Episoder
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As we reach the end of our season 7 deep dive into communication, it’s no surprise that so many of the same themes have kept showing up in our conversations, and that so often, what they’re about is owning our unmet needs. So it feels right that we should land here, with an episode that unpacks just that, and once again invites us to let go of the strategies we think we need to get what we want, and to get more in touch with the real needs we may be trying to express.
Thanks as always, dear listeners, for sticking with us for yet another season! We’ll be back soon with another miniseries, but in the meantime, we’d love for you to stay in touch! Write in, send us your questions, leave a review, and join us for a workshop!
And as always, love each other the best you can.
Quotes:
when we only have one way to meet a need, that is a recipe for fear
My needs are okay, even though they will not always be met.
“The pain sucks, but the fact that the pain is here is okay. It can be welcomed.”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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How is it that two people could remember an event so differently, and both be so sure that their version is right? Why is it so hard to take in when someone suggests that our memory of something isn’t true? How can it be that two people can both be right about a memory, and at the same time both be wrong? On today’s episode of WDMP, we’ve got a few answers for you, plus a suggestion for how you can start to guide yourself out of this stuck place and into greater intimacy in your relationship.
Quotes:
“The truth is, no one is actually totally right, and everyone is probably a little bit right.”
“Embrace the nature of the differences in the way we see reality. To try to get that not to happen…is a recipe for pain.”
“We can’t rely on memory as fact.”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Manglende episoder?
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One cool thing about neurodiversity is that if you get three friends and podcast co-hosts together to talk about a listener question, a lot of the time they’re going to have three very, very different relationships to the question…and not one of them is more valid or valuable than the other!
That’s exactly what’s happening on today’s episode of Why Does My Partner, as we dig into how couples communicate around making plans, scheduling, and navigating social engagements. Like so many of the topics we talk about, there’s no right way to go about it, but what’s important is that there’s an explicit, shared understanding of how it’s going to be in your relationship.
Feeling lost on how to get to that place of understanding? Then this is the episode for you!
Quotes:
“if we’re talking about something that has a little bit more of a tenderness around it…we have to have some kind of temperature check inside of our relationship.”
"How do you do with making direct requests? What work do you need to do between you and you in order to feel supported enough, stable enough in yourself to go ahead and make that ask?”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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What happens inside of our brains when we face potential conflict? A whole lot is what. One thing that we don’t always realize is that we have subcortical systems that start going into hyperdrive, make meaning out of what’s happening and hopefully keep ourselves safe. That meaning making is automatic and unconscious, and draws on what we’ve learned in our pasts, both implicitly and explicitly, about how we feel safety and belonging. That means that if your past has taught you that conflict can get you hurt, rejected, or shut down, or maybe hasn’t even taught you that there is anything else you could do, of course you’re going to avoid it!
The thing is, there really are other ways to approach conflict, and some of those ways could even bring you into closer connection with yourself and your loved ones. If that sounds impossible to you, we’ve got a ton of resources to support you. For a start, give this episode a listen, and try out some of what we’re talking about. We think you might end up changing your mind.
Quotes:
“being able to be inside of discomfort is something that not everyone has a nervous system that knows how to do…yet.”
“I'm not running the risk of betraying me if I'm checking in with me first.”
when, when we take in information from the world, we're taking that information inside our bodies
“what's the cost to me as an individual if I don't bring my voice into this conversation? What's the cost to our connection? Where does this lead us? What's the potential benefit of bringing this in?”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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“Why does my partner criticize my parenting?” If you’re in a partnership, even without children, there’s a good chance some version of this has come up for you. Whether it’s parenting, pet care, finances, sex, you name it, both you and your partner are carrying a bunch of (often unconscious) assumptions about how something should be done. Coming out of conflict means moving from those implicit beliefs to explicit communication, but how do you do that without blame, power struggles, and hurt feelings? Well, that’s what this whole season on communication is all about!
Quotes:
"What are old needs, longings, meanings that are being met when you want to parent “your way?”
“[What’s] hard is where we get stuck inside of ourselves. The hard is not how we navigate it together. That actually undoes aloneness”
When you’re having a communication issue, can you do a YOU-turn and ask yourself, what kind of communication are you trying to achieve?”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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We love it when our listeners come to us with their YOU-turn already built into the question, not just because it means that what we do is helping someone, but because it means the door is already open for curiosity, vulnerability, and discovery. Today’s question does just that. Join us for a discussion of the vulnerability of taking in advice from another person, feeling really deeply known by your partner, psychological boundaries, and how to come out of defensiveness and into repair.
Plus, we’ve got a really great episode of Modern Family to recommend you.
Quotes:
“Does your partner know about your desire to be known more deeply?”
“We all carry different learnings in our psychological floor, in the way we learn to be in the world.”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Humans have a deep need for closeness, to feel known and that those around us care and want to know us deeply. And that can feel really, really vulnerable. In this episode we answer a question all about tangling with different ways of showing and asking for deeper knowing in a relationship. In turn, we offer some questions you may want to ask yourself, and then a few more for you and your partner to open up together. .
In today’s episode we mention Gina Senarighi’s fantastic book, One Question a Day To Stay Close and Curious, a Couple’s Journal for a Lifetime of Love . To hear more from Gina, check out this interview with Rebecca from back in 2021 on the Connectfulness Podcast.
Quotes:
"It could be that what questions are meaning to your partner is different than what they mean to you.”
“Does your partner know about your desire to be known more deeply?”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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The internet (and books, magazines, and a whole lot of couples’ therapy offices) are full of scripts to follow to help partners navigate conflict. But what if your partner wants to use a script that’s just not working for you? Here at WDMP what we try to provide is a lot more like a map than a script. A map doesn’t tell you exactly how to go, it shows you some of the possibilities you have in front of you. It offers opportunities, invites curiosity. It helps you ask “where am I now, where am I heading, and what might be there for me along the way?” Check out today’s episode for more, including a sneak peek at the map we’ll be providing folks at our next Integrating Mind + Heart workshop!
Quotes:
“even if you follow a script, it doesn’t mean it’s going to go well every time”
“In order to communicate well, we need to be tracking our brain state.”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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When we start beating ourselves up in front of our partners when they have an issue with our behavior, what is it that we’re actually doing? Can we talk about that for a minute? Actually, we already did, and it’s this week’s of the podcast! Hear us chat about shame pits and grandiosity, listening and remorse, self protection and vulnerability, and…throwing babies? All this and more on the Why Does My Partner Podcast!
Quotes:
We can't talk about hard things when we're not in integrated brain states.
There’s difficulty moving into remorse.
You can pick up your own baby.
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our
upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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As couples’ therapists, the most common questions we get are about communication. But what does it take to make that work in a relationship? That’s such a big question, that we’re dedicating this entire season to talking about communication!
First off, how do you listen when your partner brings up something sensitive? Y’all, listening is really vulnerable. It means putting yourself aside for a moment to be there for the other person and acknowledge that you may have caused them pain. When you’re in that space it’s so easy to get defensive or go into shame and then, you guessed it… you’re not listening anymore!
Never fear, in this episode we’re sharing some key skills for you to try out right away, whether you’re the listener or the talker. So have a listen, subscribe, and as always, take care of each other the best you can.
Quotes:
“As a culture, we do a pretty decent job at saying ‘here’s how to speak up for yourself’…and a pretty icky job at saying ‘here’s how to listen.’”
“Listen with the possibility of believing your partner.”
"We struggle to listen to when we struggle to sit with grief"
"Remorse can come very naturally if you let it.”
Jules’ book is out now! Get Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Stay tuned for Season 7, all about...communication!
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Why do I have to feel bad for my partner to feel better? When does venting cross the line and become unloading? Guest host Ann Kelley joins us one more time to talk about power dynamics in relationships. It can feel relieving to unload your frustrations, but is it causing your partner to shut down? Or is the venting partner looking for some kind of feedback that they’re not getting, making them feel like they have to keep unloading till they get a reaction? As always, there’s not one answer, but we can offer a roadmap for how couples can start exploring this for themselves.
Finally, if you haven’t already, make sure to listen to episodes one and two of this miniseries with Ann and check out her podcast Therapist Uncensored as well as her upcoming book, Secure Relating.
Quotes:
“Its really hard to listen to pain and not attempt to change it.”
Recommended Reading:
Secure Relating by Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott
Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered by Juliane Taylor Shore
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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We’re back with special guest Ann Kelley of the Therapist Uncensored podcast, and folks, she’s dropping knowledge bombs left and right on this one. Our question for today is from a listener in her 60s, getting ready to put herself out there to date after a divorce. We’ve all got so much to say about this one, so let’s get right to the quotes:
Quotes:
The red flag is when we're not paying attention to something that's happening internally or we're dismissing part of our experience.
Our value systems don't have to be identical, but are they aligned enough?
Having a difficult time saying “I’m sorry has a lot more to do with our nervous system than our knowledge.
We don't need to find the perfect person. We need to find somebody that's willing to grow with us
Sometimes a red flag doesn’t mean run, it means explore and learn more.
Recommended Reading:
Secure Relating by Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott
Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered by Juliane Taylor Shore
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops.
Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Welcome back to the Why Does My Partner Podcast. For this bonus mini-series, were joined by Ann Kelley from the Therapist Uncensored podcast to tackle our next set of listener questions. Ann is a licensed psychologist and co-author of Secure Relating along with her wife and podcasting partner, Sue Marriott.
Do you and your partner have rituals when you come back together from being apart? Today’s question opens up our to ways that implicit memories can stir up old learned expectations of what happens when someone leaves us. If you’ve experienced painful separations in your past, your body may still be expecting that, even when your mind knows that nothing is wrong. We talk about how that could show up for either partner in this situation, and Ann shares her unique way of describing attachment styles, and how that can help folks have a smoother separation and reunion in their partnerships.
Quotes:
“we evoke a fight sometimes because we want it to match what's going on inside…and if my head says it should be fine, but my body doesn't, well then I'm gonna go for what I'm feeling.”
Recommended Reading:
Secure Relating by Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott
Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered by Juliane Taylor Shore
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
Dive in deeper with us at our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Dear listeners, before you start listening to this episode, would you try something with us?
Sit back in your chair. Take a breath for a second. Notice that you’re alive and breathing. Notice the sensations in your body that tell you that you’re alive. As other thoughts start to pop up, don’t try to push them away just yet instead just let yourself notice that they’re there. Notice them, and now go back to your breath. Take your time. What’s happening inside you now?
This, dear listeners, is withnessing, and it’s what this episode is all about. Or listener question speaks to a deep desire to be taken care of by their partner, so we start by asking, “what kind of state are each of your brains in? When you’re worked up and upset, your brain is going to have a really hard time giving or receiving support, even when that feels like what you want to do most in the world.
So take a second to slow down. Witness what’s happening inside you and give your brain a chance to shift into a state that’s more interested in connection and bonding. Showing up for yourself is where it all starts.
Quotes:
The part of your brain that's going to help you shift from one state to another is going to be activated when you slow down and watch what's happening right now inside you.
In order to be there for my partner…I don't have to worry about how to soothe them. I only have to worry about how to witness me.
There is something so empowering about knowing I don't have to wait for my partner to be integrated enough to support me. I can do this for myself.
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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If your partner asked you to tell them how they should change, would that feel gratifying or scary? And how would you react? If that thought makes you uncomfortable, we think that’s the perfect time for a YOU-turn. And if that thought doesn’t make you uncomfortable…we think that’s ALSO a perfect time for a YOU-turn! That means turning back towards yourself and being curious about what hopes or fears are hidden underneath that reaction. That will help you get beyond the strategy – what either of you do or don’t do – to the underlying need, which is how do you want to feel in this relationship?
Quotes:
“It’s freaking hard to be human with other humans!”
“Where do we learn how to be relational? Where do we learn what connection is?”
“And so where do we form our protective strategies? It's inside of our early experiences. They're not just there. They're there because.”
“If things are going well, it doesn't mean that hard things don't happen. It means that you can turn towards each other when they do.”
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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What are the conversation patterns in your relationship? Do you tend to leave a lot of space for silence, or talk fast and interrupt each other a lot? Does that differ from how it was in your family growing up? Is there an imbalance, with one person doing a lot more of the interrupting and talking over?
…and is it a problem?
Today’s question asker might be wishing that their partner interrupted them less, but that’s not true for everyone. Whether or not you do this has a lot to do with where you’re from, your family dynamics and even your neurology. In lots of cultures, interrupting is a sign of excitement and showing that you’re engaged, but for others, it can feel rude, dominating, and derailing. It could even be different for the same person in different situations.
If you take anything from today’s episode, we hope it’s this: celebrate your diversity, whether it’s cultural, neurological, or anything else. We’re all going to do things a little bit different, and that’s ok! Take it as a chance to get curious about what’s going on in your partner’s brain, and to share what’s in yours. We bet you’ll be glad that you did.
Quotes:
“there's tons and tons of gifts in fast processing and there's tons and tons of gifts in slower processing speeds…it has nothing to do with intelligence.”
“Maybe there’s no such thing as neurotypical.”
“We don’t have to let differences drive us a part, we can meet each other through them.”
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Having a trusting relationship means you and your partner never let each other down ever, right? WDMP Podcast listeners know the answer to that one…no way! So what does it mean when we talk about trust in a partnership? Today’s listener question leads us right down that path, unpacking the many different kinds of trust there can be, making explicit agreements and setting expectations, and what to do when your partner goes into defensive mode.
If you haven’t already, make sure to listen to the other episode that we mention in the show, Why Do I Feel So Bad When My Partner Gets Disappointed or Mad at Me?
Quotes:
"most of us, in most of our relationships, we're having ruptures daily. And if we're doing relationship well, we're catching some of those...and we're making repair."
"there's no breach of trust or betrayal without an actual agreement that we both said yes to."
"Projection is when I take a feeling that I know very intimately and put that on you."
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Anxiety is a signal that’s really good at letting you know something isn’t working – the only thing is, it’s not so good at pointing out exactly what that thing is. Diving into today’s question about anxiety in a relationship brings us to unpacking just what anxiety is, attachment styles, culture and epigenetics, and a whole lot more. We also talk about what it means to stop fighting your anxiety and begin to change your relationship to it, and how that can have results that resonate far wider than you might think.
Quotes:
“It’s contagious. It's really hard to be with someone who's anxious and not either feel anxious also or have a desire to turn away...or get them to stop it...or try to fix it, or fix them.”
"When anxiety is coming at you, it's really, really overwhelming, and you either join it, or you try to change it, or you try to leave it."
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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Welcome back to the WDMP podcast. Today’s question brought up a lot of feelings in us. More than anything, we want to offer our support and compassion to this listener, and any of you out there, who are feeling iced out of your relationship like this, whose partners react to conflict by threatening to leave or shutting them out for weeks at a time.
We also have compassion for the person doing this sort of thing to their partner, for the pain they’re feeling, and the stuckness they must be experiencing. We know that so often, this is something that’s been learned over many years, from childhood, from one’s family and culture.
In this episode, discuss some of the ways that someone might end up believing that this is their only option, but we also turn it around and ask, “What are you hoping for here? And have you looked at the cost? Can you find the bravery to try another way?
Quotes:
“If you have a dynamic where your partner is afraid that you're going to leave, you're basically in relationship with yourself.”
This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor, The Academy of Therapy Wisdom. Jules is one of their many educators, and because you listen to us, the Therapy Wisdom team is offering a secret code to give you free access to one of Jules' 1 hour Wise Conversations. Just visit therapywisdom.com and use the discount code "WDMP."
Jules' new book is out now! Buy Setting Boundaries that Stick: How Neurobiology Can Help You Rewire Your Brain to Feel Safe, Connected, and Empowered wherever books are sold.
Share your questions with us at whydoesmypartner.com/contact
If you want to dive in deeper, consider attending our upcoming workshops. Learn more at whydoesmypartner.com/events
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