The Potential State Podcast

Living in a hard times takes a toll on our relationships. We have changed and so has our partner. One of our biggest resources is our connections. Strengthening our relationships is vital for personal and collective resilience and well-being. How do we stay open and present to our partner, when our bodies and minds are closed in order to protect ourselves? OWNURSH!T together with Get Help Israel a...

We’re deep in wartime. We’re surrounded by war, trauma, power, dichotomies of good and bad and power. All this impacts our relationships and hurts our ability to be vulnerable. Join us as we talk with Alan Marriott, professional improvisor, voice actor, teacher and author of Genius Now! He is one of my all-time favorite improv teachers and he is BRILLIANT. His book is phenomenal and I reached out...

Living in a war zone for over three months has taken a toll on our relationships. We have changed and so has our partner. One of the first things to go is our playfulness, joy and spontaneity. Without them, we slide into survival mode and our relationships suffer. OWNURSH!T together with Get Help Israel are happy to host the Relational Aid series. Real, honest talks that offer couples practical to...

OWNURSH!T together with Get Help Israel are happy to host the Relational Aid series. Real, honest talks that offer couples practical tools to help them push past surviving into thriving through these trying times. Join us as we talk to Mary Jo Barrett, MSW, Collaborative Change Consultant and author of Treating Complex Trauma: A Relational Blueprint for Collaboration and Change. We will explore ho...

*** We highly recommend you download and review The Wheel of Consent diagram as you listen to this episode. You can download it here for free: https://www.schoolofconsent.org/downloads OWNURSH!T together with Get Help Israel are happy to launch the Relational Aid series, a number of real and raw talks that seek to offer couples practical tools that will help them push past surviving into thriving...

OWNURSH!T together with Get Help Israel are happy to launch the Relational Aid series, a number of real and raw talks that seek to offer couples practical tools that will help them push past surviving into thriving through these trying times. Join us as we talk to Kevin A. Thompson who is a best selling author, pastor and counselor. We will explore how couples can become better partners, lovers an...

Join us for an honest talk with  Mark O’Connell, author and therapist about how couples can hold and maintain personal and relational multiplicity in times of crisis? How do we stay connected to our full self and remain close in times of war? Dr. Assael and Galit Romanelli run The Potential State and offer individual and relationship coaching with Galit , individual therapy for men with Assael , a...

Change is not easy. Many individuals and couples are lacking a blueprint for long-term systemic change. In this talk, we integrate Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey monomyth with systemic change concepts and our Potential State ideas and present our integrated systemic hero's journey model. Practical tips will help you recognize which stage you are in the journey and how to advance toward y...

Hey Man (or woman), Are you alive or are you somewhat turned off, numb, or somewhat apathetic? If so, you're not alone. You might be suffering from the under-diagnosed phenomenon of the covert male depression, as first described by Terrance Real. In this talk, taken from a webinar for therapists, I share my story of covert depression and detail how this covert depression begins through psycho...

Are you living your full self? Are you manifesting all your different passions and talents? Some of us have multiple passions, and don't want to commit to only one profession. That is called being a Multipotentialite (coined by Emilie Wapnick), or slashers. How can you live a multipotentialite life? This is an honest talk with friend Tal Shibi who is a slasher: dance/choreographer/photographe...

Many of us learn at a young age (especially boys) that vulnerability=weakness. We therefore try to hide it and don't show it to our partners. This results in shallow, self-presentational relationships with little vitality, excitement, play or curiosity. Moreover, when you're not vulnerable, then you're less interesting to your partner and over time you become more numb to your own i...

Fighting is inevitable in every intimate relationship. Most of us don't like, don't know how, or don't even know when we are fighting. Yet arguments and conflicts are a crucial element in building an intimate, differentiated relationship. Too bad there isn't a blueprint for a "positive" fight and make up... Well, actually, there is! In this talk, we share a recommende...

Many of us find ourselves in charge or a certain dimension of our relationship alone, be it cleaning, financial planning, parenting, and more. This sole responsibility is often a source of tension and frustration in the dyad. This universal pattern is called the seesaw principle (as coined my Michelle Weiner Davis), where the more one person does, the less the other partner does. In this talk we u...

Bitterness. Usually it is a passing feeling, but sometimes we encounter a partner who is constantly bitter, and their partner who is trying to cheer them up (or avoid them). It is so common that it has become almost a stereotype. Women express bitterness through criticism, pessimism, grogginess, and overall negativity. Men express this feeling through cynicism, apathy, aggression, or passive aggre...

Do you have a sense your partner is sticking it to you but they keep denying it? Do you or your partner deny certain bad behaviors to each other? We all sometimes semi-consciously act in small negative ways to our partners -  David Schnarch calls this phenomenon "Normal Marital Sadism".  After all, the opposite of love is apathy (not hatred). So we all do it. But when one partner continu...

Are you (or your partner) super driven to be efficient? Is it hard for you to lower your productivity and just be? If so, you're not alone. Efficiency is actually a wonderful trait but can also function as a defense mechanism. That is why we call it E-FISH-NET, a big (electronic) net that catches all of you and takes you hostage. What is the solution? To be more present, to do less things in...

The 'lost' years of a couple's life occur after about 7-10 years: kids, mortgage, school, aging parents, careers, bills, chores, marriage is stable, annoying in-laws, holidays, boredom, fatigue, routine... For most couples these years tend to feel 'comfortably numb' and are sometimes disrupted with a rude awakening in the form of an affair, medical or family drama. These n...

" I know all there is to know about the crying game... " Boy George Crying is a natural and organic way to express and release emotions. Yet crying in relationship is not always easy: Some of us cry very often (over-crying) and some of us find it hard to cry at all (blocked cryers). Both of these extremes have advantages and disadvantages, and both don't facilitate a healthy express...

"If I can't see your selfishness, I can't believe your generosity." Betty Martin Many of us  have a problem expressing our desires and wants in our intimate relationships. Why? For men, this can stem from psychological patriarchy that deems wanting, vulnerability or need as something negative. For others, not wanting protects us from rejection or ridicule. But if we don't...

Are you a drama queen (or king)? Are you in a relationship with a drama queen? (Truth is that men are the real drama queens.) If so, you probably know how draining and annoying it is interacting with such 'royalty'. But the systemic truth is: You are encouraging them. Yes, there is no drama queen/king without an audience. Underneath such drama, there is usually a cry for attention or a &...

Most of us think that two is the most stable number in relationships. But every dyad needs a third to stabilize it. The process of including a third in a dyad is called triangulation. Triangulation is a natural and unavoidable dynamic that occurs in every relationship. The problems begin with the triangulation is fixed and rigid. It creates a 'lose-lose' dynamic that prevents all three m...

Imagine all the human emotion would be spread out from 1 being deep despair, all the way to 10 being extreme ecstasy. What would be your range? Which numbers (feelings) are you less familiar with? Many of us are 4-6'ers. We live "between the 40's", keeping it safe, functional but also somewhat numb. In this talk, Galit and I talk about the natural 4-6 phenomenon and its impact...

Most of us believe criticism (or constructive feedback) more than praise. Why? Because some of us grew up in homes where criticism was a way to show care. Over time, this environment creates a core belief that "love = criticism". Such a tendency leads to relationships fraught with conflict, cynicism, and sarcasm. In this talk, Galit and Assael unpack this core belief and its effects thro...

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon Little boy blue and the man in the moon "When you coming home, son?" "I don't know when" But we'll get together then, dad We're gonna have a good time then... Mothers and fathers feel different kinds of guilt regarding their parenting. Kids grow up fast and we have so many things to do all the time. Times are...

Do you secretly find it hard to feel and/or express joy in your personal life? Are you in a relationship with a joy killer? If you do, then you're not alone! In the past months, we have discovered that Assael has trouble expressing joy (can you say, a pessimist?), while for Galit joy is a natural and accessible resource (optimist, or as we call her a unicorn). This sent Assael to family thera...