.” — Kelly Berry
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“This really isn’t about how we can change other people. That’s the whole point of this.” — Sadie Wackett
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“Often we just become a bit numb to it if we’re experiencing the same difficult feelings in a relationship, it becomes like wallpaper.” — Sadie Wackett
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“What are those unspoken expectations? And then like, is our resistance to speak our needs and wants?” — Kelly Berry
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“This is knowledge I would have loved to have had earlier in my life.” — Sadie Wackett
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00:00 The Importance of Relational Health for Emotional Wellness
02:59 Understanding Relationship Dynamics and Emotional Triggers
10:48 Frameworks for Healthy Relationships: The Three Circles Model
15:10 Managing Expectations and Building Relational Health
22:04 Cultivating Curiosity and Emotional Intelligence in Relationships
29:56 Welcome to Life Intended: Empowering Women in Leadership and Growth
33:10 The Mission Behind Life Intended: Personal Growth and Self-Leadership
Kelly Berry (01:05)
Hi, welcome back. Sadie and I are here today to talk about another topic that we been having a lot of conversations about with each other and with other women. And it's something that Sadie and I feel like affects so many people and it's just not talked about enough. And that is relationships. I think over season one, I talked to
a few people that I would consider like relationship experts. And one of the things that I kept saying was, you know, I think for a long time we've known how important it is to work on our physical health and focus on our nutrition. And in recent years, it's become apparent that our mental health is really important and that the next step or the next like circle that we're stepping into is relational health because it impacts
our lives so much, but we don't really, there's not as many tools, there's just not as many resources teaching us or informing us about what good relational health looks like and how we can take responsibility for having good relationships in our lives and what that looks like. So Sadie, welcome. I'm excited for this conversation today.
Sadie Wackett (02:27)
Kelly? Yeah, me too. And just for the listeners, I think it's probably helpful to set the context in the sense that this is probably going to be a bit more like teachy rather than conversational. And that's because I, you know, I think it's helpful to share some of the tools that we have that can that can help people in this area.
We'll chat about this because it's been on our minds, but I might be doing a bit more of the talking. So just to set the scene in that way. All right. Yeah.
Kelly Berry (02:54)
Yeah.
Sounds good. Let's go.
Sadie Wackett (02:59)
dive in. All right, so yeah, as Kelly said, this is a theme or a topic we picked because, you know, in the the coaching work that I do, and also in the women's groups that I've been holding, we've been holding recently, and those that I actually participate in not as a facilitator, but as a participant.
This topic of relationships, most often it's personal relationships like partners or spouses or kids, but it is also professional relationships as well, like my boss or my coworker, et cetera, and also my friends. So this keeps coming up and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to first of all normalize the experience that we have around...
and the impact on us. And then secondly, help give some framework and context to what we can do to influence those in a way that's more...
sort of empowering and helpful to us. And that really is the word I want to underscore at this point is how we can empower ourselves. really isn't about how we can change other people. That's the whole point of this. It's about how we can...
change ourselves and our own approach to create a impact in those relationships. Because, you the emotional toll of difficult relationships is very hard.
and it's experienced by everybody, it's universal. So just to kick off with then, so from the moment that we're born as babies, that's when our attachments are formed with our parents, with our caregivers, with our siblings, maybe with teachers, with friends, etc. And that's where we start to very early on our subconscious
answers to questions like, am I worthy of love?
Is it safe to express myself, et cetera? And over time, and especially in close adult relationships, we begin to define ourselves in relation to others. So who I am as a daughter, who I am as a sister, who I am as a girlfriend, wife, who I am as a mom, or who I am as a coworker or a business partner or a friend. And again, it's happening subconsciously. So without noticing, we may
become in those relationships, we may become peacekeepers, may become caretakers, we may become the responsible one or the one who's depended on or relied upon. And so, you know, what happens when we are in difficult relationships is we as women generally because of the conditioning that we have grown up with.
We may that over function, which is we start to take on too much responsibility. We try and manage what everything feels like and what everyone feels like, or we under function, which then is us shrinking ourselves. We won't speak up for ourselves. We'll keep the peace. We'll avoid conflict. And we'll gradually over time, just disconnect from our authentic self, like the self that we really feel we are deep inside.
And when it comes to like challenging relationships where there might be conflict, whether that's with a spouse, whether that might be, you know, your kids or a boss, especially.
our nervous system can't tell the difference between what's physical danger and emotional danger. That's how our brains evolve. So when somebody who we depend on or who we look to for validation is critical or they're distant from us or they're unpredictable, then our nervous system is going to go into fight or flight or you know, or freeze. So we might become defensive and fight back or we might
withdraw and avoid conversation and we might shut down, become helpless or we might start to become overly pleasing and in the process of that we just kind of lose ourselves.
So I guess that's the first thing I wanted to share is that it's not to be experiencing these things in relationships isn't a form of weakness or that something's kind of wrong. You're broken. It's just natural. your body trying to protect you. It's a natural response. so that what I would like to offer is a couple of tools and ways in which we can help.
women disentangle themselves from this sense of over responsibility and helplessness by identifying what's mine, what's mine to own and what's mine to kind of govern. What's theirs? What's the other person's and what's shared between us? What's theirs to carry, not mine to carry? Does that make sense?
Kelly Berry (07:53)
It really does. I think, you know, it's so aligned with everything else that we've talked about is just the awareness to be able to step back and look at these relationships and even the like, what kind of feeling am I getting when I'm around this person or communicating with this person in letting that guide you to kind of what you're talking about, like
Do I feel unsafe or am I over functioning or under functioning or and just kind of like stepping back to listen to yourself a little bit because that will tell you a lot about what the underlying I guess like problem is and then kind of who's it is to address and you know I know you'll get into this but like then what then what needs to happen you know like is this something that
Sadie Wackett (08:38)
Yeah.
Kelly Berry (08:42)
you can work on? this something that you just need to step away from? And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck.
Sadie Wackett (08:50)
Yeah,
and thanks for bringing up the kind of emotional response because often we just become a bit numb to it if we're experiencing the same difficult feelings in a relationship, it becomes like wallpaper, we just kind of don't see it, we just accept that that's the way it is and we just exist with that.
Kelly Berry (09:08)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think I've
used this word in my own life, but our tolerance goes way up. And you know, like what we are willing to tolerate, we just keep bumping up against that instead of stopping to be like, why am I, why am I just continuing to tolerate more when it's just like wrecking me, know?
Sadie Wackett (09:16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and
that, I'm going to just go back to our socialization as well, because depending on how you grew up, like the family dynamics that you grew up in, if we're talking about parents and their relationship with one another.
I mean, you know, I think that other people might be able to relate to this, but if you look at, you know, how a marriage is supposed to be based on what we grew up with, well, a marriage is supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be argumentative. It's supposed to be, you know, challenging, full of compromise. The mother does this, the father does that in traditional environments. But
those are dynamics we might have grown up with, but is that the choice we want to make for ourselves for relationships going forward?
And I think, know, generationally, if we look back, I don't know how, I mean, how much affection it has been shown with our parents, between our parents, or intimacy, or just genuine connection that helps us as we're growing up, see that that's what relationships should be made of or could be made of. And so we were just repeating patterns that we've grown up with.
All right, so I'm going to dive into, there's a couple of...
frameworks, tools, if you like, ways of thinking about this that I think can be helpful for people. So the first one is, and I want you to try and visualize those three concentric circles. And the inner circle is ourselves. The middle circle is the relationship. So what's shared between these two people and the outer circle is the other person, the things that are not yours, not shared, they are theirs completely. So in the inner circle, it's things like, what do I think?
What do I feel? How do I behave? What do I need? What do I value? What are the boundaries that I hold? What is the meaning that I make of this? What do I choose? And those are all things that unless we stop and
ask ourselves those questions, they can pass us by very easily and we can make lot of assumptions about them. So that's the, that in this inner circle is where our really our personal power is held because those are the things we can control and we can influence. The middle circle, it's the relationship dynamics. So what patterns have we created between us? So if I think about,
know, responsibilities in the house. What patterns have we created? So I'm the one who always makes dinner. They're the one who puts the kids to bed, for example, or what patterns have we created around, you know, fighting or congratulating each other or sharing responsibilities for things?
And then there's the communication habits. How do we speak to each other? Are we generous and thoughtful and patient in how we speak to each other or are we quick and judgmental and angry when we speak to one another and we communicate with one another? How have we set out our mutual expectations? So if I, again, if I think about, you know, maybe it's my daughter.
Like my expectation for her is that she will brush, she's seven, that she will brush her teeth by herself and that she will get herself dressed. She doesn't do that. She expects me to be with her, help her get her clothes out and everything. And that's very frustrating for me. And it can end up in, you know, me sometimes losing my temper.
But those are the patterns we're creating together. that's where the kind of energy goes. And that's also based on what history we carry with each other.
How did we grow up together? What's the baggage we each carry? And then in the outer circle, it's theirs. So if I continue with my seven-year-old daughter, it's her moods, it's her choices, it's what she believes about things, whether she should have to clean her teeth before she goes to school or whether she should have to get dressed before she has breakfast.
their triggers. So what lights them up, what sets them off, it's theirs. It's their behavior, and it's their willingness to change. And obviously, this is probably, you know, relatable when we think about like spouse relationships or partnerships like that. And so, you know, just to
kind of apply this. Most of us spend the majority of our time in that outer circle, trying to manage someone else's emotions, someone else's reactions, someone else's decisions. If, if they did this, if my husband cleared the table without being asked, then I would feel, you know, happy, relaxed. If my kid cleaned her teeth without me having to ask her five times, then I'd feel a sense of calm.
But.
true self leadership really begins the inner circle. is again where I said our power lies. It's not in fixing or controlling or being responsible from somebody else's experience. It's within our own ability to manage our own experience of that relationship dynamic and so managing our expectations around that. And the middle circle is where we need to start to be very aware of this kind of pattern or this dance that's going on
between the two of us, we might not be able to change it, especially not instantly, but certainly if we can name it, we can then pause it and we can start to shift it. So yeah, again, I'm just gonna pause there, Kelly, and just see if there's, if that, how relatable that is for you in terms of how you think about some of the relationships in your life.
Kelly Berry (15:09)
Yeah, I think that that is just a really great model to think about, first of all. But, you know, one of the things as you were talking about it, that is just so relatable and I think is really at the root of a lot of the, you know, discomfort that we feel in our relationships is expectations. And so I'll just give like a personal example of this, then something that I went through. So Nick and I
We've been married 18 years, so this is quite a while ago, but before we got married, we went through like a short session of premarital counseling. And one of the exercises that we did, it was so simple, but it was like a list of 15 things. And it was like, which of these things did your mother do and which of these things did your father do? And they were things like take out the trash, pay the bills, hang pictures on the wall, do the grocery shopping. And so we each went through and just said,
which of our parents did these things. And then we met together in session and we talked through it. And the result is just trying to help you avoid unmet expectations because of the experiences that you're bringing to the relationship. So if I come into the marriage and I'm like, well, my dad always took out the trash and Nick comes into the marriage and he's like, my mom always took out the trash. We may never discuss who's responsibility it is.
to take out the trash, but we're both resentful to the other one because they don't know automatically that they're responsible for this chore. And so I think that, you if we can think about where we're feeling this, this like friction in our lives, is it around a lot of unmet expectations or unspoken expectations? So that's kind of one thing. And then the other thing that, and this is a big struggle for me is sometimes,
And you mentioned it in your example, like, can my husband clear the table without being asked? It's like we hold on to this belief that if they can just read our minds, and this is spouses, this is friends, this is, you know, coworkers, this is everybody, they can just read our minds. You know, don't they just know what's important to me? Don't they just know what I want? And we, you know, I think that that's just like unnecessary burden. It's like what?
If we can ask ourselves, like, what is so wrong with having to speak our expectations? What are we afraid of that's keeping us from doing that? And I'll relate this to my own, like, kind of personal relationship with achievement. You know, I have a hard time asking for help because I feel like if I get help, it wasn't mine. You know, I got help along the way. And I think there's been times in my life where I've felt the same way about expectations in relationship. Like, if I have to tell somebody
what I want from them, then it's not, you know, it's not, it's not right, or it's not like good. And that's just not the case. Like we are, we are free to express what we need and what we want. And, you know, then it tells us a lot if the other person isn't willing to or won't do those things. So, you know, I had a lot of thoughts going on in my head around that, but I think that those are just kind of some good examples. Like,
What are those unspoken expectations? then like, is our resistance to speak our needs and wants?
Sadie Wackett (18:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think just that's, it's such a point. And building on the topic of expectations, I think then we start, cause our brains are meaning making machines. start to make meaning of the fact that they haven't taken the trash out in this example. And you know, we might start to think, well, if they loved me, they'd take the trash out.
a good partner should know how to organize a house and take trash out. I've got, you know, a very similar example. have some flooring, we have to have some flooring put in and we've noticed there's some gaps in it where it's put in. And in my mind, this is just me internally ruminating on it while
Alex needs to sort that out. Alex needs to sort that out. Alex needs to... Then I'm kind of, why am I getting so frustrated about this? Why don't I sort that out? So this is a really good analogy as well. And I find it really helpful to use myself. If we imagine for a moment that we're a car, I'm an Audi, my husband is a, I don't know, a Ford.
Kelly Berry (19:23)
Mm-hmm.
Sadie Wackett (19:41)
I have an operating manual for how I work. It's mine. It's got all the measurements and instructions for how I operate. And that's been built for my lifetime. This operating manual has been structured, very comprehensive, and exactly what I need to operate well.
Alex has a different operating manual. It is developed to ensure that he, as a board,
runs smoothly at all times and he can, he understands all the mechanics behind what he needs. I can't hand my operating manual to him and expect him to follow all those instructions and run smoothly because it's full of different things. It's full of different beliefs. It's full of different expectations. It's full of different values. Where this becomes really important is that we recognize
we each have a different manual and that when we overlap them together there may be some consistency. We may have shared values around certain things like parenting or friendships or the importance of career but there's going to be other things that are very different in each of our operating manuals such as how we view the need to rest and relax or
stability, safety versus kind of growth and change. And both manuals are fine for ourselves. However, when we come together in partnership, that's when we need to take a look at where they overlap. And it's exactly the same example that you gave around your kind of pre-marriage counseling, like calling it out, being intentional about saying, well, this is how I feel about roles and responsibilities. How do you?
So I think, you know, that's really where we can come to ourselves as individuals and we can start to understand like where we are able to trust our own feelings or maybe where we're deferring permission or we're waiting for the permission from somebody else. Like, I can't do this unless they change. Well, we might be waiting a very long time.
And so there's an opportunity here for us to kind of reclaim our own power by just understanding first of all, how we're, what our operating manual is telling us, and maybe being curious around what their operating manual is telling them.
Kelly Berry (22:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that last statement like remaining curious. I think that that is so important and you know to go back to what you said at the very very beginning like relationships are hard and it's okay, you know if you think about especially in partnerships or in marriage like you are sharing your life with somebody, you know, that is a hard thing to do is like merge two people with two different operating manuals together and expect that to be like
good and cohesive, but if you can maybe like shift the way that you think about it and you you're not trying to merge these manuals into one. You know, the beauty of relationships is that you do have two different manuals and there's probably is some overlap and the differences are what help us continue to grow and see things differently. And I think that that staying curious about it and being willing to
change and grow together is really kind of, think, what makes those relationships really beautiful. It's not like you're trying to come in and change somebody. You're trying to come in and see how can you navigate life together and...
become the best versions of yourselves alongside each other.
Sadie Wackett (23:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think it's, you know, the notion of curiosity and also to the extent we can remove judgment from our thoughts as well. So removing this moral weight of their behavior, the other person's behavior.
you know, in the case of the trash, it might not be because that person's unwilling to take the trash out.
So they're not necessarily a bad person for not doing it. They are just wired differently. So it's not like the intent behind it may not be bad. It's just that they're wired differently and they don't necessarily have the capacity to be able to match your expectations. So, yeah, I think it's, you know, and even if I think about working relationships as well, the same things apply. If you're a leader of a team and you are getting
super frustrated with what they're doing or not doing. It's like how quickly are we applying kind of moral judgment to their behaviors rather than kind of trying to just think about how they're wired, what's driving them, what they measure success by and being able to kind of break that down.
Kelly Berry (24:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sadie Wackett (24:43)
in a more granular way so that nobody's operating from assumptions. We're operating from a place of knowledge and understanding, shared understanding. And that allows for just a lot more, A, allows for a lot more kind of transparent communication. But B, when we have to make decisions about things, whether it's a difficult leadership decision about needing to develop somebody or somebody's no longer fit for the role, or it's a bigger decision around
Kelly Berry (24:48)
Mm-hmm.
Sadie Wackett (25:11)
we can do it from a place of...
and a place of knowledge and insight rather than a reaction from a feeling that we've got which is uncomfortable and if we remove ourselves from that relationship our discomfort is going to go away. Well it might do temporarily but if we haven't been able to establish the mechanics behind how the relationship dynamics work I can guarantee you'll move into the next relationship and experience very similar things.
Kelly Berry (25:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and to that point that goes beyond just relationships, you know, that's That's really the grass is greener mentality and you just never get there because you're you're just Continuing to stay in motion without like addressing the things that are in motion alongside you. So
Sadie Wackett (26:02)
That's all I have for now in the time that we have, but you can tell it's topic that's, I mean, it's rich and it's universal.
Kelly Berry (26:05)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. It really is. And I'm sure in some way, shape or form, we'll address it maybe from a different angle again in the future. But I think that those were two really helpful models to circles, operating manual. You know, know recently in some of our resets and things, you've talked about that as it relates to like value sets as well. And so I think that those are just good frameworks for people to use when
you know, maybe they're coming up against some of those feelings of friction to help them work through and maybe approach a situation, relationship, something in their lives a little bit differently the next time they do so.
Sadie Wackett (26:47)
Yeah. Yeah.
I would definitely say this is, this is, I guess, equipment or this is knowledge I would have loved to have had earlier in my life. Like, you know, as I was leaving high school, going through college, going into the workplace, this would have equipped me so well to handle
Kelly Berry (27:00)
Mm-hmm.
Sadie Wackett (27:10)
situations
Kelly Berry (27:12)
well, this is great. Thank you,
Sadie, and we will talk again soon.
Sadie Wackett (27:16)
We will. Bye everyone.
Kelly Berry (27:18)
Bye.
Kelly Berry (27:18)
Thanks for listening to Life Intended.
Sadie Wackett (27:22)
If something from this episode landed with you, stirred something up or gave you a new perspective, share it. Tag us, leave a review. That's how this work reaches more women who really need it.
Kelly Berry (27:34)
Life Intended is more than just a podcast. It's a movement back to self-trust, personal power, and living with intention.
Sadie Wackett (27:42)
and we're just getting started.
Kelly Berry (27:45)
So keep showing up, keep tuning in. If you're ready for more support on your path, head to LifeIntended.co. We've got tools, community, and programs to meet you where you are. Until next time.
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader and business coach. She is known for her operational excellence and her ability to drive growth and results across multiple industries.
She is also hosting her own podcast, Life Intended.
