Hey guys, thanks for tuning into this episode of MomTalks with Christa, I have an awesome episode for you guys today. Yana Gil De Montes is here and she is from the conscious married woman and we are covering all kinds of topics to help your relationship today. It was just so cool talking to her. She talks about the biggest roadblocks when it comes to keeping us from the marriage, we want to have in the most powerful foundation that every thriving marriage should have. So, we had a great conversation, it was just really cool about talking about inner work and what we can do to make ourselves better in our relationship, and so much more. So, if you have questions about your marriage, or relationship, this is the one you definitely don't want to miss. And of course, don't forget to stick around until the end, because we have our mom tails the week, where we have this week's question that I posted on social media and I'm going to read off some of our favorite responses. So, you have to stick around to see if we chose yours this week. Alright, without further ado, here's my interview with Yana. This is a topic we haven't had on the show before. So, I'm really excited to kind of dive right in and learn more about it. So firstly, before it's started, can you us tell us a little bit about you?

Yana: Thank you so much Christa for having me on. I am Yana and I have been married for 10 years. I have two girls, ages seven and eight. I've been a marriage coach for four plus years. Just to share a little bit about my journey in how I got into marriage coaching and how I kind of went down my path for me, my marriage was kind of my opportunity to, quote unquote awaken and really look at my life and look at what wasn't working. And really make a choice of whether I was to really walk down a path of feeling like when things aren't working of taking responsibility for them or awaken and actually take a conscious approach and look at how I can be responsible for the things that weren't working and make a change and really kind of change the paradigm and the trajectory of what's possible. And in my marriage, I really want to work on that really deeply because when I got into my marriage, what I found myself doing was basically reacting in the ways that I learned from my parents, grandparents, society, and what kind of I think most people do and just following the path that we learned, and I realized that just wasn't going to work out. If I just kept continuing to react and these unhealthy patterns that I learned from my parents, my marriage wasn't going to work. I'm trying to shorten it. But really like that was my biggest opportunity and that's why I really focused on conscious marriage, rather than let me fix or let's fix your partner, or let's fix you. It's not about fixing, it's more like bringing consciousness and awareness and changing the paradigm and the trajectory of what's possible.

Christa: Oh, awesome. I love always hearing about the journey of how each person kind of got into the work they're in. I think it's so it's so cool, because a lot of times we go towards work that has really touched us deep or it's been something that is really important to our own kind of personal journey. So, for anyone that's listening, what is a conscious marriage? And how can someone kind of start veering towards a more conscious marriage?

Yana: First of all, I think that conscious marriage is a concept. It's a point of view that you pick on, that you really use your relationship as an opportunity for growth. When I first realized that my marriage is mine, and it's my vehicle for me to grow as a human being and to evolve, and to learn, and every kind of conflict, and everything that we struggle through in our marriage is an opportunity for me to really do that inner work and to grow. It was like an eye opener for me. Well, eye openers is like undermining it was like a wake up moment where oh, like he's not there to make me happy, my marriage I think we grow up really believing that once I get married, once I have kids, that I'm going to live this fairy tale and everything is just going to work out and I know, in motherhood, I've experienced that as well, it's like, well just know. A conscious marriage is really looking at your marriage from a different perspective, it's not there to fulfil you in any way or to make you whole, you are whole as you are in your partner's hole as he is. Everything that's experienced inside the relationship is really there for you to grow and expand. So, it's that bigger commitment that partners have to grow and expand as individuals and then when you do that, you're hold towards that purpose, you're pulled towards to making a world and your family a better place, because of the work that you do individually.

Christa: I love what you just said about assess, society, kind of teaches us to think once you're married, it's that happily ever after. It's like those Disney movies we grew up watching. And so, I think we kind of think, oh, once you find your person, you get married, it's perfect, everything's great from then on. So, I love this concept of you are whole as a person, your spouse, as a whole, as a person so you have to kind of find what works in your marriage for it's not going to do just this happy happily ever after, automatically.

Yana: Yeah, and then you evolve, and you're always going to change. And I think a lot of women, we get into this pitfall where we get married, we're in this like, bubble, and then we get disappointed, and our husband does something or whatever, he's not fulfilling on an expectation that we have and then we're living with so much resentment and disappointment. It really creates this really big disconnect from ourselves and from our partners.

Christa: Yeah. So, what do you think are the biggest roadblocks that keep us from having the marriage we desire?

Yana: We actually call it inside of our programmers, The Big Lie. The Big Lie is this really big lie that nobody really ever talks about openly, and a lot of us aren't even conscious that it's there. It's something that we, all of us have been deeply, kind of programmed to believe is that a marriage or a relationship, or I should say, a marriage, especially since we're talking about that is never really going to work out, not really. There's always going to be a point where we're going to get disappointed even though we hope, and we see these movies growing up and we have these ideals about the fairytale life. But the truth is, if you really look at your life, like 99% of people, we don't have relationships around us that are perfect. It's just not possible. Even if your parents had a great relationship, there's always something that we look for. That's like, oh, no, but I don't want that, and I don't want this. So, subconsciously, we have this belief going into the marriage that I can't trust them or whatever those beliefs are like for me is like, I can't count on them. I was going into the marriage with this belief, that was really deeply rooted, but it was like. Then when my husband had his failures. It was like, the belief was proved to be true like I had evidence and then we start gathering this evidence. It's a huge roadblock of for not being honest about it. If we're not actually being open about it, it really this veil, I think that we relate to our partners through to marriage, through the relationship that we have to marriage is through that veil a lot of times to that's why.

Christa: Do you think it's important for people to kind of understand and ask themselves their own kind of like, your kind of saying like, you're deeply rooted beliefs about marriage or relationships, is there a good way for them to kind of like some almost like self-reflect and be like, Okay, what did I come into this relationship expecting? Or what do I believe about a good marriage? Or kind of doing that reflection?

Yana: Absolutely. Well, the first thing before you even ask what you really want is you really have to be honest with yourself about the default point of view that you have about marriage about men. If you're in a heterosexual relationship or about woman, and really be honest with them, the first few weeks of when we work with our clients, we have them get super honest about all of their complaints, and all of their things that they really believe about marriage. And it's crazy, when you start to see that when you're like, oh my god, I'm in a relationship with my partner, like not believing that he can provide for me, or I don't trust him, or whatever, I'm expecting that, basically. And when you start to really get honest about those, then you can actually look at like, well, what do I want? what are my values? what is something that inspires me? what did I want before I even met my partner? So, that really is looking at those complaints and kind of flipping them and asking what is underneath that fear, because on the other side, because it is all from fear, right? We're always either operating in fear or in love. And when we meet our partner, initially, hopefully we meet them, and we're inspired, and we're in love, and we are really like looking forward to the fights together. But then as we progress, and like we get married, or long-term relationship, we go into these fear kind of places of like, what if this didn't work out? What if I can't trust them, or all this stuff. So, you really want to be honest about what you're afraid of and then really go to a place of like, love and what do I really want?

Christa: Awesome, I love that. I'm big into like, self-reflection and kind of asking yourself. I think so many times we kind of move on autopilot and all the time beliefs. Yeah, we don't even realize how they got there in the first places so kind of just pausing and being like, wait a second, why do I believe this? Or what do I believe, all those.

Yana: And sadly, a lot of times it takes and I work with women that already come to me and they're in a place for like, I can't take it anymore, I want a divorce, or I want a separation. And I tell people, like don't wait till those moments. Self-reflection is something that inner work that you do is necessary all the time especially when you're super busy and on autopilot. And I know as moms, I mean, it's really hard to get out of that autopilot mode. But you know, if that's what it takes, that's what it takes for you to actually have that fulfilment.

Christa: And so, on the on the other end, this thing's talking about a more thriving marriage, what's like a powerful foundation that all marriages should try to have to have a thriving marriage?

Yana: There's so much but I would say that the most foundational piece is really being aligned on your why and your purpose. And when I was talking earlier about we just get into a marriage, and we get into this autopilot and like what we're talking about like you really don't have a purpose that you're both working towards, and really kind of stepping back as a couple and redefining that is really, really crucial. And I find that when couples do align on them why on their purpose and like, why they have a family, why they're in a marriage, why they have kids, right? Not just because they saw their parents and grandparents didn't because society told them to but really, like what does it for? then it's beautiful because when you do have, those moments of hardship, and you're going through the seasons of life that really are difficult, you can always come back to the why. You can always come back to your purpose and really align with it. So yeah, that foundation is really necessary.

Christa: We obviously talk about like communication, a lack of communication with your partner, and understanding your goals as a marriage, as parents, and whatever else. So why do a lot of couples fail at filling out healthy communication? What is it about communication that can be more difficult or harder for couples to keep up with?

Yana: I mean; communication is a huge topic. But the first thing that I would say about communication is most of us are trying like we're communicating to prove our point and we just want to be right. And therefore, we make the partner usually wrong. Like we want to be seen, all of us, we want to be seen and we want to be heard. So, we think that by being right and making the other person wrong, we're going to be seen. And that is such, I think a broken point of view because as to people just want to be right, there's no way that we're going to ever be able to get on the same page. And that's what we want. When I talked to two women, like what do you want in your marriage when it comes to communication? I just want to be seen; I want to be heard. And I want to be on the same page with my partner. Well, if you're not actually hearing your partner, if you're not allowing him to also be right or her to be right, then there's no way that you guys are going to be able to actually get on that same page. So actually, my husband and I, we have this kind of thing that we just have an agreement that both of us are right, we're always right and we're always just listening to each other's point of view. And even if I don't agree with it, for him, in his, in his world, he's right, and he gets that for me when I'm sharing or when I'm telling him something that I'm just as right, so he's willing to listen to that. So, I think in communication, if couples were just willing to let go of being right and getting defensive, that is huge. And just willing to listen, another thing I think communication, we think that just because we're talking or communicating, but really communication is about what's already going on inside. So, I talked about most of the time, we have these complaints in these fears. And a lot of times we'll communicate from those fears. And from those complaints, and nothing actually gets created in the communication. There's no power in the communication, because we're just basically speaking our complaints out loud. And unfortunately, it happens a lot. I think especially with women where we're just like venting, and talking and telling our partners, what doesn't work. And what happens a lot of times with the men is they shut down, they withdraw, they get defensive, they Stonewall, and they don't want to communicate. And I hear this all the time. And I'm generalizing a little bit, sometimes it happens the other way but usually one partner is, the one who's speaking up their complaints a little more. So, what I offer my clients and everything that I just really like getting present to what is my complaint? and then flipping it over and asking, like, what is the desire behind the complaint? And what's my intention? before you even open your mouth. And when you do that work, it's really powerful. Because when you come to your partner from an intentional place, and you get really clear on what do I want? Do I want to be heard to I want? to solve something like, do I want? whatever, then you can actually be responsible for the way you communicate to your partner. And you can make the requests, or you can just ask him to be listened to, or you can actually preamp and tell him hey, I've been upset about this thing and I noticed that I've been complaining about this thing so what do you think is the solution? So, you guys can actually be partners. And it makes such a huge difference when you communicate. So, I think yeah, when it comes to communication, being intentional is huge.

Christa: I love that because I think a lot of times in the heat of the moment, you just want to state your case or show like you said, why you're right but to it's like yeah, what's the end goal? What do you actually ask for? And communicating that I think is really, really powerful. You also talk about expectations that kind of make us stuck, like we get stuck in these expectations. So, what do you mean by that? And how can people get unstuck? I don't know if that's the right way to say it.

Yana: Yeah, yeah, we put expectations on our partners and on ourselves. I think, especially as moms I mean, every woman has like this ideal. I call it the ideal woman in our brain like we should be this, and this, and this, but when it comes to a partnership or marriage, we have these like invisible check boxes, that we, a lot of times don't even know that are there. But if you sit down and you really look at every kind of area of a person from personality to physically like what should they look like? What should they say? what should they talk? should he be funny? How much money should he made all of the different areas? if you sit down and write it out, you're going to find that you have this bar, right? this like bar that of what he should be. And inside of a marriage, when your partner isn't meeting those expectations, you will judge him for it. And you will, silently right I'm not saying but consider that there's an inner judgement and an inner criticism, based on these expectations that have been learned. I mean, you've learned them probably since you were a little girl growing up, and maybe your mom said something, or maybe you saw something on TV, or maybe an ex-boyfriend didn't need an expert, whatever it is, like you've picked him up all along your life until this partner. And we silently kind of judge our partners, when they meet those expectations, and when they don't. So, when you get really honest, that's always the first step is really get honest and take responsibility. But these are expectations that you have created. You're the only one who has these invisible checkboxes and not that you can't want these things, but just being honest, that this is like the judgement system that your partner is kind of against. So, when they don't feel those expectations will judge them, and we'll make them wrong. And then when they do, most of the time, we're just like, yeah, he should meet them, he should be providing for my family, he should, make this much money so we can do better, whatever to get unstuck, quote, unquote, you're always going to have them, right? they're always going to be there. But I would say is really be honest, take responsibility, and then really start acknowledging your partner, for even the simplest things, they can be for going to work every day, right? Like when you realize that, oh, I have an expectation that he goes to work every day. And that's like my expectation, right? And I know that sometimes it's hard to understand like that this is your expectation, because society tells us like, no, a man should be this way. But when you really get like, oh, wow, that's just me who's created that, you can actually start to get into gratitude and start acknowledging them for doing these things and it's magical. I know that a lot of women that are listening will be like, Well, what about him acknowledging me, right? Like I do all these things, while we have all of the expectations on ourselves to have, what a mom should be, what a woman should be, how much we should weigh, how we should look, how many meals we shouldn't all that stuff. So, consider that, that little voice that tells you, he shouldn't be acknowledging me is your inner critic, that's judging yourself for not meeting these specific expectations and you want him to acknowledge you for that stuff. And when you really get that, and when you start acknowledging your partner just because what happens and I see it over and over and over in my programmers and women, is your partner starts to acknowledge you just because as well, and they're like, oh, wow, like, he starts feeling seen. And he starts feeling like she's just seeing me like for me, and she's grateful for me, and he starts to express that gratitude back and it's a beautiful thing.

Christa: That's awesome, I think that kind of goes to what you're saying earlier, too, about that self-reflection of understanding, where expectations come from? And why do we expect like expect certain things? I like that, I think that's cool because we do hold ourselves to our own expectations of something we saw in a movie or in our own family, like, Okay, well, this is what I need to be. So, this is what they need to be to. And so, for anyone that's kind of listening that they're curious about learning more about being a conscious married woman kind of they're in having struggles in their relationship right now, what are the kind of starting tips do you recommend? And then where can they get more information from you?

Yana: The first thing I would say is really stop looking outside of yourself for answers and start doing that inner work and really become curious and observant of how you've been in the relationship and in your life because there's patterns that are repeating themselves that are showing up, right? and it's hard sometimes, it's hard to look at yourself in the mirror and really admit like, oh, I can actually have something to do with the way things are, but that's the first place, it doesn't matter. And my husband is freaking amazing. And we still have struggles in our relationship. And it's not until I am looking at myself and really going like, where is it that, I am showing up in this way, it doesn't matter like how he shows up, it's what I do, and my inner work that I do that will really kind of dictate of how I feel and how I show up and my experience with my life. So, it's always that inner work that always comes back to doing the inner work that will create that deep joy, that deep fulfilment in your life. If you just shift the context of your marriage to from I'm supposed to be fulfilled in this marriage to it's my job to really find my joy and my fulfilment, and this this relationship has, is an opportunity to not happen, but is an opportunity for me to learn how to do that. If you just make that mindset shift, you literally like will have a different experience of your relationship.

Christa: Yeah, that's awesome. When you're talking about doing the inner work to kind of make me think of, like, if you're having a bad morning, and you go home, something that normally wouldn't bother you, bother you versus if you're having a great day something happens, it's not a big deal. So, it is kind of back to that like always kind of asking ourselves, what's going on with me right now? kind of what can I do? How can I become a better spouse myself?

Yana: Yeah. And really quickly the fear, I think a lot for us, for a lot of women is if I'm doing that work, and he's not, then somehow, I'm going to be taken advantage of the like, I'm going to be the only one doing the work. I hear this all the time. And women like, what about him? Like, I've been doing all this work? What about him, he needs to do the work. And really trust that as a woman, your intuition is guiding you towards doing that work. So, you can actually live a life that's full of joy and fulfilment for yourself and whatever your partner does, or doesn't do, he's on his own journey. And a lot of times what happens with couples and heterosexual, especially relationship, but in any relationship, I think women, when we start to find that joy when we start to actually be responsible for our happiness, our partner also has the space to look at himself as well, men believe it or not, if they really love their wife, they want to make you happy. It's an eight in for most men to provide, protect, and make their woman happy. And if he is on this, like, a lot of men, they think like, I'm going to work on doing all these things and providing for my family, she should be happy. And if he doesn't feel that you are actually happy, he's going to continuously try to focus on that, until one day is going to be like, I can't make her happy, no matter what. And I'm not saying this, for all men, but I am saying that there is something to be said, like, when a woman really is coming from that place of happiness and joy, it really has so much power to influence your partner, your kids, the whole household can be influenced by that. So, I told him and I'm like, it’s time for us to be leaders in our families, not to like be these like, feminist, strong women, which that's great and all but to also like, really bring that softness and that grace to your home and really do that inner work for you so you can feel and you can actually be that space for your family.

Christa: Awesome. Yeah, it's like they say you know, Misery loves company. So, a few joy, you know, Joy spreads. I feel like just as easily and so if you're going through something and you're doing the work, I feel like it will spread to fit up. Awesome. Well, this was this was a really awesome conversation. Like I said, We've never had a conversation quite on this topic before. So, I think it's something that a lot of our moms will love to hear about. But I always like to end these conversations with fun thinking questions, I call them and so if you could have a billboard made today, we could share one tip with moms everywhere. What would you have it say?

Yana: I'm experiencing myself, have fun. I think we became moms and we take things seriously and everything like became so, I mean we get so busy and we're constantly in autopilot and I know for myself, my husband sometimes or my kids will be like let's have some fun and I'm like no, I have so many things to do and that's I think the thing, the billboard that I would put up like remember to have fun and it's not so serious.

Christa: I will say may fiancé keeps me fun because he's way more goes with the flow, spontaneous, and like goofy and I always like I need to plan everything. So, It's a nice balance.

Yana: Yeah, the planning keeps us safe but, in the fun, and that flow, is when the magic happens and we have the most connection with ourselves and with our families.

Christa: I love that, and of course, where can everyone follow you and or find you with your website and learn form you?

Yana: Sure. So, in Instagram I am @themarriage.coach and in Facebook we have the great community called The Conscious Married where you can ask questions and really just hang out with the great community of people. The website of our courses is www.transformyourmarriagecourse.com

Join our private Facebook Group - New Moms - Breastfeeding & More Support Group by Mommy Knows Best: https://bit.ly/3gQIF9z​

*Mommy Knows Best is committed to providing informational, motivational, and inspiring videos to all moms. Statements in this video are for informational purposes only and are not to be taken as medical advice or recommendation. Any health concern or condition should be brought to the attention of your doctor.