Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

Driving Me CRAZY, Shared Stress

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 9 • Episode 13

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Shared Stress & Mirror Habits: Stop Managing Their Chaos, Start Managing Your Own (Living Lucky® Podcast)

Does your partner drive you crazy? 🤬 A hat on the couch, a leash on the counter—these small acts often trigger massive stress and resentment. This eye-opening episode of the Living Lucky® Podcast reveals why those tiny frictions are actually mirror habits reflecting your own unmanaged mindset and stress loops.

We share our raw, human experience with colliding organization styles (logistics-first vs. flow-first) and the pressure of decision fatigue. This is your essential self-help guide to stop policing your partner's chaos and start tending your nervous system first.

Little Nuggets:

This episode offers key shifts to transform relationship friction into growth.

  • Mirror Habit Theory: What drives you insane is a mirror image of your own unmanaged limiting beliefs or stress elsewhere.
  • Logistical OCD: Recognize that both physical and logistical tidiness (e.g., trip control) are forms of control magnified by stress.
  • Antagonist: Build-up: Unexpressed needs and decision fatigue turn small offenses (like a hat) into emotional explosions.
  • Stop Managing Their Stress: The ultimate shift: Manage your own nervous system first (walk, name your spiral). Don't control their chaos.
  • Good Pain vs. Bad Pain: Choose the good pain (sorting expectations/clutter now) to prevent the bad pain of future resentment.
  • Language & Grace: Use the "state the need" rule to turn conflict into design: "I need this clear for calm." Promotes positive thinking.
  • Puncture Doom: Praise what you notice right. This simple appreciation crushes the "I'm unappreciated" doom loop.

Apply these to manage your inner world for outer relationship harmony. 🧘‍♀️

How to stop managing my partner's stress. Why does my partner's clutter bother me so much? The psychological reason for relationship friction. How to manage a nervous system spiral. Good pain versus bad pain in relationships. How to use mirror habits for personal growth. Overcoming resentment in marriage/partnership. Logistics-first vs. flow-first personality styles. What are mirror habits in relationships and how do they work? What is the key

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Jana Shelfer:

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®.

Jason Shelfer:

You are too.

Jana Shelfer:

Does your partner ever drive you insane? You drive me crazy. Ooh, ooh! No, what else? That actually sounded like him.

Jason Shelfer:

Is it Millie Vanilli?

Jana Shelfer:

I don't know. You kind of have that Neville Aaron Neville? Aaron Neville.

Jason Shelfer:

Aaron Nasal.

Jana Shelfer:

He's I think he's deaf. That's why he's nasy.

Jason Shelfer:

I don't know if he's deaf.

Jana Shelfer:

I think he is. That's what he that's why he sings and dance. Okay.

Jason Shelfer:

We're gonna go to hell for that. I know.

Jana Shelfer:

My my partner sometimes drives me crazy, and I'm gonna tell you why. Even though he's sitting right here sharing a microphone with me.

Jason Shelfer:

I would never say that out loud, but I would think it all day in my head.

Jana Shelfer:

I woke up extremely early this morning. I come out and I've really been trying to tidy up the house because we're expecting guests, and the dog leash is on the table. And so I'm gonna go.

Jason Shelfer:

Right on the kitchen counter. I think to myself right on the pathway to go right out to the garage and to the car.

Jana Shelfer:

So I think to myself, he knows where the dog gleach goes. So I'm gonna pick it up and I'm gonna go put it where we normally keep the dog leash, which is in with the dog food and the doggy bags and all of the dog stuff.

Jason Shelfer:

Yes. And here it is, six o'clock in the morning. We're dropping a podcast, and at eight o'clock this morning, Tater has a grooming appointment.

Jana Shelfer:

And so Jason says, Where's the dog leash? Now, this happens to us in so many areas of our life. Like, where are my shoes? With Jason's shoes. Or Jay. In fact, no, I I have an example for you. Jason leaves his hats everywhere.

Jason Shelfer:

I could not find any of my hats yesterday.

Jana Shelfer:

And I always I always go through the house, pick up his hats, and I go put them in the closet.

Jason Shelfer:

She hides them where they belong.

Jana Shelfer:

Yesterday. And and it's been a thing. Like he's always like, Where's my hat? And he's like, Jana, why are you putting my hat away? And I'm like, because things go away.

Jason Shelfer:

Hasn't been on your head in six hours.

Jana Shelfer:

Things need to be put away. Plus, it's bad luck to leave your hat every day.

Jason Shelfer:

Why are they ending up stacked out here on the couch?

Jana Shelfer:

So two days ago, I decided, you know what? I'm just gonna leave his hats right there. Jason starts, I mean, he's in a tizzy. He's walking around the house. He's like pacing.

Jason Shelfer:

I was walking around the closet because I was like, why are there no hats in the closet?

Jana Shelfer:

He's like, I can't find my hat.

Jason Shelfer:

Taking a shower. There were no hats in the closet.

Jana Shelfer:

And that's how you said you're like, there's no hats in here.

Jason Shelfer:

Does anybody know where my hats are?

Jana Shelfer:

You were like, where did you put my hats?

Jason Shelfer:

There's three of them on the couch.

Jana Shelfer:

And then they're right where you put them on the couch.

Jason Shelfer:

So I guess well, you should have heard my inner dialogue at that point.

Jana Shelfer:

This is to show you that we are human.

Jason Shelfer:

And my inner dialogue was off the chain.

Jana Shelfer:

I also want to say that sometimes I think it's just natural to maybe get on each other's nerves. But it's also funny how we equal each other out. Like I am a little OCD with things, and Jason is not. And so then when I put him put things away, you know, then he acts lost and can't find them. And we're we're literally working on against each other. Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

It's funny because like I I will recognize your OCD-ness where I'm not OCD.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay.

Jason Shelfer:

So let's talk about and then I will and and you will recognize, like, okay, well, let's my OCD is where I drive. And I so you're like, well, why don't you just drive everywhere? Because if I if you're driving, I'll get super stressed.

Jana Shelfer:

It's almost like I have OCD and you have lack of OCD, which is why we make such a great balance.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, it's it's it's kind of like you get to you get to fix these areas or like keep these super tidy, and I get to keep these areas super tidy. Like it's um because I have it like I want to be logistically tidy.

Jana Shelfer:

Logistically, oh you do, like when we take a trip.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, I want to I want to have it buttoned up. That's why I start freaking out in the airport when stuff goes sideways, and you're like, what's the deal? Because you're like, whatever. I am I'm like you're like, it's just another day, let's dance in the aisles.

Jana Shelfer:

I am I'm like, let's dance in the aisles.

Jason Shelfer:

So that for me is my OCD. I'm like, I've planned this, I've I've spent a lot to make this perfect, yes, and to make this money, to make this luxurious, and now shit is completely unraveling. Okay, so it's all out of my control.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, so I guess what the real topic is is that we are mere images, yeah, just in different areas of our life, and sometimes we get stuck in our own perspective that we can't see how we are literally being the exact same way in some other area.

Jason Shelfer:

Right.

Jana Shelfer:

Yesterday, we had this moment where I was like, we need to clean up these cords, we need to clean up these cords, and Jason was like, Chana, uh, you even said, I need to go do something for me.

Jason Shelfer:

I've got to get away from here right now. I mean, it was like after nine hours of cleaning and do something for me.

Jana Shelfer:

Like And right then, Tater, our dog, comes over to me, and I'm like, Tater, what do you need? What can I do for you? How can I help you?

Jason Shelfer:

How can I help you? How what what do you need? Why are you staring at like she'd been staring at you for like 30 minutes?

Jana Shelfer:

And Jason's like, go tell her to just sit down. Go and he like gets angry that we, you know, that we had I finally got him to sit down to organize these chords, and I'm not telling the dog to go sit down.

Jason Shelfer:

And your voice even got a little like because it it felt like this conversation with the dog had gone on. It felt like now it was probably a a one-minute conversation. Yeah, it felt like a 20-minute conversation.

Jana Shelfer:

And Jason says to me, Chana, this buildup is driving me crazy.

Jason Shelfer:

The buildup of you coddling the dog, the buildup like the dog is just, I mean, I get it, the dog's 18, she loves to stare lovingly in your eyes, but I think she probably just wants to know that you're there and we're not moving out of the house. Like she's probably panicking because her stress is building up. She feels our stress, and she just wants to know, hey, is everything cool here?

Jana Shelfer:

So Jason is like, the stress is building up, and it all has to do with the way you coddle the dog. And I say to him, My stress is building up because I've been asking you for years, can we clean out these cords? Can we clean out the garage? So there's there's a buildup in me as well, and we're both we're we're mirror images.

Jason Shelfer:

I just want to go on vacation and have it go perfectly luxuriously and logistically smooth. So it's all so all the stress is piled up into this pencil point, yes, and we're breaking the tip off.

Jana Shelfer:

So we're mirror images, and sometimes we feel like we're managing our partner's stress when really we need to be managing our own.

Jason Shelfer:

And I so part of this also is I felt like I was managing my own.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes.

Jason Shelfer:

And I didn't I didn't even realize it was bubbling.

Jana Shelfer:

And the same with me. Throughout this whole last few days, I have literally been patting myself on the back, going, Oh my god, I'm so proud of you because Jada, you've been handling what you're doing. You haven't been worrying, you've just been like, Okay, we'll get it done tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow.

Jason Shelfer:

Yeah, so and so my inner dialogue was patting myself on the back for all the good I was doing, but then also my inner dialogue, the quiet part of it was going, You're being underappreciated. You're like there was a lot of that. So that that quiet part of my inner dialogue that's saying you're not like you're no one's going to appreciate this. You're not currently being appreciated, and the decision fatigue about what to throw away, what to keep, what to take to goodwill, all that, it was just kind of building up.

Jana Shelfer:

A pimple pop.

Jason Shelfer:

And I what we weren't taking walks and things like that. So I I almost feel like probably uh one of the things we took two walks. I know, but you and Tater ended up taking more walks. Okay, and I probably should have gone on those as well. Where we could have, I could have decompressed.

Jana Shelfer:

And yeah, because at one point you're like, I need to get out of the house. I need to go do something for me. Yeah, and then I was sitting there going, Who do you think we're doing this for? We're doing this for both of us, not just me, it's for both of us.

Jason Shelfer:

And it feels good. Like this whole the end of this, this is like we talk about the the good pain and the bad pain. Like, this is we've gone through some some good pain to get to this.

Jana Shelfer:

Yes. That's a good thing.

Jason Shelfer:

And it's also recognizing that all this is so worth it.

Jana Shelfer:

Okay, so let me just wrap this up because I do feel like we were a little bit all over the place. However, I just want to reiterate that we are mirror images, we attract exactly what's going on in our own inner self. And you know, there is science to it. Equals attract, and also opposites attract. Those are the two polar ends. Yes. And so sometimes when we have those thoughts, oh my god, he's drive. Is he trying to drive me insane by leaving the dog leash and his shoes and his hat on the couch? Right. It really is, we're probably doing the same thing in a different area. In a different area.

Jason Shelfer:

Oh, that's big.

Jana Shelfer:

And that's thank you for being our therapist today. How much do we owe you?

Jason Shelfer:

Share it with a friend, be their therapist.

Jana Shelfer:

We share our chaos and mess, our inner mess, so that maybe it can give you a different perspective.

Jason Shelfer:

And you can recognize it in your life.

Jana Shelfer:

Have a great day.

Jason Shelfer:

Keep Living Lucky®.

Jana Shelfer:

Bye bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.

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Jana Shelfer

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Jason Shelfer

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